Year 1250 (MCCL) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar.
Year 1264 (MCCLXIV) was a leap year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar.
Isabella of Aragon, was Queen of France from 1270 to 1271 by marriage to Philip III of France.
Rutilius Taurus Aemilianus Palladius, also known as Palladius Rutilius Taurus Aemilianus or most often just as Palladius, was an ancient writer who wrote in Latin, and is dated variously to the later 4th century or first half of the 5th century AD. He is principally known for his book on agriculture, Opus agriculturae, sometimes known as De re rustica.
Hugh X de Lusignan, Hugh V of La Marche or Hugh I of Angoulême was Seigneur de Lusignan and Count of La Marche in November 1219 and was Count of Angoulême by marriage. He was the son of Hugh IX.
Mirrors for princes or mirrors of princes was a literary genre of didactic political writings throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. It was part of the broader speculum or mirror literature genre.
Amis et Amiles is an old French romance based on a widespread legend of friendship and sacrifice. In its earlier and simpler form it is the story of two friends, one of whom, Amis, was sick with leprosy because he had committed perjury to save his friend. A vision informed him that he could only be cured by bathing in the blood of Amiles's children. When Amiles learnt this he killed the children, who were, however, miraculously restored to life after the cure of Amis.
Royaumont Abbey is a former Cistercian abbey, located near Asnières-sur-Oise in Val-d'Oise, approximately 30 km north of Paris, France.
William of Auvergne (1180/90–1249) was a French theologian and philosopher who served as Bishop of Paris from 1228 until his death. He was one of the first western European philosophers to engage with and comment extensively upon Aristotelian and Islamic philosophy.
Helinand of Froidmont was a medieval poet, chronicler, and ecclesiastical writer.
The medieval genre of speculum literature, popular from the twelfth through the sixteenth centuries, was inspired by the urge to encompass encyclopedic knowledge within a single work. However, some of these works have a restricted scope and function as instructional manuals. In this sense, the encyclopedia and the speculum are similar but they are not the same genre.
Stephen of Bourbon was a preacher of the Dominican Order, author of the largest collection of preaching exempla of the thirteenth century, a historian of medieval heresies, and one of the first inquisitors.
The Speculum maius or "Greater Mirror" was a major encyclopedia of the Middle Ages written by Vincent of Beauvais in the 13th century. It was a great compendium of all knowledge of the time. The work seems to have consisted of three parts: the Speculum Naturale, Speculum Doctrinale and Speculum Historiale. However, all the printed editions include a fourth part, the Speculum Morale, added in the 14th century and mainly compiled from Thomas Aquinas, Stephen of Bourbon, and a few other contemporary writers.
Otia Imperialia is an early 13th-century encyclopedic work, the best known work of Gervase of Tilbury. It is an example of speculum literature. Also known as the "Book of Marvels", it primarily concerns the three fields of history, geography, and physics, but its credibility has been questioned by numerous scholars including philosopher Gottfried Leibniz, who was alerted to the fact that it contains many mythical stories. Its manner of writing is perhaps because the work was written to provide entertainment to Holy Roman Emperor Otto IV. However, many scholars consider it a very important work in that it "recognizes the correctness of the papal claims in the conflict between Church and Empire." It was written between 1210 and 1214, although some give the dates as between 1209 and 1214 and numerous authors state it was published c.1211. These earlier dates must be questioned, however, as the Otia contains stories that take place in 1211 and later. S. E. Banks and James W. Binns, editors and translators of what is considered to be the definitive version of the Otia, suggest that the work was completed in the last years of Otto IV's life, saying "it seems most likely [...] that the work was sent to Otto sometime in 1215", due to the inclusion of the death of William the Lion, King of Scotland, which took place in 1214, and the fact that King John was still living while it was written; John died in 1216.
Louis of France was the eldest son of King Louis IX of France and his wife Margaret of Provence. As heir apparent to the throne, he served as regent for a brief period.
The Llibre de les Dones is a book that was possibly written between 1387 and 1392 by Francesc Eiximenis in Catalan in Valencia and dedicated to Sanxa Ximenes d'Arenós, countess of Prades.
Herbarius moguntinus or Aggregator practicus de simplicibus is an illustrated Latin herbal which was edited and printed in 1484 by Peter Schöffer in Mainz. Together with the German herbal Gart der Gesundheit and the Latin herbal Hortus sanitatis, Herbarius moguntinus belongs to the so-called "Group of Mainz Herbal Incunabula."
Primat was a French Benedictine monk and historian of the abbey of Saint-Denis near Paris. He composed two histories of France with a royal focus, one in Latin and the other in Old French. His Latin chronicle covers the years 1248 to 1277 but now survives only in an Old French translation and in excerpts incorporated into the works of others. It contains a detailed account of the reign of Louis IX, making it one of the most important contemporary sources for that reign. His French chronicle, the Roman des rois, covers the entire history of France down to 1223. It was completed around 1274 for Philip III and its presentation copy is extant. It is the earliest version of what would become the Grandes Chroniques de France, the first official history of France.
Fra Giovanni Colonna (1298? – 1343/44) was an Italian Dominican friar and scholar. Educated in France, he served as a preacher and vicar in Rome, chaplain in Cyprus and lector in Tivoli. He lived and worked in Avignon for a time and traveled widely in the Near East during his Cypriot period.
De Machometo is a brief anonymous Latin tract on the life of Muḥammad from a Christian point of view. It begins in the reign of Pope Boniface IV (608–615). Its account is cobbled together from a variety of sources, including the fifth dialogue of Petrus Alphonsi's Dialogi in quibus impiae Judaeorum confutantur, the Corozan legend and possibly the Libellus in partibus transmarinis de Machometi fallaciis from Vincent of Beauvais's Speculum historiale. The composite account is very similar to the account of Muḥammad found in the Golden Legend.
