Nigel of Canterbury (often referred to as Nigel Wireker or Nigel de Longchamps) was a monk of Christ Church, Canterbury, during the troubled decades after the martyrdom of Thomas Becket. Nigel is widely known for his Speculum Stultorum, an amusing satiric poem nearly four thousand lines in length, and for a caustic treatise that has been given the title Tractatus contra Curiales et Officiales Clericos. Although his seventeen Miracula Sancte Dei genitricis uirginis Marie, uersifice have been edited recently, not all his other works have fared well. The Passion of St. Lawrence, Epigrams and Marginal Poems brings into print for the first time Nigel's remaining poems. From British Library Cotton Vespasian D xix are edited his account in rhymed hexameters of the passion of Saint Lawrence and thirteen epigrams; from Cambridge, Trinity College B. 15. 5 (342) are published newly discovered marginal poems that shed light upon his techniques of poetic composition. The volume opens with a general introduction on Nigel's writings, his life at Canterbury, and notable features of his verse. Each of the three texts or sets of texts is preceded by a brief introduction and followed by a detailed commentary, which glosses difficult words and constructions and which points the reader to literary sources and analogues. The volume concludes with indexes of names and of notable words. This new edition deepens our perspective upon Nigel of Canterbury and upon intellectual life in Canterbury after the death of Becket.

Nigel of Canterbury is known for his "Speculum Stultorum" and "Tractatus." This edition brings into print the "Passio Sancti Laurentii martiris"; epigrams; and marginal poems. It opens with a general introduction on Nigel's writings, life at Canterbury, and verse, and includes detailed commentaries. The book enriches our perspective upon Nigel and upon Canterbury after the death of Becket.

Towards the end of the twelfth century, powerful images of laughing kings and saints began to appear in texts circulating at the English royal court. At the same time, contemporaries began celebrating the wit, humour, and laughter of King Henry II (r.1154-89) and his martyred Archbishop of Canterbury, Saint Thomas Becket (d.1170). Taking a broad genealogical approach, Laughter and Power in the Twelfth Century traces the emergence of this powerful laughter through an immersive study of medieval intellectual, literary, social, religious, and political debates. Focusing on a cultural renaissance in England, the study situates laughter at the heart of the defining transformations of the second half of the 1100s. With an expansive survey of theological and literary texts, bringing a range of unedited manuscript material to light in the process, Peter J. A. Jones exposes how twelfth-century writers came to connect laughter with spiritual transcendence and justice, and how this connection gave humour a unique political and spiritual power in both text and action. Ultimately, Jones argues that England's popular images of laughing kings and saints effectively reinstated a sublime charismatic authority, something truly rebellious at a moment in history when bureaucracy and codification were first coming to dominate European political life.

Many scholars are convinced that The Holy Chalice of Valencia is the Holy Grail, celebrated in medieval legends as it was venerated by monks in the secluded Monastery of San Juan de la Peña, built into a rocky outcropping of the Spanish Pyrenees. The tradition of Aragón has always insisted that the flaming agate cup of the Holy Chalice was sent to Spain by St. Laurence, the glorious Spaniard martyred on a gridiron during the Valerian persecution in Rome in 258 AD. Now there is new evidence: A sixth-century manuscript written in Latin by St. Donato, an Augustinian monk who founded a monastery in the area of Valencia, provides never-before-published details about Laurence, born in Valencia but destined for Italy, where he became treasurer and deacon of the Catholic Church under Pope Sixtus II. It explicitly mentions the details surrounding the transfer of the Holy Cup of the Last Supper to Spain. Janice Bennett acquaints the reader with the enthralling story of the Holy Chalice, the renowned relic that embarked from the Last Supper on an amazing pilgrimage that providentially ended in the Cathedral of Valencia, a miraculous odyssey that has been characterized by danger, greed, martyrdom and fire. It is a fascinating and captivating account that will dispel forever the erroneous notion that the famous relic was ever lost. The mythical Quest for the Holy Grail is now over. Includes 20 pages of color illustrations.

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