Im ersten Kapitel seiner Schrift über die Trinität führt Boethius die Arianische Irrlehre, der zufolge die drei göttlichen Personen nicht ein einziger Gott, sondern drei verschiedene Götter sind, darauf zurück, dass es nach der Meinung der Arianeι sowohl dem Sohn als auch dem Heiligen Geist in einer anderen Weise zukommt, Gott zu sein, als dem Vater. Daraus, dass jede der drei göttlichen Personen in einer anderen Weise Gott ist als die andere, folgt nämlich, dass diese drei Personen viele Götter sind; denn die Vielheit gründet, wie Boethius zu zeigen versucht, in der ‘Andersheit’: ‘Principium enim plura-litatis alteritas est.’

Dans les manuscrits, le De sacerdotio se présente, comme la plupart des textes patristiques, avec un intitulé qui date, selon toute vraisemblance, de la période byzantine. A la même époque, sans doute, le texte a été malencontreusement divisé en six parties désignées par le mot λόγoς que les éditeurs latins ont traduit par liber et les éditeurs français par livre. Cette division donne une idée tout à fait inexacte de l‘œuvre qui est un dialogue et qui a dû être écrite d'un seul jet, sans autre division que le changement d'interlocuteur. Mais nous avons à décrire ici l’état des manuscrits et c'est de leur présentation que nous devons nous occuper. En tête des différentes parties se trouvent des képhalaia, selon le terme employé dans certains manuscrits, c'est-à-dire des têtes de chapitres.

Any attempt to determine when Engelbert wrote the numerous works attributed to him necessarily depends heavily on earlier studies and extensively on guesswork. Very seldom does our author mention earlier works or give any indication of the date of his writing. He did not know how to bring his writings to the favorable notice of persons in power. He did not keep track of exact titles of his works, nor did he make any effort to ensure that the abbey of Admont had a copy. His recollection of titles and incipits of his works is often faulty. The following list is somewhat better than earlier efforts because certain preliminary studies and editions have been made; but more than sixteen of Engelbert's writings have yet to be printed!

I shall begin with a definition. I am dealing with ‘secular historians,’ and thus I am excluding ecclesiastical history, and chronography. The second of these two genres, chronography, continued a tradition which goes back as far as Thucydides' contemporary, Hellanicus, but under a Christian empire it acquired a Christian bias and dropped any pretence of literary style. ‘Ecclesiastical history,’ which, as far as we know, was invented by Eusebius of Caesarea, and displays a somewhat unclassical passion for documentation, dealt with the church and history as it affected the church. Its presuppositions about historical causation were Christian. The secular historians, on the other hand, continued the classical traditions of historiography begun by Herodotus and Thucydides, and their subject matter was war and politics, and the cross between the two, which was diplomacy.

In the Old English poem Andreas, the narrative begins with the imprisonment and suffering of Matthew, who is blinded and forced to drink a magic potion which is intended to reduce him to bestiality. This drink, which literarily is directly descended from Circe's potion, fails to be effective in this case, and Matthew prays to God for help in his affliction. God responds directly and tells Matthew that He will bring help. God's help is mediated by the apostle Andrew, and immediately before God summons Andrew He is apostrophized in the following passage:

Philip V's negotiations with his subjects to secure subsidies and support in 1318 and 1319 significantly affected the evolution of royal policies and general attitudes toward taxation and consultation in fourteenth-century France. Though many aspects of these governmental activities have been studied, the precise nature of the monarchy's aims and plans, and the complex interrelationship of the reactions of different groups and different regions are still not fully understood. The work which has been done has concentrated on analysis as a prelude to synthesis: the various stands taken by townspeople, by nobles, and by ecclesiastics have been treated, and the responses of various areas have been considered. Much of the material necessary for a comprehensive assessment has been examined and ordered, yet there remain problems, relatively restricted in nature and scope, which demand consideration before the meaning and implications of the events of 1318 and 1319 can be adequately comprehended.

The development of tax revenues into an important source of royal income was an important event in fourteenth century French history. The military successes of Charles V were based on large standing forces paid for by tax revenues. Under Charles VI, who as a minor and later as a lunatic was incapable of ruling for most of his reign, the struggle of the Valois princes for control of royal tax revenues brought the kingdom to civil war and, ultimately, to the brink of foreign conquest. Little is known, however, about the tax revenues of the period, and few records survive to guide historians who try to estimate the income from taxation of Charles V and Charles VI. The full impact of the establishment of taxation on French politics has, therefore, been difficult to assess.

The Augustinian friar Bartholomew of Urbino, as he is usually called after the town of his birth where he served as bishop during the last three years of his life (1347–1350), is best known for his still valuable Milleloquium veritatis S. Augustini. This monumental concordance contains some fifteen thousand excerpts from the writings of St. Augustine, grouped under about one thousand alphabetically arranged key words (for instance, abstinentia, ecclesia, fides, haeresis, iustitia, lex, praedestinatio, etc.) illustrating Augustine's doctrines on these topics. The work, for which Bartholomew's friend Petrarch furnished two poetical embellishments in the form of as many alternate sets of verses, was a success. Bearing witness to its wide diffusion and appreciation are over thirty MSS still extant in northern and central Europe (Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Germany, The Netherlands, and Poland), and about the same number in French, English, Italian, and Spanish libraries. It also went through five printings: Lyons 1555; Paris 1645, 1649, and 1672; Brescia 1734.

Francesc Eiximenis' (1340?-1409?) discussion of wine and wine-drinking is part of a moral treatise on the sin of gluttony found within the Terç del Crestià (1384). This work is the third book of an extensive encyclopedia entitled Lo Crestià (The Christian) which Eiximenis never completed. Of its thirteen projected books, to be written in honor of Christ and the Apostles, only four, the Primer, Segon, Terç, and Dotzè, materialized. The size and scope of this proposed work were to be comprehensive, covering all areas pertinent to the improvement of the moral character of the Christian. Within Lo Crestià the Terç, in itself a work of vast proportions, occupies a prominent place owing to its style and content. As F. Martí correctly pointed out, ‘… the Terç is the most important and extensive of the four books of Lo Crestià completed by Eiximenis, as well as the most interesting and remarkable of all.’

The lives of the saints and other sacred narratives contained in the Legenda aurea of Jacobus de Voragine are often seen as sources of late-medieval works of art and literature. Little of such importance, however, has been ascribed to a non-narrative element which appears at the head of many of the chapters — an ‘etymology’ of a saint's name set out to show that one can find in that single word, if its elements are duly discerned and interpreted, an indication of some of the virtues which were especially characteristic of the saint. Jacobus' handling of the name of St. Hilary of Poitiers is typical:

The outstanding sixteenth-century Scripture scholar Juan Maldonado, in an instruction for members of the Society of Jesus on the manner of teaching theology, thus describes the ideal professor:

That Dante in his depiction of the seventh bolgia of Circle Eight (Inferno 24-25) was particularly reliant upon the Aeneid for plot materials and classical analogies is indicated by the poet's inclusion of Cacus among Vanni Fucci's tormentors: another figure of murderous bestiality, like his progeny in crime ‘Vanni Fucci bestia’ himself, guilty of a notorious sacrilegious theft, the savage, fire-breathing monster is, with little debate, drawn principally from Aeneid 8.185-275. Yet in examining the traditionally cited sources for the seventh bolgia (and the Vanni Fucci episode in particular: Inf. 24.79-25.33), while one encounters nearly every relevant notice of serpents and metamorphoses in ancient Latin literature (e.g., Ovid, Lucan, Pliny, even the Georgics), a very serious omission is apparent. Absent from the catalogue, except for one or two no more than perfunctory observations, is any reference to probably the most celebrated victim of reptilian torture in all Western literature: Laocoon. Another glance at that justly famous passage from the Aeneid (2.201-27) will perhaps cast some new light not merely upon the Vanni Fucci episode but upon the complex nature of Dante's literary debt to Vergil as well.

Heinrich von Langenstein (1325-1397) gilt als einer der produktivsten und berühmtesten Theologen seiner Zeit. Eine grosse Zahl von Werken ist überliefert. Die Thematik seiner Arbeiten ist so breit, dass Johannes Trithemius schreiben konnte, es sei Heinrich von Langenstein schwerer gefallen sich zu beschränken, als neue Themen der Untersuchung zu finden. Bekannt ist Heinrich heute der theologischen Forschung besonders durch seine kirchenpolitischen Werke, den Germanisten vor allem durch sein deutsches Erbauungsbüchlein, die Erchantnuzz der sund. Daneben ist jedoch eine Fülle weiterer Werke überliefert, und in kaum einer Bibliothek werden in den Handschriftenbeständen Titel des Langensteiners fehlen.

The creation of the Austrian diocese of Linz and St. Pölten out of territories which had been parts of the diocese of the prince-bishops of Passau marks an important part of the ecclesiastical policy of the Austrian Emperor Joseph II (1765-1790). The sanction by Pope Pius VI in 1785 recognized the creation of the diocese of Linz, which was to be supported in part by revenues from properties belonging to several recently suppressed monasteries. The Priesterseminar of the diocese of Linz and its library date from the creation of the diocese; and, at the direction of the emperor, a selection of manuscripts and early printed books from the libraries of the suppressed monasteries was presented to the library of the Priesterseminar.