Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century by Robert L. BensonReview by: Edward PetersThe American Historical Review, Vol. 89, No. 1 (Feb., 1984), pp. 109-110Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1855946 .

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Medieval 109

sides, in both periods, emerge as equally textual but as shifting their method from biblical exegesis in the age of Paschasius and Ratramnus to grammatical and dialectical analysis in the age of Berengar and Lanfranc.

Although some of the subjects to which Stock applies his insights in this book reappear before the reader with far more freshness than others, his thesis itself is richly suggestive and makes a real contribution. He brings out unsuspected correla- tions among contemporary developments, and he cuts across the often artificial lines drawn by some scholars between popular culture and high culture. There are, undoubtedly, many other areas of high medieval intellectual history that could be studied fruitfully from Stock's perspective. The major limi- tation of his book is one that stems itself from the functionalist approach that he espouses. This ap- proach is helpful in tracking the interrelations and effects of historical changes. It is not so helpful in understanding the reasons for those changes or why they occur when they do occur. Stock brilliantly delineates the impact of the new textuality, with a learning and verve that will make his book reward- ing reading for any medievalist. But why the older interaction between word and text ceased to appeal and why it gave way to the newer interaction that he documents remains an unexplored question.

MARCIA L. COLISH

Oberlin College

ROBERT L. BENSON et al., editors. Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century. (Proceedings of a Conference held under the Auspices of the UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies and the Harvard University Committee on Medieval Studies, 1977.) Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1982. Pp. xxx, 781. $50.00.

Since Sarah Wister's notice in the North American Review of 1875, Jacob Burckhardt's Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy became the most popular and influential account of the great divide between medieval and modern Europe. Topical and idiosyn- cratic, however, Burckhardt's work soon drew criti- cism from Renaissance historians and became one of the targets of what Wallace Ferguson called "the revolt of the medievalists." An early volley in this process was Dana C. Munro's appropriation of Burckhardt's key term in the title of his 1906 article, "The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century." Twenty- one years after Munro, Charles Homer Haskins, well past his earlier studies of Norman institutions, took Munro's title for his great tour de force, The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century. Burckhardt's static Italian Renaissance, based on a highly selective use of sources, in fact treated the "Revival of Antiquity"

in only one of the six parts in his book, and even there he claimed that, "it was not the revival of antiquity alone, but its union with the genius of the Italian people, which achieved the conquest of the western world." Much of the surviving value of Burckhardt today lies in his great knowledge of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italian vernacular culture. Haskins, on the other hand, focused his entire book on the Latin culture of twelfth-century Europe, avoiding art and the vernacular literatures, stating that he was going to treat only "the revival of learning in the broadest sense-the Latin classics and their influence, the new jurisprudence and the more varied historiography, the new knowledge of the Greeks and Arabs and its effects upon western science and philosophy, and the new institutions of learning, all seen against the background of the century's centres and materials of culture." Has- kins's theme and title were echoed in the volume of essays edited by Pare, Brunet, and Tremblay in 1933 and many times since, notably in Christopher Brooke's The Twelfth Century Renaissance of 1969 and Peter Weimar's Die Renaissance der Wissenschaften im 12. Jahrhundert in 1981. They also occasioned much criticism for having encouraged the extended life of a metaphor with which some modern scholars felt increasingly uncomfortable, from Louis Paetow in 1931 to subsequent criticism from Nitze, Sanford, Holmes, and particularly Erwin Panofsky, to R. W. Southern's dismissal of the dispute by his reference to the term's "sublime meaninglessness" in 1953.

But Haskins's label-and vision-have survived and thrived since he wrote, partly because the twelfth century is a fascinating period for all sorts of historians and partly because Haskins's renaissance was more solidly and systematically presented than Burckhardt's. It also survived because many twelfth- century sources themselves spoke of "rebirth" and "renewal." This twin sense of "renaissance," that of a revival of antiquity and self-consciousness of renew- al, mark much twelfth-century literature. The edi- tors of this distinguished volume have recognized both senses in their title by changing one preposi- tion, adding one coordinating conjunction, and adding one substantive to their title. The result is important, it differentiates their work from that of Haskins, and it identifies those parts of the twelfth century with which they will (and will not) deal. Their title is "Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century." There are many aspects of the twelfth century not treated in this collection-eco- nomic history, the Crusades, much social history, and a good deal of the art-but the editors explain why this is so, and their new title states why it should be so.

The volume contains twenty-six substantial essays, most with extensive bibliographies appended, grouped into seven sections: religion; education;

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110 Reviews of Books

society and the individual; law, politics, and history; philosophy and science; literature; the arts. Its exis- tence is the result of careful planning and rehearsal. In 1977 Harvard University and the University of California, Los Angeles, in cooperation with the Medieval Academy of America, held a conference to commemorate Haskins's work on its fiftieth anniver- sary, with this volume in mind as the outcome. The editors' introduction and acknowledgements re- count the making of the conference and book in great detail, and they contain valuable lessons for all arrangers of conferences and makers of collabora- tive books. Not the least of their lessons is that of the editing itself. Many of the contributions printed here given extensive credit to the editors for their assistance and advice-far more frequently and enthusiastically than the usual pro forma acknowl- edgements might demand.The late twentieth centu- ry does not give many reviewers the opportunity to hold a 781-page volume with 110 plates and 19- page index, that is sewn-bound with footnotes at the bottom of the pages, the whole meticulously and (given the size of the work) inspiringly edited and attractively produced. This book sets (and restores) a standard that is very high indeed and has recently threatened to sink entirely out of sight.

Of the making of books there may indeed be no end, but of the making of splendid books there is surely a great infrequency. The editorial achieve- ment here is magnified by the real substantive character of the essays it has organized. Haskins, it is presumptuous but probably accurate to say, would be delighted-and surprised. Indeed, some of the sections and papers deal with areas that he himself covered in the 1927 book (and Stephan Kuttner, in his essay on "The Revival of Jurisprudence," [pp. 299-323], points out precisely how finely honed Haskins's intuition was, given the state of legal history in 1927). But in four areas that he did not treat-Gerhart Ladner's introductory essay on "Terms and Ideas of Renewal"; section 1 on reli- gion; section 3 on society and the individual, and section 7 on the arts-Ladner, Giles Constable, Jean Leclercq, Chrysogonus Waddell, John Mundy, Georges Duby, John Benton, Herbert Bloch, Ernst Kitzinger, Willibald Sauerlander, and Walter Horn have all found an awareness and expression of a sense of renewal and rebirth. Even in some of Haskins's own areas, the combination of these two elements stands out with greater clarity, especially in the essays by Robert Benson, Peter Classen, Guy Beaujouan, and Marie-Therese d'Alverny. Finally, many of the papers treat the most recent and important problems of twelfth-century scholarship, certainly those of Janet Martin on "Classicism and Style in Latin Literature," Per Nykrog on "The Rise of Literary Fiction," and, in one of the finest papers in the volume, Richard H. Rouse and Mary A.

Rouse's "Statim invenire: Schools, Preachers, and New Attitudes to the Page." This volume, in short, gives us a deeper and broader twelfth century, one consistent with Haskins's vision and enriched by the added dimension of religious renewal. It covers more of the century than did Haskins, but it does so within the great framework he set, and its omissions are clearly noted and explained.

It is serious scholarship. The nonspecialist reader is cordially and enthusiastically invited in, but the subjects are not all symmetrical nor obviously con- tiguous, nor is the house of the twelfth century presented entire. What is presented here is a su- premely intelligible segment of that great century described by masters in extremely literate studies. To paraphrase the best-known remark made dur- ing the twelfth century, it may be said of contribu- tors and editors both that theirs is the work of giargts -on the shoulders of a giant.

EDWARD PETERS

University of Pennsylvania

WARREN T. TREADGOLD. The Byzantine State Finances in the Eighth and Ninth Centuries. (East European Mono- graphs, number 121; Byzantine Series, number 2.) Boulder, Colo.: East European Monographs; dis- tributed by Columbia University Press, New York. 1982. Pp. xx, 151. $22.50.

Long ago, J. B. Bury and Ernst Stein each estimated the budget of the Byzantine empire in the ninth century, and the figure Stein arrived at was one- eighth the size of Bury's. The truth in such matters need not lie between the extremes. Working more systematically through the sources, Warren T. Treadgold has gathered and processed the quantifi- able data for imperial reserves, expenditures, and revenues. With warnings about margins of error, he reaches an annual total of 3.3 million nomtsmata (gold pieces)-about one-half of Stein's low approxi- mation.

The first and longer part of the book centers on state finance at mid-century, when Theodora (842- 56) presided over a stable and moderate regime; Treadgold's narrative explains and justifies the ap- pended tables, consisting mainly of payrolls for the army and civil service. The basic budget figure is arrived at in this context. In the wider-ranging second part, Treadgold surveys finance from 717, the advent of the Isaurian dynasty, to the death in 886 of Basil 1, first of the Macedonians. The enor- mous disparity between Treadgold's total and Bury's mainly hinges on differences in the estimate of revenues from taxes on trade (p. 134 n..233). If the latter supplied less than 5 percent of state resources, Byzantium can hardly have been an

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