Rhetorica: The Topoi, IV. Authority
To argue from authority would be beneath the dignity of theology, since “authority is the weakest kind of proof,” according to Boethius. —St. Thomas Aquinas
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Texts in Context: Wot Shall We Make of ye Anglish Language?
As we proceed with whatever this is we’re talking about, we once again pause to discuss how we’re talking about it.
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Rhetorica: The Topoi, III. Cause and Effect
This is, justly, a popular topos. But there are certain vulnerabilities inherent in it, which we disregard at our peril.
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Timeline of the High and Late Middle Ages
Texts in Context:Timeline of the Highand Late Middle Ages By Gabriel Blanchard This timeline covers the High and Late Mediævum, defined for our purposes as falling more or
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Texts in Context: The Ocean Blue
In fourteen hundred and ninety-two, the globe was changed irrevocably, forever.
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Texts in Context: The Roots of the Other Renaissance
As the fifteenth century proceeded, a new wind was blowing out of the east, for both evil and good at once.
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Rhetorica: The Topoi, II. Similarity
Analogy is one of the oldest, most prevalent devices of rhetoric; as it is written, “But without a parable spake he not unto them.”
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Texts in Context: The Dowry of Our Lady
At the same time as a high tide of mysticism in England, the synthesis of Christendom was collapsing, thanks in part to its founder, the papacy.
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Rhetorica: The Topoi, I. Definition
In this topos, we are dealing not just with “how to use a dictionary” but with “how to link two minds in the realm of being.”
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Texts in Context: Blood Upon the Roses
The Hundred Years’ War and the Wars of the Roses are infamously complex, so here’s an inattentive summary.
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