New from the University of Notre Dame Press:
Law, Rulership, and Rhetoric: Selected Essays of Robert L. Benson, edited by Loren J. Weber in collaboration with Giles Constable and Richard H. Rouse. From the Press:
Robert L. Benson (1925–1996), professor of history at the University
of California, Los Angeles, was one of the most learned and original
medievalists of his generation. At his untimely death he left behind a
considerable body of unpublished writings, many of which he had revised
and refined and in some cases presented in lectures and at conferences
over many years. The best and most significant of these previously
unpublished writings are collected in this volume.
The essays in Law, Rulership, and Rhetoric span Benson’s
entire career from 1955 to 1994. They comprise a rich collection
covering a vast range of topics in political, intellectual, legal, and
ecclesiastical history, rhetoric, and historiography. Art historians
will find the three essays on medieval images of rulership and medieval
art valuable, and literary scholars will be interested in the essays on,
among others, Boncompagno da Signa. The volume concludes with several
occasional, historiographical essays, including a spirited defense of
Ernst Kantorowicz against Norman Cantor and an entertaining talk on “the
medievalist as literary hero.” The volume begins with a brief
biographical sketch and appreciation of Benson by Horst Fuhrmann.
An excerpt and the Table of Contents are available
here.
