Mediaeval sources in translation,

This translation of the "Registrum epistularum" of Gregory the Great, the first complete version in English, will provide all medievalists access to one of the most important documentary collections to have survived from the period. All fourteen books of the letters are presented in three volumes, each with a preface of its own but sharing the introduction found in the first volume.

In the first work Boethius offers a purely philosophical discussion of man's highest good and, in the course of doing this, presents the life of the philosopher as the highest kind of life. In the second treatise, he considers in detail an issue which was much contested by Christian thinkers of his day: Can philosophical reasoning prove that the world began to be? Or does it rather show that the world is eternal, i.e. that it did not begin to be? In the third he offers a highly naturalistic explanation of dreams. Only within carefully defined limits will he acknowledge that dreams can give us any kind of knowledge of future events.

"The birth and flowering of canonical jurisprudence in the twelfth century is one of the most striking and fruitful developments of the age, marking an important turn in the history of the Church and in framing the essential elements of the rule of law in political and social life." "Raymond of Penyafort was an important participant in these developments. Born near Barcelona in 1175, he became a teacher of canon law at Bologna, the greatest centre of legal studies. He joined the newly founded Order of Preachers (Dominicans), and championed multilingual education of the friars for a more effective evangelization of Muslims and Jews. He became Master General of the Order in 1238, and died in 1275. He was canonized in 1601 and has been declared the patron saint of canon lawyers." "Pope Gregory IX appointed Raymond to produce a comprehensive compilation of papal legal decisions. The result, the Decretals of Gregory IX (1234), would remain normative in the Catholic Church until 1917. Raymond drew on it to compose his Summa on Marriage, a summary of learned reflection on the law of marriage, to aid his Dominican brothers in hearing confessions, where numerous problems touching on marriage would have been encountered. The definition of marriage and of its ends, stages and impediments, arrangements and consequences are the subject of the work. This translation of it offers students and scholars alike a comprehensive presentation of the medieval teaching on marriage - learned in content, practical in orientation."--Jacket.

In the main this consists of short chapters involving either the author's exposition of his views or his criticisms of other thinkers -- the former are called "remarks" and the latter are called, on the whole "admonitions". He introduces the whole work with this book on logic because to him logic is the key to knowledge, and knowledge is the key to happiness, the highest human goal.