Viator is the scholarly journal, published by Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, UCLA.
Viator publishes articles of distinction in any field of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, viewed broadly as the period between late antiquity and the mid-seventeenth century. In keeping with its title, the journal gives special consideration to articles that cross frontiers: articles that focus on meetings between cultures, that pursue an idea through the centuries, that employ the methods of different disciplines simultaneously. It is published by Brepols Publishers
Viator 2014, Volume 45, No.2 contains:
The Roman Liber Pontificalis, Papal Primacy, and the Acacian Schism
Deborah Deliyannis
In the 510s, a new type of historical text was created, eventually known as the Liber pontificalis, which provided biographical and administrative information about each pope from the founding of the see by St. Peter. This paper proposes instead that the stimulus for writing a continuous history of the popes was the Acacian Schism, a controversy between the popes and the patriarchs of Constantinople over primacy in the church (pp. 1 – 16)
The Non-Coherence of the Franks Casket: Reading Text, Image, and Design on an Early Anglo-Saxon 
Thomas Klein
This article argues for a rereading of the eighth-century Northumbrian Franks Casket. Rather than examining it to discover a directed thematic or symbolic program, the article considers the network of effects that arise from its complex and continually varied combination of text and images (pp.17 – 54)
The “Sunset Years”: John of Salisbury as Bishop of Chartres and the Emergent Cult of St. Thomas Becket in France
Karen Bollermann and Cary J. Nederman
On 8 August 1176, John of Salisbury – the twelfth-century English author and churchman noted in part for his close association with the martyred archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket – was consecrated bishop of Chartres, a position he held until his death on 25 October 1180. The authors evaluate the enduring legacy of John’s contributions to Chartres (pp. 55-76).
Pisa, Catalonia, and Muslim Pirates: Intercultural Exchanges in the Balearic Crusade of 1113–1115
Matthew E. Parker
Beyond being the earliest clear interaction between Pisa and Barcelona, the Balearic Crusade was also one of the earliest Iberian extensions of the crusading movement (pp. 77-100)
Body and Identity in Le Chevalier de la Charette
Karen Lurkhur
This article applies Paul Schilder’s model of body image to the figure of Lancelot, the hero of Le Chevalier de la Charette. The author attributes the manner in which the Charette constructs Lancelot’s body to the cultural milieu in which the text was produced, specifically to the differing definitions of masculinity held by clerics and nobles of twelfth-century Troyes (pp101 -116)
Courtly Romance, the Vernacular Psalms, and Generic Contrafaction
Geoff Rector
This article examines the relationship between courtly romance and the Psalms, particularly in their francophone translation and adaptation, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries (pp.117 – 147)
The Wonder of the Heart: Albert the Great on the Origin of Philosophy
Marjorie O’Rourke Boyle
This article relates Albert’s cardiac wonder to the context of medieval philosophy on the physiological function of the heart in the passions of the soul (pp. 149-172).
Wisdom and Justice in the Court of Jeanne of Navarre and Philip IV: Durand of Champagne, the Speculum dominarum, and the De informatione principum
Constant J. Mews and Rina Lahav
This article examines the Speculum dominarum of Durand of Champagne, Franciscan confessor to Jeanne of Navarre, queen of France from 1285 to her untimely death in 1305 (pp. 173-200).
Howling like Wolves, Bleating like Lambs: Singers and the Discourse of Animality in the Late Middle Ages
Jason Stoessel
In 1247 Simon of Saint-Quentin compared Mongol song to the howling of wolves. Like Simon, authors writing about music from the late thirteenth to mid-sixteenth century often associate the singing of certain socio-linguistic groups with the vocalizations of animals. This article argues that these statements betray what Cary Wolfe has termed the discourse of animality (pp. 201 – 235).
Defining Roles in the Clerical Household in Trecento Venice
Roisin Cossar
This article investigates the neglected topic of clerical culture in premodern Venice by examining representations of the clerical household in notarial documents, in particular priests’ testaments (pp. 237 253).
Episcopal Power and the Late Medieval State: Siena’s Bishops and the Government of the Nine
Bradley R. Franco
This article seeks to understand the cooperative nature of episcopal-communal relations and the role of bishops in late medieval Siena through an examination of the career of Donosdeo di Bartolomeo Malavolti (r. 1317-1350), whose thirty-three year tenure as Siena’s bishop corresponded with the reign of the government of the Nine (1287-1355) (pp. 255 – 269).
Pagans, Saints, and War Criminals: Direct Speech as a Sign of Liminal Interchanges in Latin Chronicles of the Baltic Crusades
Rasa Mažeika
In the later Middle Ages, the crusades where most European knights fought were initiated first by the Sword Brothers and then the Teutonic Knights in the lands east and south of the Baltic Sea – Livonia, Prussia, and Lithuania (modern day Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, western Russia, Kaliningrad Oblast, and Poland). This article deals with a hitherto unexplored way in which three Latin chronicles produced for the Sword Brethern and the Teutonic Order use direct speech mostly for communication by or to three groups: pagans or recent converts, supernatural beings, and those who commit crimes (pp.271 – 288)
Last Tribute to the King: The Funeral Ceremony of the Polish King Kazimierz the Jagiellon (1492) in the Light of an Unknown Description (pp. 289 – 302)
Marcin Starzyński
The article characterizes the funeral ceremony of the sovereign of the Kingdom of Poland – the largest country in east-central Europe in the late Middle Ages – on the basis of an untapped written source of 1492 (pp. 289 – 302)
Bring on the Monsters and Marvels: Non-Ptolemaic Legends on Manuscript Maps of Ptolemy’s Geography Chet Van Duzer
The article examines an unstudied manuscript of the maps of Ptolemy’s Geography (without the text) in the A. E. Nordenskiöld Collection in the National Library of Finland (pp. 303 – 334).
A Translation of Body and Form: Setting the Short Charter of Christ to Music in BL Additional MS 5465
Sarah Noonan
In British Library, Additional MS 5465 (ca. 1500), also known as the Fayrfax Manuscript, a copy of the Short Charter of Christ is put to music in a song-book that was possibly written by or under the direction of Robert Fayrfax (1464-1521) (pp. 335 – 355).
¿Taciti manes? Fantasmas “Parlantes” y sus Raíces Clásicas en los Tratados Demonológicos de Época Moderna
Alejandra Guzmán Almagro
This article (in Spanish) examines the typology of ghostly apparitions according to their ability of communication and the verbal and non-verbal interaction with humans (pp. 357-372).
Philip Perry’s Schools Manuscript and the Invention of the Recusant Middle Ages
Ana Sáez-Hidalgo and R. F. Yeager
The interest in medieval English literature and its history dates back to the eighteenth century, when antiquarians and literary critics started to recover, edit and comment – and sometimes forge – texts that either revived or documented the past (pp. 373 -397)
