Byzantium in the Near East: Its Relations with the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum in Asia Minor, the Armenians of Cilicia and the Mongols, a. d. c. II92-I237 (Thessaloniki: Kent-pon Byzantinon Epeynon, 1981); Speros Vryonis, Jr., The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamization from the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971).
Sentences The classical meaning of the Latin sententia derives from the verb sentio, “to feel about” or “to have a thought or judgment on.” From about 1120, sentences were made up of collections of theological texts, citations of the FATHERS OF THE CHURCH, and explanations of other theologians. This term eventually especially referred to the Liber sententiarum of Peter Lombard.
In 1155-57, Peter Lombard collected together the materials taught in the schools and separated theological thought and problems into four books divided into distinctions. The idea of St. Augustine that all knowledge concerned either things or their signs provided him with a guiding framework. His Book of Sentences was superior to any previous and was moderate in its principles and ideas. It became a standard textbook of theology From this starting point each master now had to write a commentary displaying his personal way of reading the Book of Sentences then writing solutions to a common set of problems based on Lombard’s work and unresolved doubts about answers presented by others.
See also philosophy and theology; Scholasticism AND Scholastic method.
Further reading: G. R. Evans, ed., Mediaeval Commentaries on the Sentences of Peter Lombard: Current Research (Leiden: Brill, 2002).
Sephardim They were Jewish communities in Muslim and christian spain who followed a particular religious culture within Judaism in terms of liturgy, legal traditions, and customs. The word was first widely used in the eighth century in al-Andalus. The term was applied to communities outside iberia, if they were linked somehow with the sephardic practices or way of life. The sephardi spread far outside Spain after the expulsions of 1492, especially into the ottoman Empire and North Africa. They were known for their active participation in the culture in which they lived and for their cultivation of literature in Hebrew and the vernacular, philosophy, the natural sciences, the Halakhah, commentary and interpretation of the Talmud, biblical exegesis, and Hebrew grammar. During the Middle Ages they were well known for their philosophical interest in the heritage of the ancient world.
See also Ashkenaz and Ashkenazim; Jews and Judaism; Judah ben Samuel Halevi; Maimonides, Moses; Nachmanides, Moses.
Further reading: Yitzhak E Baer, A History of the Jews in Christian Spain, 2 vols., trans. Louis Schoffman (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1961-1966); Paloma Diaz Mas, Sephardim: The Jews from Spain, trans. George K. Zucker (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992); Cecil Roth, The World of the Sephardim (Tel Aviv: WIZO, 1954).
Sepulcher, Holy See Holy Sepulcher.
Serbia and Serbs Serb tribes migrated down from the Carpathian Mountains into the Balkans. They settled from the ninth century in Raska and Bosnia. They had contact with croatians in the northwest, the inhabitants of PANNONIA and eventually the Hungarians in the northeast, and the Bulgars and Byzantines in the south. They accepted orthodox christianity through the disciples of Saints Cyril and Methodios. From the ninth to the 11th century, Constantinople vainly sought to impose control over the serbs, who gained real independence from the Byzantines during the 12th century. Stefan I the First Crowned (r. 1196-ca. 1228) declared himself king in 1217 and was recognized by the pope. His brother, Sava, became the independent archbishop of serbia in 1219. This serbian kingdom attained its greatest power in the reigns of Stephen Milutin (r. 1282-1321) and Stephen DuSan (r. 1331-55). The Ottoman Turks destroyed the Serb army at the Battle oe Kosovo in 1389 and took over the country for 500 years.
See also Bayazid I; Bulgaria and Bulgars; Hungary; Hunyadi, John Corvinus Matthias; Murad I; Murad II.
Further reading: Alain Ducellier, “Albania, Serbia and Bulgaria,” in The New Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. 5, c. 1198-c. 1300, ed. David Abulafia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 779-795; John V A. Fine, The Early Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Sixth to the Late Twelfth Century (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991); John V A. Fine, The Late Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Late Twelfth Century to the Ottoman Conquest (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994); Harold William Temperley, History of Serbia (1919; reprint, New York: H. Eertig, 1969); Georgios
C. Soules, The Serbs and Byzantium during the Reign of Tsar Stephen Dusan (1331-1355) and His Successors (Athenai: Hetaireia ton Philon tou Laou, 1995).
Serfs and serfdom The serfs were at the bottom rung of the agricultural laboring population or peasantry, having little freedom from arbitrary demands, or at least heavy impositions of payments and work by their lords. Not all peasants were serfs. some were their lords’ men and women, practically their physical property. Not quite slaves, they had to be very subservient to the people who owned rights over them. They could not own land; all their property actually belonged to their lords. They could not move from place to place nor pass property to their descendants. This status was inheritable. They usually had to pay a fine to marry and often their lords’ approval of a spouse was a further requirement. The church condoned their servitude but did not approve of overt cruelty.
The work involved in agrarian or farming/pastoral practices, the demographic conditions of rural populations, the availability of employment alternatives, and opportunities to run away all affected the real life of these oppressed peasants. They also suffered the stigma of negative stereotyping by their more fortunate contemporaries. By the end of the Middle Ages, genuine serfdom had mainly disappeared from Western Europe. That was not the case in Eastern Europe and in parts of the islamic world until the 20th century. Even in Western Europe, there were attempts to reimpose arduous labor conditions during labor shortages. it is important to note also that serfdom was always limited to certain places and times.
See also agriculture; ban; feudalism and the feu dal system; manors and manorial lordship; mortmain; social status and structure; villein and villeinage.
Further reading: Jerome Blum, Lord and Peasant in Russia from the Ninth to the Nineteenth Century (New York: Atheneum, 1961); Paul Freedman, The Origins of
Peasant Servitude in Medieval Catalonia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); Paul Freedman, Images of the medieval Peasant (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1999); Paul Hyams, King, Lords, and Peasants in Medieval England: The Common Law of Villeinage in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980); R. H. Hilton, The English Peasantry in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975); R. H. Hilton, The Decline of Serfdom in Medieval England, 2d ed. (London: Macmillan, 1983).
Sermons and homilies Technically a sermon is distinct from a homily. The homily was often on a biblical text, usually from the New Testament, perhaps a parable or miracle by Christ. The preached commentary that followed the text tried to resolve any difficulties in the message and to clarify its concrete moral and spiritual implications. In a sermon, the speaker did not comment on a scriptural text in detail. At the beginning he presented a single citation or quotation, generally biblical. Sermons were generally more diversified and often based in the Old Testament. Any real distinctions between a homily and a sermon were not so neat or clear. Homilies and sermons were preached on Sundays and feast days and were addressed to all of the faithful.
PREACHING sermons and homilies was the duty of bishops and became the duty of PRIESTS and friars by the 13th century The mendicant orders were also supposed to preach as one of their main duties on doctrines and ideas other than biblical material. Sermons were mainly preached in churches at certain services, but they could also be part of less formal occasions. They were supposed to reform the moral lives of their hearers, either lay or clerical.
See also Alan of Lille; ars praedicandi; James of VITRY.
Further reading: Nicole Beriou, ed., Modern Questions about Medieval Sermons: Essays on Marriage, Death, History and Sanctity (Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sul-l’Alto medioevo, 1994); Jonathan Porter Berkey, Popular Preaching and Religious Authority in the Medieval Islamic Near East (Seattle: University of Washington Press,
2001); David L. D’Avray, Medieval Marriage Sermons: Mass Communication in a Culture without Print (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); Daniel R. Lesnick, Preaching in Medieval Florence: The Social World of Franciscan and Dominican Spirituality (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1989); Carolyn Muessig, ed., Medieval Monastic Preaching (Leiden: Brill, 1998).
Seuse, Heinrich See Suso, Henry.
Seven deadly or capital sins The seven deadly sins for Christians (now and) in the Middle Ages (are) were envy, pride, anger, sloth (negligence or indifference), avarice, gluttony, and lust. This list existed since the time of Pope Gregory I, from around 600. They were usually used in opposition to the virtues, which were to be practiced to prevent descent into the sinful state arising from succumbing to these deficiencies of character. The seven deadly sins were often featured in all kinds of art, since artists enjoyed portraying them in varied guises, from amusing to terrifying. They were useful also to preachers as didactic and graphic images.
See also penitentials; preaching; sin.
Further reading: Morton W Bloomfield, The Seven Deadly Sins: An Introduction to the History of a Religious Concept, with Special Reference to Medieval English Literature (East Lansing: Michigan State College Press, 1952); Adolf Katzenellenbogen, Allegories of the Virtues and Vices in Mediaeval Arts: From Early Christian Times to the Thirteenth Century, trans. Alan J. P Crick (New York: W W Norton, 1964).
Seven liberal arts (quadrivium, trivium) The teachers and educational theorists initially of antiquity and later of the Middle Ages understood the seven liberal arts to be the disciplines preparatory to the study of philosophy proper and the acquisition of wisdom. Philosophy was conceived as leading to wisdom. The liberal arts were to be pursued by free individuals, unlike the “mechanical” or manual arts, which were the province of slaves. The negative attitude toward the mechanical arts changed over the course of the Middle Ages, as culture and society began to value more highly the skilled crafts of artisans and the beneficial services of traders and merchants.
Martianus Capella compiled one of the first lists of seven in his influential Marriage of Mercury and Philology in about 420. in that work he distinguished the arts of the trivium, or arts of the word, such as grammar, RHETORIC, LOGIC, or dialectic, from those of the quadrivium, or arts of the number, such as arithmetic, music, geometry, or astronomy About the same time Augustine of Hippo in his On Christian Doctrine suggested what became an influential plan for a Christian education. After purging it of its dangerous pagan elements, classical literature could be safely be assimilated into Christian pedagogy and the disciplines useful for the fruitful study and explanation of Holy scripture.
All of the seven liberal arts became the subjects of study in the faculty of arts within universities, or what was essentially undergraduate higher education. Dialectic became especially important to scholastic education after the 12th century. At the end of the Middle Ages, with the rise of humanism and a renewed interest in grammar, rhetoric, and the mathematical sciences, there was a renewed interest in the ideas and the teaching of the liberal arts.
See also philosophy and theology; Scholasticism AND SBD Scholastic method.
Sexuality and sexual attitudes 66i
Further reading: David L. Wagner, ed. The Seven Liberal Arts in the Middle Ages (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983).
Seven sacraments For the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages, the seven sacraments were, as they are today, baptism; confession, or penance; the Eucharist, or communion; confirmation; matrimony, or marriage; ordination to the priesthood, and the blessing at death, or Extreme Unction. In the Middle Ages it was believed and taught by the church that Christ instituted baptism, the Eucharist, penance, and ordination, and his words could be interpreted as justifying the others. The Orthodox Church also accepted seven sacraments from 1267. They were believed to be actions or ceremonies that conveyed grace and provided access for Christians to Christ as their savior and salvation. They acted as signs composed of words and material elements for the saving actions of Christ, the ultimate minister of the sacraments. Their precise definitions were worked out in the 12th century by Gratian, Hugh of St. Victor, and Peter Lombard.
See also Augustine of Hippo, Saint; clergy and CLERICAL orders; mass; Redemption; sin.
A baptismal font from about 1400 in the Cathedral of Orvieto in central Italy (Courtesy Edward English)
Further reading: J. M. Gallagher, Significando cau-sant: A Study of Sacramental Efficacy (Fribourg: University Press, 1965); Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine. 2, The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600-1700) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974); Elizabeth E Rogers, Peter Lombard and the Sacramental System (1917; reprinted Merrick, N. Y.: Richwood, 1976); Edward Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter with God (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1963); Thomas N. Tentler, Sin and Confession on the Eve of the Reformation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977).
Seville, city and kingdom of (Ishbiliyya) Medieval Seville was a city in southern Spain on the Guadalquivir River, and the principal city and capital of Muslim AL-Andalus. The Roman and Byzantine city was occupied first by Vandals and then the Visigoths until the Arab conquest in 711. Seville was the capital of a branch of the Abbasid dynasty from 1023 to 1091. It became famous for its beautiful mosques, walls, markets, prosperous population, and gardens. It was also tolerant of its minority Mozarab Christians and Jews. It fell in the Reconquest to King Ferdinand III (r. 1217-52) of Leon and Castile in 1248. Most of the Muslim population was deported. King Alfonso X, Ferdinand’s eldest son, resided there and was a strong patron of cultural activity, building, translation projects, and learning. After the mid-14th century, the economy of the city benefited especially from its rich trade in olive oil. In the 15th century, it became an area of great activity for the Inquisition, especially in its persecution of the Jews.
See also Almohads; Almoravids; Ibn Rushd, Abu l-Walid Muhammad; Isidore of Seville, Saint; Umayyads OF Cordoba.
Further reading: Richard A. Fletcher, Moorish Spain (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993); Enrique Sordo, Moorish Spain: Cordoba, Seville and Granada, trans. Ian Michael (New York: Crown, 1963).
Sexuality and sexual attitudes Sexuality is the set of
Meanings put on sexual activity by a culture. In Medieval Christianity sex was permitted primarily for purposes of procreation. Such activity used for pleasure was dubiously ethical although physicians recognized it as a healthy activity Christians were allowed no carnal relations except within marriage. Married couples were to be abstinent during all periods when conception of a child was impossible or inopportune, such as during pregnancy, menstrual periods, the time of impurity after childbirth, and the years of nursing. once a couple had produced successors, they were encouraged to be abstinent. Marriage was considered one of the seven sacraments, but a state of CELIBACY was always considered a higher vocation. Sexuality within marriage was for those who were too weak to avoid it. It was a consequence of original sin placed on all human beings after the fall of Adam and Eve. This extreme doctrine lasted throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance but was probably not well observed by the LAITY or the supposedly celibate clergy.
HOMOSEXUALITY and masturbation were prohibited as unnatural and not conducive to the conception of children. There was plenty of evidence that people had sex and many were not much troubled by feelings of guilt. There were numerous illegitimate births and many clerics maintained relationships with women and men. Periodic prosecutions were accompanied by unpleasant punishments during the later Middle Ages, as the state showed special concern about problems of succession caused by childbirth outside marriages.
Contraceptive practices were banned. Noble families were especially concerned that women of their kinship networks were kept chaste. PROSTITUTION was tolerated, and assaults by upper-class males on lower-class women were frequently overlooked. The Orthodox Church had essentially the same ideas about marriage and the exaltation of sexual renunciation but did permit priests to be married, though bishops were supposed to be celibate.
See also ascetism; celibacy; concupiscence; conTRACEPTION AND ABORTION; COURTLY LOVE; FORNICATION;
Gregorian Reform; virginity; virtues and vices; wid ows AND widowhood; women, status of.
Further reading: James A. Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987); A. Lynn Martin, Alcohol, Sex, and Gender in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (New York: Palgrave, 2001); Pierre J. Payer, The Bridling of Desire: Views of Sex in the Later Middle Ages (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993); Jeffrey Richards, Sex, Dissidence, and Damnation: Minority Groups in the Middle Ages (London: Routledge, 1990); Guido Ruggiero, The Boundaries of Eros: Sex Crime and Sexuality in Renaissance Venice (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985); Joyce E. Salisbury, ed., Sex in the Middle Ages: A Book of Essays (New York: Garland, 1991).
Tutelage first of his mother, Bona of Savoy then from 1480 his uncle, Lodovico, called il Moro (r. 1494-99, 1500). It supposedly was Lodovico’s appeal to the king of France, Charles VIII (r. 1483-98), that led to a French invasion to secure control of Naples. This led to the end of Milanese and Italian independence from outside forces.
The policy of the Sforza toward the church followed that of the Visconti family, as both sought to control the religious institutions in and around Milan. Francesco obtained a privilege from the pope in 1450 to present candidates for the benefices until then under the control of the papacy This privilege ended at his death, but the Sforza dynasty maintained important influence over all ecclesiastical appointments within their state. Members of the family also built several important hospitals and funded other charitable institutions as concrete symbols of their prestige and power. They were also ardent supporters of monastic and mendicant foundations sympathetic to their rule. Their patronage of artists, such as Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519), and the impressive building projects were also intended to confirm the value and worthiness of their rule in the eyes of God and to their usually reluctant subjects. Lodovico was deposed, reinstated, and deposed again in 1499 and 1500. He was the last independent Sforza duke and died in a French prison in 1508.
Further reading: cecilia M. Ady, A History of Milan under the Sforza, ed. Edward Armstrong (London: Methuen, 1907); Gregory Lubkin, A Renaissance Court: Milan under Galeazzo Maria Sforza (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994); Evelyn S. Welch, Art and Authority in Renaissance Milan (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1995).
Shana See Hadith; law, canon and ecclesiastical; Quran; Sunna.
Sheep See agriculture; animals and animal hus bandry; FOOD, drink, and NUTRITION.
Sforza family The Sforza family were originally from Romagna and Tuscany. They gained the duchy of Milan in 1450, when the mercenary captain Francesco Sforza (1400-60) entered Milan on February 25, 1450, ending a chaotic republican interlude after the death of Filippo Maria Visconti in 1447. They were to maintain control of duchy until the end of the 15th century. Francesco died in 1466 and was succeeded by his son, the vicious and despotic Galeazzo Maria (r. 1466-76), who tried to solidify his princely power by acting as a barely veiled absolute ruler. This led to a rebellion of part of the Milanese aristocracy on December 26, 1476, when Galeazzo Maria was assassinated and succeeded by Gian Galeazzo II Maria (r. 1476-94). At he was under the
Shia, Shiism, and Shiites (party, sect) From the Arabic, Shia means “partisans,” of Ali ibn Abu Talib and his descendants by his wife, Fatima (605-633) the daughter of Muhammad, who considered the true imams, guides, or leaders of Islam after the death of the prophet. The most distinctive heterodox trait of Shiism was its concept of the personal and sacred function of the imam. Ali was supposed to be the first caliph, since he was the rightful imam, appointed by Muhammad himself. The election of Abu Bakr by almost a general consensus at first caliph was perceived by Shiism as a usurpation of the rights of Ali, who had been designated by Muhammad as his successor. The Shiites saw this as treason against the will of the Messenger of God. Those who eventually were
Sunni believed that this authority rested more widely on all of the companions of the Prophet. Ali also refused to follow the precedents set by Abu Bakr and Umar I, when he was offered the caliphate at Umar’s death. The “martyrdom” of the next imam, Husayn, in 680 marked the beginning of an independent Shia course.
All this provided evidence for the importance Shia places on the office of imam, who embodies divine spiritual authority and the temporal power to rule: The imam held the wa laya or guardianship; that is that as the imam, in his universal dimension as a perfect man, he is a manifestation of God. Shiism was always a theory of ima-mate, from which other disciplines such as theology, LAW, MYSTICISM, ethics, and philosophy were formed and derived. Shiism constituted a party of opposition and religion, the most important “variant” of Islam, as opposed to the majority tendency considered to represent a Muslim “orthodoxy,” commonly called Sunna or Sunnism.
Shiism has included several branches. There were four periods of imamism. The death of each imam gave rise to one or more schisms, which, in nearly every case, had only an ephemeral existence. The main branches of the Shia have been the majority Twelvers (Ithan Asharis), the ISMAILI, the Nizaris, the Mutazila (Seceders), the Zay-dis, and the Alawis or Nusayris. There also evolved further differences with the Sunni over rituals, marriage, and inheritance.
See also Abbasids; Assassins; Fatimids; al-Husayn IBN Ali ibn Abi Talib.
Further reading: Syed Husain M. Jafri, The Origins and Early Development of Shia Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); Moojan Momen, An Introduction to Shii Islam: The History and Doctrines of Twelver Shiism (London: G. Ronald, 1985).
Ships and shipbuilding There were great advances in the shipbuilding arts in the Middle Ages. Transport by water, across the seas and along the rivers, then was the simplest, most efficient, and often the safest means of communication and transport. The classical Roman legacy was transmitted intact to the Byzantine Empire. Their ships and weapons, such as Greek fire, were important to the survival of Constantinople. The Arabs introduced their own traditions to Mediterranean waters from the Red Sea and Persian Gulf. They also took over the shipbuilding yards and expertise of Alexandria and Carthage. The great successes of the Vikings in the ninth and 10th centuries were founded on their abilities to sail on the open sea and to move up rivers for raiding or trade. At nearly the same time, the cog evolved for moving bulky material.
Galleys were common for warfare in the Mediterranean and ships propelled by sails became more sophisticated in the Middle Ages, especially in the Atlantic. Sailing ships with or without oars were more efficient in the rougher waters of the Atlantic. Rigging, masts, sail shapes, hull shapes, crew skills, and rudders all became more efficient as late medieval ships in the north reached 200 to 300 tons.
See also compass; Crusades; Genoa; Gokstad ship; Greenland; Hanseatic League; Henry “the Naviga tor,” Prince; navigation; Pisa; Portugal; trade and commerce; Venice; warfare.
Further reading: Aly Mohammed Fahmy, Muslim Sea-Power in the Eastern Mediterranean from the Seventh to the Tenth Century a. d. (Cairo: National Publication & Printing House, 1966); Basil Greenhill, The Evolution of the Sailing Ship, 1250-1580 (London: Conway Maritime Press, 1995); George F Hourani, Arab Seafaring in the Indian Ocean in Ancient and Early Medieval Times, ed. John Carswell rev. and expanded ed. (Princeton, Princeton university Press, 1995); Gillian Hutchinson, Medieval Ships and Shipping (London: Leicester university Press,
1994); Frederic C. Lane, Venetian Ships and Shipbuilders of the Renaissance (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1934); Richard W Unger, The Ship in the Medieval Economy, 600-1600 (London: Croom Helm, 1980).
Sicilian Vespers This was a popular rebellion or revolution that usurped control of the island of Sicily from the Angevins of Naples, essentially from the French control of Charles I of Anjou. It began at the hour of vespers on Easter Monday, March 30, 1282, at Palermo. It started with an insult to a Sicilian woman; within a few hours thousands of French men, women, and children were killed. it began as an attempt to form the “commune of the island of Sicily” and quickly spread throughout the island. A parliament was called, and it proclaimed a republic. Some of the towns at the western end of the island placed themselves under papal rule, a decision that Martin IV (r. 1281-85), a Frenchman, refused to accept; instead, he excommunicated the rebels. The latter now turned to the Ghibellines and had to accept help from Peter III (r. 1239-85) of Aragon, who was crowned king of Sicily in August 2, 1282. Peter promised to administer the island according to its own laws, treating it as separate country from Aragon. Its new leaders were the former Hohenstaufen councilors of Manfred, who had been defeated by Charles in 1266. Actual popular support for this was minimal until Charles provoked local resistance by his stern measures and then attacked the island to restore his authority. The conflict lasted for two decades and the Aragonese in the end triumphed. However, Sicily remained under foreign domination, albeit slightly less exploitative. Frederick III (r. 1272-1337) became its second Aragonese king in 1296.
Further reading: David Abulatia, The Western
Mediterranean Kingdoms, 1200-1500 (London: Longman,
1997); Jean Dunbabin, Charles I of Anjou: Power, Kingship and State-Making in Thirteenth-Century Europe (New York: Longman, 1998); Steven Runciman, The Sicilian
Vespers: A History of the Mediterranean World in the Later Thirteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958); Helene Wieruszowski, Politics and Culture in Medieval Spain and Italy (Roma: Edizioni di storia e let-teratura, 1971).
Sicily Medieval Sicily was a large island in the central Mediterranean, off the southern coast of Italy. It was an important part of the Byzantine Empire in the seventh century. During the revolt in 826, the Byzantine governor, who was rebelling against the emperor, asked the Agh-labids of North Africa for help. This paved the way for an army of volunteers, led by a Malikite scholar from al-Qayrawan, to begin a slow and difficult conquest. He landed in 827 and finally took Palermo in 831; Syracuse fell in 878. Much of the Greek population fled and was replaced by Muslim settlers from North Africa; many inhabitants stayed and the population became genuinely mixed. There was considerable Arabization in terms of language and culture. In 909 Sicily fell under the control of the Fatimids and remained a frontier land, especially after a Byzantine counterattack failed in 965.
ARRIVAL OF THE NORMANS
The collapse of Muslim Sicily began with a religious crisis. In around 1030, religious differences intensified as questions about the legitimacy of the Fatimid imamate arose as the local Arab emirs fought among themselves. The Muslim Sicilians’ appeal to the Normans of Calabria, Roger I and Robert Guiscard. This proved fatal to Muslim domination of the island. The Normans took Palermo in 1072 and Syracuse in 1086, establishing a competent administration on the island and carefully resettling Muslims in locations vulnerable to Norman forces. Roger I worked out an advantageous accord with Pope Urban II that gave his dynasty effective control over the Sicilian church on the island. There was considerable religious toleration of Muslims, Jews, and Greeks on the island, especially under Roger II. A literary and geographical culture, elaborate court ceremonial, an impressive palace, and religious architecture borrowed from Byzantium and Islam made the island a cultural center that synthesized in many ways all the civilizations of the Mediterranean Sea. This balance was maintained until 1160, when William I was forced by seditious activities to reduce the level of his tolerance toward the religions of those whom he employed in his administration. The Hohenstaufen dynasty from the mainland took over in 1196, and with their rule much of the island’s economy declined and was handed over to control by merchants from Genoa and Pisa.
THE RETURN OF FEUDALISM
Frederick II was the heir to the Mediterranean ambitions of his grandfather, Roger II, but had to move the center of his kingdom to Apulia, in southeastern Italy He and his successors were unable to finish a program of planning and developing settlements on the island. The insurrection of the Sicilian Vespers in 1282 provoked by French or Angevin oppression led to an appeal to Manfred’s son-in-law, Peter III of Aragon (r. 1276-85). This new regime tried to reconstitute a systematic feudalism on the island. A huge fiscal, naval, and military effort allowed Frederick III to defeat the formidable coalition of Angevin Naples, Capetian France, the papacy, and even opposition within Aragon. There followed nearly a century of periodic conflict, leading to the economic exhaustion of Naples as well as of the island, a long interdict on sicilian churches, and a stultifying refeudalization of the aristocracy over the towns. A later Catalan conquest of 1392-98 reestablished yet another feudal framework of exploitation. In 1412 the Aragonese Crown passed to the cadet branch of the Trastamara family of Castile attaching the island first to Barcelona, then to Naples. From there it became part of the Mediterranean empire of Alfonso V the Magnanimous in the mid-15th century New economic, demographic, and cultural changes occurred at the end of the 15th century with the resumption of the export of grain and the development of new products such as sugar and raw silk. This enriched an urban patriciate but failed to benefit the rural feudal nobility. sicily passed under the control of the spanish Crown under Ferdinand II and Isabel I in 1502. All of these governments after the Vespers were exploitative of sicily and that led to political, social, and in the end economic decline.
See also Palermo; Sardinia.
Further reading: Graham A. Loud and Thomas Wiedemann, trans., The History of the Tyrants of Sicily by “Hugo Falcandus,” 1154-1569 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998); David Abulaffia, The Two Italies: Economic Relations between the Norman Kingdom of Sicily and the Northern Communes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977); Aziz Ahmad, A History of Islamic Sicily (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1975); Clifford R. Backman, The Decline and Fall of Medieval Sicily: Politics, Religion, and Economy in the Reign of Frederick III, 1296-1337 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); stephan R. Epstein, An Island for Itself: Economic Development and Social Change in Late Medieval Sicily (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); Jeremy Johns, Arabic Administration in Norman Sicily: The Royal Diwan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2002); Hugh Kennedy, “Sicily and al-Andalus under Muslim Rule,” in The New Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. 3, c. 900-c. 1024, ed. Timothy Reuter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 646-669; Denis Mack Smith, A History of Sicily: Medieval Sicily, 800-1713 (London: Chatto & Windus, 1968); Donald Matthew, The Norman Kingdom of Sicily (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
Sickness and disease In a medieval Christian context in the East and the West, sickness was a consequence of original sin, but sometimes had the ambivalent status of a metaphor of punishment for sin or even HERESY. Physical suffering, on the other hand, was compared with the redemptive suffering of Christ. medicine involved palliative care for the body and the soul as victims were being prepared to meet their maker. leprosy was closely linked with carnal sin, and the horrifying and implacable Black Death of 1348 was sometimes cast as punishment for sin. Medicine had few treatments for disease beyond occasionally alleviating the symptoms, still often blaming much on an imbalance of humors. This imbalance meant a rupture of the equilibrium of the complexion, the mixture of the primary qualities of hot, cold, dry, and wet, proper to a part of the body or to the whole of it.
The causes of most diseases were not understood at all through most of the Middle Ages. When remedies were effective, success was more attributable to chance than to any understanding of causes. Ancient classical Greek ideas became better known by the 15th century, but they were only partially helpful. The effects of certain drugs were known and were employed by skillful physicians and local folk practitioners to ease pain. Midwives had considerable skill in assisting in childbirth, and physicians and surgeons intervened to perform cesarean deliveries. skin and intestinal diseases were almost universal; fever caused by many kinds of infection was common, since personal hygiene was primitive. smallpox, malaria, typhoid, tuberculosis, measles, meningitis, and other infectious diseases regularly reached epidemic proportions. Cancer and diabetes doubtlessly were present but were masked by other problems. Mental illness and INSANITY were recognized and sometimes received protective care. Malnutrition and parasitic invasions lowered resistance to disease, when they did not themselves kill. The Arab-Islamic medical tradition understood better and earlier the ideas of classical medicine but was only marginally more successful in combating and treating disease.
See also contraception and abortion; hospitals; Ibn Sina, Abu Ali al-Husayn; Maimonides, Moses; para sites; PSELLOS, Michael; Trota.
Further reading: Saul Nathaniel Brody, The Disease of the Soul: Leprosy in Medieval Literature (Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell University Press, 1974); Sheila Campbell, Bert Hall, and David Klausner, eds., Health, Disease, and Healing in Medieval Culture (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992); Luis Garci'a-Ballester, ed., Practical Medicine from Salerno to the Black Death (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); J. N. Hays, The Burdens of Disease: Epidemics and Human Response in Western History (New Brunswick, N. J.: Rutgers University Press, 1998); Donald R. Hopkins, Princes and Peasants: Smallpox in History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983); Vivian Nutton, “Medicine in Medieval Western Europe, 1000-1500,” in The Western Medical Tradition, 800 b. c. to a. d. 1800, ed. Lawrence I. Conrad et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 139-205, 500-502.
Sieges and fortifications See castles and fortifica tions; WARFARE.
Siena Medieval Siena was a city in Tuscany set on the intersection of three hills about 1,000 feet above sea level. In the Middle Ages, it was part of the kingdom of Italy and part of the Holy Roman Empire. It was on a major PILGRIMAGE route to Rome, the Via Francigena or Via Romea. In the 12th century it became a commune and tried to protect its independence from the emperor, the pope, and other nearby cities, such as its great rival Flo rence. Siena soon constructed a contado, or rural jurisdiction, beyond the limits of its diocese. In this contado it imposed its own law and taxation and obtained the submission of the rural lords, towns, and peasant communities. By the 14th century, Sienese territory included southern Tuscany and the Maremma and coast near the Mediterranean Sea.
In the 13th century, Siena’s trading activities and particularly papal banking prospered. Sienese companies were among the largest in Europe, and its family companies conducted business with Rome, the fairs of Champagne, Paris, London, and elsewhere. Despite its papal banking connections, it led the Ghibelline cities that opposed Guelf Florence and the papacy. With the aid of German mercenaries sent by Manfred in 1260, it inflicted a major defeat on Florence in 1260 at the Battle of Montaperti but was unable to take any long-term advantage of its temporary dominance of Tuscany. The Tuscan Guelfs regrouped and forced a Guelf regime on the city which became the regime of the Nine, which lasted until 1355. Around 1300 all of the sienese banking companies failed and were usually replaced by new Florentine firms. The Sienese families and merchants who had run the companies managed to preserve much of their wealth but retreated to business and politics within the sienese state. Without the water resources of its rival Florence, Siena did not develop much of a lucrative cloth industry: Its economy instead became even more closely tied to its rich agricultural region.
FOURTEENTH CENTURY AND LATER
In the early 14th century, the town’s population reached about 50,000. During the second half of the 14th century, internal politics was characterized by almost constant conflict and included several barely suppressed magnate rebellions, especially after the Black Death killed as much as one-third of its population. The city was hugely burdened by mercenary bands demanding bribes in return for the safety of both the countryside and the city itself.
Siena, Piazza del Campo, town hall (Palazzo Pubblico) (Courtesy Library of Congress)
Siena remained independent, however, until the mid-16th century, when it was taken after a difficult and devastating siege by the Florentines and Spanish in 1555.
CULTURE
Siena also produced a fine artistic and architectural tradition as reflected in the artistic achievement of DUCCIO, Simone Martini, the Lorenzetti brothers, and Sassetta. It was a great center of Italian civic and Gothic art. Its cathedral, begun in the 12th century, has maintained much of its 14th-century adornment. The 13th-century town hall and the paved piazza from the 14th century in front of it have long been among the most famous in Europe. its rich religious culture also produced two of the most popular saints of the later Middle Ages, Cather ine and Bernardino.
Further reading: William M. Bowsky, A Medieval Italian Commune: Siena under the Nine, 1287-1355 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981); William Caferro, Mercenary Companies and the Decline of Siena (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998); Bruce Cole,
Sienese Painting, from Its Origins to the Fifteenth Century (New York: Harper & Row, 1980); Edward D. English, Enterprise and Liability in Sienese Banking, 1230-1350 (Cambridge: Medieval Academy of America, 1988); Diana Norman, Siena and the Virgin: Art and Politics in a Late Medieval City State (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1999); Daniel Waley, Siena and the Sienese in the Thirteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
Siger of Brabant (ca. 1235/40-1284) philosopher who sparked conflict through his use of Aristotelian ideas Born in Brabant between 1235 and 1240, Siger studied at the arts faculty of the University of Paris just as the works of Aristotle were becoming available. Not a cleric, he became a master there between 1260 and 1265. His first work set out a version of Aristotelian psychology that was inspired by Ibn Rushd (Averroes) and incompatible with Christian doctrine. it presented the SOUL as a separate substance, eternal as one intellect for the whole human race which completed the body but was not its substantial form. Siger’s Averroism actually derived from the interpretations of Ibn Rushd by such theologians as Robert Kilwardby (d. 1279), Bonaven-TURE, and Thomas Aquinas. Despite this Siger was identified as the leader of a rational approach or of “Latin
Averroism.” However, with the criticism he received from Aquinas and from Bishop Stephen Tempier’s (r. 1268-79) first condemnation of 1270, Siger modified his ideas to resemble those of Aquinas. He continued to advocate the use of reason to compare and judge ideas, whatever their implications for Christian faith. While recognizing the superior certainty of revelation, he claimed for philosophy the right to proceed independently of both theologians and Aristotle. This view of the relationship between reason and faith aroused vehement opposition from many Parisian theologians.
By 1276 he seemed to have abandoned teaching but was cited by the inquisitor of France as a possible heretic. He was directly implicated in the second great condemnation promulgated on March 7, 1277, by Tempier. The rest of his life was obscure. He was perhaps imprisoned. Around February 1281, he was murdered at Orvieto by an insane secretary who was supposed to be caring for him. He was viewed with admiration by some of his contemporaries, such as Dante Aligheri, for promoting the autonomy of philosophical knowledge.
Further reading: Saint Thomas Aquinas, Siger of Brabant, and Saint Bonaventure, On the Eternity of the World = De aeternitate mundi, trans. Cyril Vollert, Lottie H. Kendzierski, and Paul M. Byrne, 2d ed. (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1984); Etienne Gilson, Dante and Philosophy, trans. David Moore (1949; New York: Harper & Row, 1963); Armand Maurer, Medieval Philosophy, rev. ed. (Toronto: Pontifical institute of Mediaeval Studies,
1982).
Sigillography See seals and sigillography.
Sigismund of Luxembourg (1368-1437) Holy Roman Emperor
He was the second son of the emperor Charles IV and younger brother of Wenceslas (1361-1419). He was elected king of Hungary in 1387 after his marriage to Mary of Hungary; king of Bohemia in 1420, when his brother, the incompetent Wenceslas the Drunkard, king of the Romans, resigned in 1410; he was consecrated emperor at Rome on May 31, 1433. He could not maintain his position as prospective ruler of Poland against the Jagiellonians. He led the disastrous Crusade of Nicopolis in 1396 and barely escaped capture in the battle.
Once elected king of the Romans and then expected to succeed as Holy Roman Emperor, he was faced with serious problems and expectations, realizing that the empire needed reform, as did the church, with an end to the Great Schism (1378-1417). There was also the problem of the HERESY of John Hus in Bohemia. Sigismund, however, lacked the political and economic resources to intervene in any of these areas. He gamely called a council at Constance (1414-18), in which he helped to end the schism caused by three popes’ claiming the office. This was also the council that deceived, with Sigismund’s help; condemned; and burned John Hus on July 6, 1415, enraging his followers, the Hussites, in Bohemia. The resulting long and vicious war lasted for decades. Sigismund’s reforms of the empire accomplished little in gaining control over the prince-electors, who wanted to perpetuate the usual weakness of the office. The council of Basel failed to accomplish much reform near the end of his reign. Sigismund was perceived by many as having attempted much and accomplished little. He died in 1437.
See also Holy Roman Empire; Moravia.
Further reading: Aziz Suryal Atiya, The Crusade of Nicopolis (London: Methuen, 1934); Frederick G. Hey-mann, George of Bohemia, King of Heretics (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1965).
Silk and silk roads Far Eastern silk, used for the liturgy and in princely courts, was highly sought after in Europe from antiquity. it entered the Mediterranean from China, which gave its name to one of the routes that joined that country to the Near East, Syria, and Iran through Ecbatana, Ctesiphon, Dura Europos, and Anti och or Tyre. In Persia, a transit thoroughfare for silk, silkworms were cultivated after the route was established. This was an industry kept secret until two Greek monks smuggled the procedures of sericulture clandestinely to the Byzantine Empire. From the sixth century, Byzantine silk production prospered in Syria at Antioch, Beirut, and Tyre, and later at Constantinople itself after the loss of the Eastern provinces. It was also practiced in Greece from the 11th century in the Peloponnese, including Corinth, Thebes, Patras, and the island of Andros.
The Byzantines enforced an imperial monopoly on the most precious silks, in particular those dyed with murex or imperial purple. The emperor used silk gifts in diplomatic transactions. in the West in the 11th century a silk industry developed in Byzantine or southern Italy. Under the Normans it spread to Sicily, around Messina, Palermo, and Cefalu. Silkworm rearing houses reached northern italy as a result of the demands and needs of great and rich cities such as Florence, Venice, Milan, and Genoa. In the 12th century, Lucca became a great center of silk cloth weaving. In 1466 King LOUIS XI introduced the raising of silkworms into France but the project had little success. In Spain silkworm culture was imported into al-Andalus by Syrian refugees in the eighth century.
Silk had long been used for liturgical vestments such as chasubles, veils, or altar frontals and at courts for prestigious garments. From the 13th century silk became a much more common material for the tailored clothes of both the court and business elites.
Further reading: Michel Balard, “Silk,” EMA 2.1,355; Irene M. Frank and David M. Brownstone, The Silk-Road:
A History (New York: Facts On File, 1986); Luca Mola, The Silk Industry of Renaissance Venice (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000); John H. Munro, “Silk,” DMA 11.293-296; Anna Muthesius, Studies in Byzantine and Islamic Silk Weaving (London: Pindar Press, 1995); Anna Muthesius, Byzantine Silk Weaving: a. d. 400 to a. d. 1200 (Vienna: Fassbaender, 1997).
Silver and silversmiths See metalsmiths and metal
WORK, METALLURGY.
Simeon I (Symeon) (r. 893-927) prince, czar of the Bulgars
Simeon was studying for a religious career in Con stantinople, when he was recalled by his father, Boris I, who had just blinded his eldest son and successor, Vladimir (r. 889-93), because he had given permission for, and actually restored, pagan practices. During Simeon’s reign there was a series of victorious campaigns against Byzantium, which even reached the city of Constantinople in 913. His military successes in eastern Thrace against the Magyars and Petchenegs by 920 again took him to the Byzantine capital. He could not take the city and died suddenly in 927. in the meantime he had temporarily annexed Serbia. Contemplating having himself crowned at Constantinople, Simeon, in imitation of the Eastern emperors, took the title of czar of the Bulgars and Romans. Deeply religious, he was a protector and patron of literature and the arts. His reign marked the cultural apex of medieval Bulgaria.
Further reading: John V A. Fine, the Early Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Sixth to the Late Twelfth Century (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991).
Simon IV de Montfort, the Elder (ca. 1160-1218) one of the leaders of the Albigensian Crusade Born about 1160, Simon de Montfort was an important lord of the Yvelines, on the margins of the French royal domain. He was called the earl of Leicester, although he had long been dispossessed of that English county. in 1202, he became a crusader with many other barons of France, but he refused to go to Constantinople and set out with his own band of soldiers to wage war in Syria.
In August 1209 he took the cross again against the Albigensian heretics of southern France. He agreed to become the viscount of Beziers and Carcassonne in place of others who had already refused that honor. He clung tenuously to this power in the south with his companions and the bishop of Toulouse. In 1210 he was reinforced with new crusaders just in time to hold out longer. In 1211 he managed to capture several of the main strongholds of the heretics. In the late spring of 1211, he invaded the lands of the recently excommunicated Raymond VI of Toulouse (r. 1194-1222). In the late summer of 1211, he won a battle at Castelnaudary During the next year he reduced the strongholds of heretics. He then had to delay further warfare, short of total victory, because of the start of the preaching of the Fifth Crusade and an order from Innocent III. Despite this, he skillfully won on September 13, 1213, the Battle of Muret, at which King Peter II of Aragon (r. 1196-1214), an ally of Raymond VI, was killed. In 1214 he completed his conquest and was joined by the future king, Louis VIII (1187-1226). In 1215, he was made count of Toulouse at the Fourth Lateran Council, which had disinherited Raymond VI. He was recognized as count by King Philip II Augustus. His luck then changed. He could not prevent the retaking of Beaucaire by Count Raymond VII (r. 1222-49) or the revolt in the city of Toulouse that expelled his friend the bishop and allowed the return to the city of Raymond VII and his son. The rest of Provence then rose against him. He was killed besieging Toulouse by a catapult, operated perhaps by women, or in a skirmish with the enemy on June 25, 1218.
Further reading: Joseph R. Strayer, The Albigensian Crusades, with a new epilogue by Carol Lansing (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992); Michael
D. Costen, The Cathars and the Albigensian Crusade (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997).
Simon de Montfort, the Younger (ca. 1200-1265) one of the leaders of the Barons’ Revolt against the English Crown
French by birth, Simon went to England in 1230 to press the claim of his grandfather, Simon de Montfort, THE Elder, to the earldom of Leicester. He secured his inheritance between 1231 and 1239 and so impressed King Henry III that he rose quickly in royal favor. In 1238 he married Eleanor (d. 1275), the king’s sister. More masterful and tenacious of his rights than other royal favorites, he soon quarreled with the king. over the next two decades their relations were stormy, especially after Simon’s controversial period as a brutal governor of Gascony between 1248 and 1252. However, he was away in France on a diplomatic mission and actually little involved in the movement that forced Henry to submit to baronial control in the Provisions of oxford in 1258. These went much further than Magna Carta in limiting royal prerogatives, in effect reviving the council that ruled while Henry was a minor. After the disintegration of the baronial government, Simon became a focal point of opposition to the king. Early in 1264 he rejected the Mise of Amiens, an attempt by Louis IX of France to arbitrate the dispute. He took Henry III and his son, the future Edward I, prisoners at the Battle of Lewes on May 14, 1264. A new scheme of government was then drawn up later that year, the Mise of Lewes, and Simon became a leading member of a triumvirate empowered to control the king. He eagerly sought reconciliation with Henry. He even assembled the Great Parliament of 1265, which included, for the first time, representatives of the shires and boroughs, all in the hope of securing his position and obtaining a lasting peace. The king refused to compromise on royal rule and power. Simon quarreled with his leading ally, Gilbert de Clare the Red, earl of Gloucester (d. 1295). Edward escaped from custody May 28. Simon was defeated and killed at the Battle of Evesham on August 4, 1265. His tomb soon became a place of pilgrimage.
Further reading: R. F Treharne and I. J. Sanders, eds., Documents of the Baronial Movement of Reform and Rebellion, 1258-1267 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973); Margaret W Labarge, Simon de Montfort (New York: Norton, 1963); J. R. Maddicott, Simon de Montfort (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); R. F
Treharne, Simon de Montfort and Baronial Reform: Thirteenth-Century Essays, ed. E. B. Fryde (London: Hamble-don Press, 1986).
Simone Martini See Martini, Simone.
Simony The idea of simony was taken from the New Testament (Acts 8:81-24). There the magician Simon Magus tried to buy priestly power. Isidore of Seville discussed a heresy of the Simoniacs. The councils of Orleans in 533 and 549 and of Clermont in 535, deposed candidates who had bought their election. This practice was further denounced by Gregory of Tours, Pope Gre gory I THE Great, and Pope Gregory VII. In the 11th century, imperial interventions in the life of the church were denounced once again in 1049. Although simony doubtlessly was still practiced, this prohibition was maintained throughout the Middle Ages: one should not buy or sell an ecclesiastical benefice or its revenue.
See also benefice; Gregorian reform; investiture
CONTROVERSY OR DISPUTES; PATRONAGE.
Further reading: Joseph H. Lynch, Simoniacal Entry into Religious Life from 1000 to 1260: A Social, Economic, and Legal Study (Columbus: Ohio State University Press,
1976); Raymond A. Ryder, Simony, an Historical Synopsis and Commentary (Washington, D. C.: The Catholic University of America, 1931).
Sin Sin from the time of Saint Augustine of Hippo was considered to be “that which is willfully, freely, and voluntarily done, said, or willed against the law of God.” It would have a legal, psychological, and theological dimension. One’s intent became more paramount from the 12th century onward. Sin was a disorder, a human act, and a sign of a disharmony between human reason and the will of God and humankind. it was done against the good, including one’s own good, a fault against God. one was supposed to know and seek only the best. All sin was transgression of the law, but not all transgression against the law was sin. William of Ockham would say that sin was human will’s transgressing God’s will. islamic ideas about sin were not much different. In Muslim legal practice, serious sins were associated with hadd, punishment under the legal system or shariah. A sinner was held accountable for his or her actions of omission and commission. Mortal sin was the most serious category of sin. it must be committed with full consent of the will and involve a grave matter. Venial sin disposed the soul to DEATH and was the greatest of all evils except mortal sin. But unlike mortal sin, it did not wholly deprive the soul of sanctifying grace and lead by itself to eternal damnation. Sincere repentance might mitigate some of the consequences of all kinds of sin. In Islam, polytheism, however, might not be forgiven, according to the Quran.
See also Penitentials; Redemption; seven deadly or capital sins; seven sacraments; virtues and vices.
Further reading: Etienne Gilson, Moral Values and the Moral Life: The Ethical Theory of St. Thomas Aquinas, trans. Leo Richard Ward (1931; reprint, Hamden, Conn.: Shoe String Press, 1961); Ralph M. Mclnerny, Ethica Thomistica: The Moral Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas (Washington, D. C.: Catholic University of America Press,
1997); Richard Newhauser, The Early History of Greed: The Sin of Avarice in Early Medieval Thought and Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Siegfried Wenzel, The Sin of Sloth: Acedia in Medieval Thought and Literature (Chapel Hill: university of North Carolina Press, 1967).
Sina, Ibn See Ibn Sina, Abu Ali al-Husayn.
Sinai The Medieval Sinai was the mountainous and arid peninsula between the modern states of israel and Egypt. Mount Sinai was in this region. It was sacred in Christian and islamic traditions from its associations with Moses. There he met the burning bush that told him to return to Egypt, where he received the commandments or the Law The body of Saint Catherine of Alexandria (4th century), according to legend, was carried there by angels where it was maintained by her mits and monks from at least the fourth century A fortified monastery, Saint Catherine’s, was built there under the emperor Justinian in 530. Its sixth-century MOSAIC of the Transfiguration survives in the main church. This monastery has an important collection of rare icons from the period before Iconoclasm. It also possessed an extremely important collection of similarly ancient manuscripts.
Further reading: C. Bailey, “Sina,” Encyclopedia of Islam 9.625; James Bentley, Secrets of Mount Sinai: The Story of the Codex Sinaiticus (London: Orbis, 1985); John Galey, Sinai and the Monastery of St. Catherine (Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, 1980).
Skaldic poetry See Iceland and Icelandic
World History
