"It has long been taken for granted that Bartholomaeus Anglicus' encyclopedia, De Proprietatibus Rerum, was probably among the most influential of all reference works in the Middle Ages. ... the several earlier versions (in Latin and other languages) have been shown to have exerted a wide-ranging effect on numerous important late medieval and early renaissance authors. ... Written by one of the most learned of Biblical commentators as a simplified analysis of patristic exegesis on the nature of the universe-from God down to rocks-and having as its immediate readers the Franciscan teaching friars, perhaps the most educationally influential of all orders in the thirteenth century, DPR is to the modern researcher one of the most important reference works on popular medieval learning and can tell us a great deal about the ordinary medieval mind as it considered both the wonders of nature and the theoretical interpretation of these wonders as argued by the Church Fathers." - author

Language: English