The Southern African Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies
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For content queries on this community please email Professor Victor Houliston : victor.houliston@wits.ac.za Alternatively use the following telephone number to contact Prof, Tel: 011 717 4357
The Southern African Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies is the official publication of the Southern African Society for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (SASMARS) and is published annually.
Instructions to Contributors The journal welcomes submissions in any of the disciplines of the humanities relating to the Middle Ages or the Renaissance up to 1700. All submissions will be refereed. Typescripts should be prepared in accordance with the MLA Style Manual and submitted by email in a file format compatible with Microsoft Word.Browse
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- ItemBlasts of Vain Doctrine: Cranmer’s New Collect for St Mark’s Day.(The Southern African Society for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (SASMARS), 1998) Nichols, BridgetA number of saints’ day collects were rewritten for the First Prayer Book of Edward VI of 1549 to replace their Sarum Rite predecessors. This was to avoid the impression, abhorrent to Reformation principles, that the saints themselves were being invoked. This article explores the process of composition of the collect for St Mark’s Day, which concludes with an admonition against ‘blasts of vain doctrine’. While the collect conforms to the typical practice of basing compositions on the readings for the day, it must be seen in the wider context of current debates on control of doctrine and teaching in the Church. The concluding discussion reflects on the fate of the collect in the Elizabethan Church and especially in modern Anglican revisions. It asks whether the arguably bland style of contemporary renderings marks a division between determination to defend right doctrine, coupled with serious political convictions and their liturgical expression. The discussion concludes by asking whether modern liturgists should now re-examine the challenges of writing liturgy in a political setting.
- ItemChurch And Commune in Thirteenth Century Pistoia: Grain and the Struggle for Political Legitimacy in Medieval Tuscany.(The Southern African Society for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (SASMARS), 2012) Dameron, GeorgeM. E. Bratchel’s Medieval Lucca and the Evolution of the Renaissance State (2008) and David Herlihy’s Medieval and Renaissance Pistoia: The Social History of an Italian Town, 1200–1430 (1967) may be separated by forty-one years, but they both represent outstanding examples of historical research on medieval Italy. They are both detailed and comprehensive studies of a single city, based on extensive archival research. Whereas the former focuses on political and administrative history and the latter concerns itself primarily with social and economic developments, both studies draw useful comparisons with other city-states and highlight the distinctive qualities of the commune that constitutes their subject. This essay will draw on that same tradition and examine a single city-state. It will return to the subject of Herlihy’s classic study, Pistoia, and it will draw some comparisons and contrasts with other communes. However, it will also explore a theme that was common to the history of the ruling regimes of most city-states in northern Italy in the closing decades of the thirteenth century: the fragility of political power, made worse by periodic grain shortages. As the population of Tuscan cities and their surrounding rural districts (contadi) continued to increase markedly as the century drew to a close, the ability of the major magistracies of those communes to secure dependable and adequate supplies of grain became ever more necessary. A deficiency in the food supply, as we can see occurred at Pistoia in 1282, can contribute to the triggering of a political crisis.
- ItemThe Clash of Cultures at Cardoba(The Southern African Society for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (SASMARS), 1998) Maré, EstelleThe purpose of this research is to examine the evidence that an existing architectural monument offers regarding the effect of the conflict during the Conquista, followed by the period of Arab rule in Spain, which was terminated by the Reconquista. The theme of the article is medieval violence and counter violence manifested in the stages of development of the Great Mosque at Córdoba and its transformation into the Church of Santa Maria. I will deal with the ethical issues at stake in the behaviour of the Arabs and Spaniards in Córdoba during the conquest and reconquest of a sacred site, which through several centuries became a theatre in which religious emotions were aroused and resulted in unresolved loss in an anti-cathartic way. What happened at Córdoba is an object lesson to all multicultural societies in which the dominant group revenges itself upon the cultural artifacts of a subjected group, not an uncommon occurrence in the history of architecture.
- ItemClero urbano e sistema parrocchiale a Lucca nel Tardo Medioevo: il convento dei cappellani lucchesi.(The Southern African Society for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (SASMARS), 2012) Savigni, RafaelLa medievistica ha privilegiato per molto tempo lo studio degli Ordini mendicanti e delle confraternite ad essi legate rispetto al clero secolare ed alle sue modalit associative. Se spetta, rispettivamente va a Paolo Sambin e ad Antonio Rigon il merito di aver avviato ricerche sistematiche sullâ istituzione parrocchiale e sulle associazioni del clero urbano, anche in ambito lucchese maturato un precoce interesse per il processo di formazione delle parrocchie, che, come noto, si concluse (dopo secoli segnati dalla centralit della pieve, che svolse anche funzioni civili) soltanto alla fine del Medioevo, con la progressiva concessione del fonte battesimale ad una serie di chiese che in precedenza avevano acquisito una pi precisa identit territoriale ed un proprio cimitero. Presso lâ archivio diocesano di Lucca conservato lâ archivio di unâ associazione del clero urbano (parallela ad altre associazioni di chierici delle Seimiglia), che, esplicitamente attestata dal 1145 al 1490 (quando, ormai in crisi, verr riassorbita nella universitas dei cappellani beneficiati della cattedrale) e denominata conventus, fraternitas o congregatio dei cappellani lucchesi, associava lâ aspetto corporativo a quello confraternale, coinvolgendo i benefattori laici nei benefici spirituali connessi alle celebrazioni periodiche degli anniversari. Avendo gi presentato in altra sede un quadro complessivo dellâ evoluzione di tale associazione,
- ItemCosmic Signs: The Representation of Go[o]d and [the] [D]Evil in the Medieval Morality Play Mankind.(The Southern African Society for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (SASMARS), 2005) Raftery, MargaretThe English moralities make use of different foci and techniques to create the spirit of repentance which Potter claims to be their central and unifying theme and aim. While Castle of Perseverance investigates the whole spiritual course of God`s creation innocence, followed by iterated temptation, fall and redemption over the whole human lifespan, and Every man encapsulates only its last, urgent hours, Mankind reveals the interconnectedness of the divine and the demonic with the quotidian. In the course of the normal, apparently chance encounters of the day, Mankind represents the human soul adrift between Redemption and Damnation. On the one hand, he is in the loving care of God via the counsel of the priest (whose allegorical name, Mercy, allows him to denote both the saving virtue of forgiveness and a clerical character representing God and Christ). On the other, Mankind is equally the prey of the devil via temptation to sin by the other characters he meets: the Vice, Mischief; the Devil, Titivillus, and the three world lings, New Guise, Nowadays, and Nought.
- ItemDas verlorene Lederwams oder Wer trägt das Risiko der Teilnahme an einem Kriegszug?(The Southern African Society for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (SASMARS), 2012) Meyer, AndreasIst es nicht verfuhrerisch, Gewinne in die eigene Tasche zu stecken und Verluste der Allgemeinheit aufzuburden? Gewiss ist solches Tun moralisch bedenklich und heutzutage auch politisch unkorrekt, doch wohl zutiefst menschlich. Dies jedenfalls lehrt uns eine Episode aus dem Alltag des Duecento, die wir einmal mehr dem Luccheser Notar Ciabattus verdanken, denn er protokollierte auch sie gewissenhaft in seine Register. Vor dem Luccheser Richter Aldebrandinus Malagallie, der im Auftrag des Paganellus de Por-cari amtierte, verklagte Anfang Mai 1238 ein gewisser Ottinellus de Porcari die Kommune von Por-cari auf Schadenersatz fur ein verlorenes Lederwams im Wert von 50 sol. und fur sechs Monate Haft. Er war namlich -- wohl im Herbst zuvor -- bei einem Kriegszug der Pisaner Visconti, denen die Herren und die Leute von Porcari Hilfe leisten mussten, gegen die Stadt Pisa in Gefangenschaft geraten. Der Richter horte daraufhin beide Parteien an (A), vernahm Zeugen des Beklagten (B) wie auch des Klagers (C) und sprach sodann am 10. August 1238 die angeklagte Gemeinde von allen Forderungen frei (D). Ottinellus durfte daher neben dem erlittenen Schaden auch noch die Gerichtsgebuhren zu bezahlen gehabt haben.
- ItemDefoe, and the Politics of Representing the African Interior(The Southern African Society for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (SASMARS), 1999) Knox-Shaw, PeterTo talk of the way writers represent ‘interiors of Africa’ will not do, for the fact is that continental interiors come in the singular and take the definite article. Language favours the view that each continent has one body, and bound in with the corporeal metaphor there is a hint of soul. Continents, like bodies, house identities that have to do in some way with an interior, so that a phrase like ‘the heart of the continent’ is easily made to imply ‘what the continent is at heart’. This stubborn personification is allied to a procedure deeply ingrained in all topographical writing, the metonymic trick of passing off a particular setting as representative of something wider; and for a variety of reasons it has met with less resistance in some contexts than in others. The history of exploration in Africa, and in Australia – a movement inwards from many coasts – seems to have been specially conducive to it, accentuating, as it did, the idea of a hidden and revelatory centre. In North America, on the other hand, where European penetration was almost entirely from the east, there was far less concern with stereotype: the feature of the interior perhaps most often dwelt on being its property to unfold, and unfold plurality. Geography provided its share of determinants also: in Australia where aridity prevails over a vast central area, the outback was known for generations as ‘the Dead Heart’; in Africa the presence of both forest and desert in inland parts, gave rise to rival and complementary traditions from the time of Homer. Classical writers sometimes hedged their bets, bifurcating the continent into two Ethiopias, joined like Siamese-twins, but distinct in character, the one good, the other horrid.
- ItemEarly Renaissance Idealization as a Framework for Contemporary Jewellery Design(Southern African Society for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2018) Newman, Nina; Stevens, IngridPlato, in considering idealism, refers to the work of artists as merely representations of objects and suggests that a work of art is a copy of a copy of a form, thus creating an illusion or an ideal form that does not exist. This article considers the dealization of botanical motifs and how this can be said to create a design link between Early Renaissance painting, Early Renaissance enamelled jewellery and contemporary enamelled jewellery. It is postulated here that Plato’s theory on this thrice-removed reality of an artwork can be applied to the jewellery designer where nature (the form) was imitated as an ideal image by Early Renaissance painters (first representation). The idealized images from paintings or drawings were then further adapted by Early Renaissance jewellery designers and applied as even more stylized motifs in the jewels (second representation) resulting in even further idealization of the original form. The same process of idealization used in Early Renaissance painting and enamel jewels is then applied to designing enamelled South African botanical motifs, which creates a contemporary version of the botanical images used during the Early Renaissance, showing that analytical studies of historical art and design can be used by contemporary artists to achieve original designs.
- ItemFemale Charisma: Ritual, Symbol and Power.(The Southern African Society for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (SASMARS), 2005) Viljoen, LeonieIn 1993, when Hillary Rodham Clinton delivered her testimony on new legislation she was spearheading as the chair of a President`s Task Force on National Health Care reform, she started off by saying i`m here as a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a woman. I`m here as an American citizen concerned about the health of her family and the health of her nation. For two hours she answered questions from committee members. Members of Congress applauded the testimony and were impressed by her knowledge of the intricacies of the health care system and by the fact that she had not needed notes or consultation with her secretaries. She writes: ... I realized that some of the laudatory responses ... were just the latest example of the talking dog syndrome?.... There`s a similar thought attributed to Dr. Samuel Johnson by Boswell: Sir, a woman preaching is like a dog`s walking on its hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all. (Clinton 1890)
- ItemThe Female Knight in Renaissance Romance Epic: The Grace of the Tigress(Southern African Society for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2019) Addison, CatherineThe female knights in the romance epics of Boiardo, Ariosto, Tasso and Spenser do not realistically reflect the lives and pursuits of women of their period, and yet they have been and remain attractive, popular literary figures. The gender roles of these female knights are complex, for they do not simply mirror the behaviour of the male knights of their texts. Instead, they project a type of womanhood that is possible rather than either realistic or fantastic. These Renaissance women warriors trace their literary genealogy to Greek and Latin forebears such as Virgil’s Camilla and Quintus’ Penthesilea and yet only a minority of the later figures suffer the tragic fate of Amazons in classical epic. This paper anatomizes the characters and narrative trajectories of Bradamante and Marfisa as they appear in both Orlando innamorato and Orlando furioso, Clorinda and Gildippe in Gerusalemme liberata and Britomart and Radigund in The Faerie Queene. It also pays attention to other warlike women characters in these texts, such as Armida, Belphoebe, and the communities of Amazon-like women that feature in both Spenser and Ariosto. The two main questions guiding the exploration of these figures ask why the female knights are so attractive and what precise gender roles they perform in their texts and contexts.
- ItemThe gratia and the expansion of politics in fourteenth-century Lucca.(The Southern African Society for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (SASMARS), 2012) Nakaya, SoThe book of banniti of 1356 indicates that the criminal judge of the Podest pronounced 256 bans and condemnations and 69 absolutions in that year. And the notary who held this book cancelled 208 of the 256 bans and condemnations by striking off the names of banniti et condemnati, with a line through their names. It was important for those convicted to ensure that their names were removed, because if they were left in the book of the banniti this meant that they were excluded from communal law and justice, and therefore anyone could attack them with impunity. The marginal notes made beside each cancellation indicated the reasons for removing the ban. Among the various reasons, such as the payment of whole fines or reduction of fines by making peace with victims, we can see the instructions to rescind or reduce penalties made by the executive council of Anziani. A chapter of the city statute of 1308, in which the ways of cancellation of bans and condemnations called rebannimentum were prescribed, had already taken into account the cancellations of bannum that resulted from the councils decrees, as well as the full payment and the over-ruling of the judgment in appellate court. In fourteenth-century Lucca, while convicts rarely complained to the appellate court in criminal cases, probably because of limitations set by the statutes, they frequently appealed to political authorities for extra-judicial remissions. In this paper, I shall consider the cancellation of bans and condemnations in essence the cancellation of penalties due to political and extra-judicial decisions, calling it the gratia.
- ItemHistorical Nexus: Bewitching Nurses in Rupert Goold's Visual Medium of Macbeth(Southern African Society for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2018) Beehler, Paul A.J.This close reading and interpretation of the Early Modern concept of beneficium and maleficium explores the conflation of midwives and witches as it pertains to twenty-first-century images in the PBS production of Macbeth. An exegesis of Rupert Goold’s 2010 film Macbeth starring Patrick Stewart and Kate Fleetwood is at the centre of this analysis. Ultimately, Goold uses the image of the witch in the film to draw a close and historically accurate connection to midwives. More to the point, the image of the nurse as an expression of the seventeenth-century midwife would have coloured a seventeenth-century audience's understanding of the witches’ prophecy because of Macduff’s close affiliation with midwives – he was ‘untimely ripped’ from his mother’s womb. An historical appreciation of the role of midwives is aided by recognizing that midwives were almost exclusively present during live births involving Caesarean sections in the Early Modern period. Shakespeare’s audience would have inherently understood this stark connection between the midwife and witch (as has been noted in recent scholarship). Goold’s twenty-first-century use of the nurse/midwife image, then, reasserts a historical subtext that further complicates the problematic nature of Macbeth. If Macduff is associated with the witches as Goold suggests, should an audience be satisfied with Macbeth’s fall at the hands of Macduff? Most audiences feel a sense of relief oncThis close reading and interpretation of the Early Modern concept of beneficium and maleficium explores the conflation of midwives and witches as it pertains to twenty-first-century images in the PBS production of Macbeth. An exegesis of Rupert Goold’s 2010 film Macbeth starring Patrick Stewart and Kate Fleetwood is at the centre of this analysis. Ultimately, Goold uses the image of the witch in the film to draw a close and historically accurate connection to midwives. More to the point, the image of the nurse as an expression of the seventeenth-century midwife would have coloured a seventeenth-century audience's understanding of the witches’ prophecy because of Macduff’s close affiliation with midwives – he was ‘untimely ripped’ from his mother’s womb. An historical appreciation of the role of midwives is aided by recognizing that midwives were almost exclusively present during live births involving Caesarean sections in the Early Modern period. Shakespeare’s audience would have inherently understood this stark connection between the midwife and witch (as has been noted in recent scholarship). Goold’s twenty-first-century use of the nurse/midwife image, then, reasserts a historical subtext that further complicates the problematic nature of Macbeth. If Macduff is associated with the witches as Goold suggests, should an audience be satisfied with Macbeth’s fall at the hands of Macduff? Most audiences feel a sense of relief once the tyrant Macbeth is retired, but that emotional reaction might be misplaced. The question is a pivotal one that strikes at the heart of this problem play, though there are, of course, many unresolved problems and conflicts in Macbeth. This interpretation simply introduces one more complexity to consider.e the tyrant Macbeth is retired, but that emotional reaction might be misplaced. The question is a pivotal one that strikes at the heart of this problem play, though there are, of course, many unresolved problems and conflicts in Macbeth. This interpretation simply introduces one more complexity to consider.
- ItemThe history of English Drama before 1642 revisited(The Southern African Society for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (SASMARS), 2010) Johnston, AlexandraThirty four years later REED has become the essential ‘third stream’ to the two streams of text and performance that we have been tracing. REED has been called ‘one of the miracles of modern scholarship.’ As we have seen, REED began as a group of theatre historians who wanted to know the circumstances in which medieval and early modern English drama was created and produced, but it has done much more. Over the last thirty-four years, we have been gathering and editing the external evidence that survives about how the plays were performed – who controlled them, who performed them, what they cost, what the costumes and stages were like and all sorts of other details. And much to our surprise, we have stumbled on a rich vein of evidence that helps to advance our understanding of the social and religious history of a period of profound change. The evidence is to be found in official minute books, accounts, court cases, wills, and notebooks from cities, towns, parishes, great houses (both lay and monastic), bishop’s registers and eye witness accounts.
- ItemHow Green is 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'? An Ecocritical Consideration.(The Southern African Society for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (SASMARS), 2011) Strangfeld, NancyEcocriticism, or green reading, is a new direction in literary criticism currently enjoying considerable exposure overseas. Despite a growing interest in green readings, ecocritical engagements with medieval texts have thus far been limited. In an attempt to shed some new light on medieval environmental perspectives, this paper introduces some of the central concepts of ecocritical theory and offers a fresh approach to the fourteenth century Middle English romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. In medieval literature, nature is generally an abstraction, as many medieval texts favour the undemanding conventionality of an idealised two-dimensional natural world and the corresponding conceptual control. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight seems to eschew such anonymous abstraction. Using the notion of the Gawain-poet`s dialogic imagination and the poem`s celebrated descriptions of the natural world as a fundamental premise, I suggest that the poem lends itself favourably to an ecocritical interpretation. The poem, I argue, demonstrates an awareness of nature on its own terms: through the observation and extension of descriptive convention, the poet opens dialogic spaces in the text that allow for the articulation of various responses to the presence and demands of the natural world on humankind, inviting the audience to interrogate established notions of (medieval) man`s place in the world. The text is revealed as a site of cultural contest, in which conventional dualistic medieval assumptions regarding the status of nature and culture are critically interrogated.
- ItemInteractivity and Allegory in Polytextual Motets in the Thirteenth Century.(The Southern African Society for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (SASMARS), 2011) Robles, SamuelThe use of secular elements within sacred polyphony has been widely studied as a deliberate, common practice with exegetical purposes. Allegory was frequently used in music for certain feasts which lacked explicit support from the New Testament. These insertions were sometimes overt as in the addition of a new layer of text on top of a pre-existing chant. In many instances, the use of a well known popular melody as cantus firmus would suffice to recall a certain emotion or to 'humanize' a particular feast subject, thereby making it more accessible. In the thirteenth century, the practice of motets with several added voices -- each with its own text -- flourished as part of paraliturgical contexts. I suggest that the audience of these polytextual motets consisted of active listeners who were capable of not only discerning the various layers of text, but also performing simultaneous selection from the resulting matrix of meanings. I further propose that this simultaneity can be analyzed as an exercise of interactivity as defined by Liu and Shrum.
- ItemJoseph Naci, his locotenente Francesco Coronello, and the State of the Duchy of the Archipelago (Naxos), 1566-1579(Southern African Society for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2017) Hendrickx, Benjamin; Sansaridou-Hendrickx, TheklaThis article examines the duchy of the Archipelago under Joseph Naci and Francesco Coronello, leading to the abolition of the duchy, which was created in 1204 after the occupation of Constantinople by the crusaders. The duchy, which survived the final fall of Byzantium to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, came itself to an end with the death of Joseph Naci in 1579 and its transformation into an Ottoman sancak. Nevertheless, some Byzantine and mainly medieval ‘Frankish’ institutions and titles did survive. This article studies the legal, institutional and practical implications of this process, thereby paying due attention to elements of continuity of feudal ‘Frankish’ institutions and traditions as well as to its gradual replacement with the Ottoman system. However, the new world order of the sixteenth century, which drastically changed the existing values and worldviews, had an inevitable influence on the Mediterranean lands, even on backwaters such as the Archipelago. This article shows how even Naxos could not escape these changes.
- ItemLinguistic Strategies on the Edge of Heterodoxy: Liminal Encoding in Julian of Norwich and Marguerite Porete(Southern African Society for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2019) Hassim, LeilaThis article explores commonalities between Julian of Norwich’s Revelations of Divine Love and Marguerite Porete’s The Mirror of Simple Souls by examining how the language of the two texts is employed in their descriptions of apprehending divinity. The exploration investigates some of the verbal textures of the texts to see where and how Julian’s and Marguerite’s ideas complement each other with regard to apprehending divinity, how liminality seems to play a role in progress towards apprehending divinity, and how Revelations and The Mirror might be part of a wider dialogue that transcends time, space, culture and geography.
- ItemLuther's Commentary on Paul's Galatians and its Elizabethan translation, John Bunyan's 'wounded conscience', and Arthur Dent's Plaine Mans Pathway to Heaven(Southern African Society for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2018) Titlestad, P J HLuther gave his lectures on Paul’s Galatians in 1534. They offered a rather different theology from his thunderous predestinarian refutation of Erasmus in De servo arbitrio (1525). An English translation of the Commentary on Galatians appeared in 1575, a tattered copy of which fell into the hands of John Bunyan in the 1650s, and is mentioned lovingly in his autobiography for its capacity to assuage the troubled conscience. Luther was Bunyan’s coach in his battles with Satan – his doubts about his election: the Apollyon episode in The Pilgrim’s Progress, with its flaming darts, is central to the allegory and its chief link to Luther’s Commentary. How Marxist critics avoid this raises interesting questions about literary criticism. Another issue is whether Bunyan, under the influence of Luther’s Commentary, moves away from the Calvinist scholasticism of Arthur Dent’s The Plaine Mans Pathway to Heaven (1601) and of how his own experience and his pastoral practice came to be modified. Was Bunyan “Lutheran” or Calvinist? Was Richard Greave, our chief student of his theology, on the mark? And did Bunyan undergo something similar to the ‘tower experience’ which later scholars have attributed to Luther?
- ItemMagic as Power: The Influence of Marsilio Ficino on Early Modern Conceptions of the Occult(The Southern African Society for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (SASMARS), 2007) Oseman, Arlene; Houliston, VictorGiven the immense scholarship yielded, inter alia, by theological, anthropological, cultural, linguistic and literary studies, it is now widely recognised that Renaissance magic was accepted as an eclectic, though respected, philosophical science, painstakingly considered and practised by the most eminent scholars of the time.1 Indeed, until the advent of modern European rationalism, magic and other occult practices were deemed to have a distinguished intellectual, even sacred, pedigree, and were treated as valid elements in the histories of religion, epistemology and science.2 Thus Keith Thomas can rightfully claim that ‘For much of the period . . . magical inquiry possessed some intellectual respectability. . . . Small wonder that for the populace learning still meant magic’.3
- ItemManto into Mantua: Dante's Corrections of Vergil(Southern African Society for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2019) Beek, A. EverettManto in the Inferno is a locus classicus of authorial correction. As a prophetess and the eponym of Mantua, Dante’s Manto is drawn principally from Vergil’s Aeneid. Dante’s character Vergil, however, rewrites the Aeneid story by excising Manto from Mantua’s community. This transformation is prompted by Vergil’s complex reputation in medieval Europe. Throughout the middle ages, Vergil, like Manto, was associated with occult knowledge, which both advanced and hindered his role in the Commedia. Dante thus uses authorial correction to distance Vergil from Manto and her occult associations, and as a result, Dante’s Manto more closely resembles the Aeneid’s Circe: Dante’s Manto and Vergil’s Circe are both conceptualized as a looming threat that could destroy the hero’s endeavour.