Medievalbookshop — AGH0039 Biller, Measure of Multitude

Bargain books on the Middle Ages and all related subjects

See also | Science & technology | Economic history |
Secondhand book for sale
Scanned image of the book’s front cover

Peter Biller.
The Measure of Multitude: Population in Medieval Thought.
Publisher: Oxford U.P., corrected edn. 2003 (previously issued in hardback, 2000).
ISBN 0199265593;
ISBN-13: 9780199265596.
Binding: paperback, perfect bound.
Printed in the UK by Biddles Ltd.
Size: 156×232×24mm.
Page count: xix,476pp.
Main language: English.
Overall condition fair: this copy is unused, but with some warehouse damage: in particular, the top of the book has been bashed so that there is a scar to the top edge of the pages, and the top corners are somewhat crumpled in the middle of the book, most noticeably around pages 200 to 242 or so.

This item £10.00
P&P inc. within the UK
(delivery outside the UK not currently available)

[Publisher’s price £34.00]
Weight without packaging: 756g.

How to order this book

Peter Biller’s innovative study challenges the view that medieval thought was fundamentally abstract. He shows how, by 1300, medieval men and women were beginning to measure multitude, counting, for example, numbers of boys and girls being baptized. Their mental capacity to grapple with population, to get its measure, was developing, and the author describes how medieval people thought about population through both the texts which contained their thought and the medieval realities which shaped it. He asserts that they found many topics — such as the history of population and variations between polygamy, monogamy and virginity — through theology, and that crusade and travel literature supplied the themes of Muslim polygamy, military numbers, the colonization of the Holy Land, and the populations of Mongolia and China. Translations of Aristotle provided not only new themes but also a new vocabulary with which to think about population.

The Measure of Multitude sets academic discussions of population alongside the medieval facts of “birth, and copulation, and death” to provide a challenging new approach to the study of medieval demographic thought.

Readership: Scholars and students of society and intellectual thought in medieval Europe.

Contents:
1. Introduction to medieval demographic thought
Part 1: The Church and generation
2. Marriage and the Church’s texts
3. William of Auvergne
4. An equal or unequal number of men and women
5. The precept of marriage and sufficient multiplication
6. Avoidance of offspring (i): the general picture
7. Avoidance of offspring (ii): Canon law and Sentences commentaries
8. Avoidance of offspring (iii): the pastoral picture
Part 2: The Map of the World
9. Inhabitation of the world
Part 3: Aristotle and Multitude
10. Animals and the life-span
11. The Politics (i): reception
12. The Politics (ii): age at marriage
13. The Politics (iii): multitude
The Light of the Common Day
14. The Bulging circuit of Florence
Epigraph: The Climate of Thought
Bibliography
Index of Manuscripts
General Index.

Bookmark and Share
(please note, this page & image will be deleted when the book is sold)

See the “book descriptions” page for explanations of the criteria used in this listing.

Back to previous page

Return to the used books shopfront

Use these scrollbars to navigate the attic…

You need javascript switched on for these scrollbars to work. If you can't see see them, there's a full set of links below.

Primary sources | anthologies | anononymous | facsimile | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

Secondary sources | journals & partworks | author unknown | exhibition guides & ephemera | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | Mc | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

Browse by subject | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

Reference books | Reference index | general reference | bibliographies | biographical dictionaries | catalogues: auctions | catalogues: exhibitions | catalogues: museums & collections | chronology & dating | genealogy & heraldry | guides & gazetteers | lexical: concordances, dictionaries, glossaries | maps & atlases | medievalism | name & place-name studies | pass notes & study guides | numismatics

Medievalism | main page | general non-fiction | reference books | biography & autobiography | travelogues | arcana | folklore | arts and crafts | kid's books | fiction | poetry | drama | humour

Other stuff | browse by publisher | browse by series | browse by language | gift books | kids' stuff | incomplete sets | shop returns | signed copies | unused bargains | useful non-medieval | new books (with Amazon links)