82 NOTES AND QUERIES
J. A. Burrow and Ian P. Wei (eds), Medieval
Futures: Attitudes to the Future in the
Middle Ages. Pp. xiv + 188. Woodbridge,
Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2000. £45.00 (ISBN
0 85115 779 3).
THE topic discussed in this book by nine
contributors is well put in the Introduction :
`Most work on medieval attitudes to the future
has concerned the eschatological, the millenial
and the prophetic. . . . It takes but a moment's
reflection, however, to realize that this was
only part of the way in which medieval people
approached the future: in much more mundane
ways they tried to predict, plan and provide for
their futures.' The book is divided into three
sections. `Thinking about the future' includes
discussions of how the future was coped with
by moral theologians, in charters and contracts
and of the role of prudence. John Burrow
argues that in the age of Chaucer prudence
and foresight represented a `rich and living
complex of moral ideas' which we have largely
discarded. `Prophesying Futures' has an essay
on Dante's invention of a new future for poetry
and another on the political prophecies which
were attributed to Thomas Becket. In the four-
teenth and fifteenth centuries these prophecies
were associated with the process of legitimizing
royal authority but by the sixteenth century the
image of Becket had changed into that of an
opponent of the crown. Political prophecy, as
Phyllis B. Roberts writes, was not lightly dis-
missed; what the future was to be was often the
servant of the past and of what the past told to
the present. `Providing for Futures' contains a
chapter on how the nobility in eleventh- and
twelfth-century France strove for successful
futures for themselves and also a chapter on
how French kings in the early fourteenth cen-
tury tried to secure lasting prosperity for their
queens and servants. The book does not end
with a set of conclusions; the contributors
speak for themselves and remain independent.
None the less, some points stand out and are
highlighted in the Introduction by Ian Wei.
For some people, the builders of castles, for
instance, the future was a matter of power.
Others surrendered their futures to chance and
gambled. Signs, wonders, and dreams were
means of predicting the future. An interpreta-
tion of the past or a theological view of history
March 2003
might be used to shape the future. The future
could be known in different kinds of ways ±
through prophecy or through natural science.
There are different kinds of futures ± personal,
indefinite, immortal. Different social groups
had different conceptions of the future. The
extent to which people thought that they,
rather than God, could determine or know
the future raised religious questions. Supersti-
tious knowledge had been condemned by St
Augustine but it proliferated. All the essays are
absorbing to read; each is thorough and sub-
stantial and they are a reminder that volumes
which start life at a colloquium can be as rich
as, indeed richer than, a good monograph,
particularly when a judicious mixture of differ-
ent kinds of expertise is required. This is a
fascinating volume which is also handsome in
appearance. It could be followed by others on
the same theme. This reviewer found his mind
turning to the topics of town planning, missions,
and colonization, to the philosophical debates
over the Aristotelian idea of happiness, and to
such figures as Joan of Arc and Catherine of
Siena ± for example.
David Luscombe
University of Sheffield
Peter J. Lucas (ed.), Franciscus Junius, Cñd-
monis Monachi Paraphrasis Poetica Genesios
ac praecipuarum Sacrñ Paginae Historiarum,
abhinc annos M.LXX. Anglo-SaxoniceÁ con-
scripta, & nunc primum edita. Pp. xlix + 137
(Early Studies in Germanic Philology 3).
Amsterdam and Atlanta, GA: Rodopi,
2000. Paperbound $37.00 (ISBN 90 420
0343 X).
LONGER ago than wholly pleasing to ponder,
I was a student at the University of Notre
Dame writing a doctoral dissertation on MS
Junius 11, during the course of which I needed
to know something of Junius's rare 1655 edi-
tion. I well recall the interlibrary loan
librarian's writing on the card to be sent to
Harvard requesting the photocopy of select
pages, `You are one of only two holders.'
(The other holder in the USA, according to
the NUC Pre-1956 Imprints, was Princeton.)
Thanks to Peter J. Lucas, no scholar need ever
again be balked by the unavailability of
Junius's pioneering Paraphrasis Poetica.