Medieval Forms of Argument: Disputation and Debate

Especially in the high and late Middle Ages the academic disputation gradually moved from the isolation of the universities and toward extracurricular forms of debate between theologians (such as, the public quaestiones disputatae, or the epistolary theological debates between Christians and Muslims) and in literary genres (such as, the querelle, a form of debate poem). By confronting sample investigations from all these related forms of medieval argument, the volume examines the ways in which disputational forms -- sometimes directly dependant on academic practices, sometimes showing organizational, structural, and discursive parallels -- established themselves as a central mode of thinking for Western society. To achieve this goal, the volume unites contributions from the English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian traditions of the disputational mode and discusses central issues of academic, political, theological, courtly, and literary debates. Book jacket.