The Middle Ages are often thought of as an era during which cruelty was a major aspect of life, a view that stems from the anti-Catholic polemics of the Reformation. Daniel Baraz makes the striking discovery that the concept of cruelty, which had been an important issue in late antiquity, received little attention in the medieval period before the thirteenth century. From that point on, interest in cruelty increased until it reached a peak late in the sixteenth century.Medieval Cruelty's extraordinary scope ranges from the writings of Seneca to those of Montaigne and draws from sources that include the views of Western Christians, Eastern Christians, and Muslims. Baraz examines the development of the concept of cruelty in legal texts, philosophical treatises, and other works that attempt to discuss the nature of cruelty. He then considers histories, martyrdom accounts, and literary works in which cruelty is represented rather than discussed directly. In the wake of the intellectual transformations of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, an increasing focus on the intentions motivating an individual's acts rekindled the discussion of cruelty. Baraz shows how ethical thought and practice about cruelty, which initially focused on external forces, became a tool to differentiate internal groups and justify violence against them. This process is evident in attacks on the Jews, in the peasant rebellions of the later Middle Ages, and in the Wars of Religion.

In this second volume of Professor White's studies, the emphasis shifts to Italian art in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and the major figures who were responsible for the decisive changes in painting and sculpture that were to lead on to the Renaissance. Here again, however, there is the same concern with the actual monuments. The author devotes two major studies to the reconstruction of the "original appearance of Duccio's Maesta and of Nicola Pisano's Perugia Fountain. An important new study of the physical evidence for Cimabue's work at Assisi shows the value of an understanding of the working processes involved there. This conviction that the starting point in a thorough investigation into the original appearance or development of any work of art lies in the observation of the physical evidence is central to Professor White's approach, whether this may be the arrangement of panels on a polyptych, or the scrutiny of giornate on a painted ceiling.

The spirituality of St. Dominic and his early followers was a force in 13th-century Europe. Here is a selection of works that represent the simplicity, ruggedness and clarity of the Dominicans' biblically-based, Christ-centered spirituality.

In his new book, leading medievalist A. C. Spearing provides the only study of the many scenes of secret watching and listening in medieval love-stories, and of the way that the central importance of these scenes encourages both the poets and their readers to imagine themselves as voyeurs in relation to what they read.