by Dr Antonella Liuzzo Scorpo (History, University of Lincoln)
A historical Xerte object designed to introduce students to the topic of friendship in the middle ages. It also functions as an example for students of how some of the page types and templates can be used for a historical topic.
[The original of this Xerte object is available here]
Of course! This is something which I also discussed in more details in my forthcoming book Frienship in Medieval Iberia.
Extract from that:
“According to Cicero (c. 106–43 BC), who managed to synthesize the previous Aristotelian and Stoic conclusions on the subject, friendship was simultaneously a personal, universal and natural link. He argued that men retained a natural sociability and therefore, the human search for amity was not generated by need or desire, but rather by the natural essence that pushed individuals to join those with whom they felt an affinity in terms of virtues. To Cicero a friend continued to be ‘another self’ on an ontological level and their amity was revered as an everlasting chain, overcoming even death.”
Needless to say that some of those ideas, re-shaped through a well-defined Christian perspective, were adopted and adapted to suit different European contexts.
A.
What about the concept of friendship of Cicero in “De amicitia”, did it ever inform later thinking in the Middle Ages?
Hi Jamie
The video is set to private in the Xerte is set to private 🙁 Can this be changed?
Sue