"I cannot emphasize enough the importance of this work; it is by far the best thing ever done on the subject, totally superseding all previous work on all aspects of this important author's work . a major contribution to medieval scholarship in a variety of areas."--Norman Roth, University of Wisconsin Petrus Alfonsi was an important and unusual figure in the "twelfth-century renaissance" whose interests embraced polemical theology, astronomy, and literature, each an area in which he#xA0; made important contributions to the development of medieval thought.#xA0; Perhaps this diversity of interests is what has robbed Alfonsi of his due in modern scholarship, for he has fallen through the cracks, between various academic disciplines; he has received less acclaim among modern medievalists than he had among medieval writers. #xA0;In this first book-length treatment of Alfonsi, Tolan#xA0; presents a thorough introduction to Alfonsi's thought and its importance to the Middle Ages. #xA0;#xA0; A Spanish Jew who converted to Christianity, Alfonsi immigrated to England and later to France, wrote a polemic against Judaism and Islam, and translated moral fables and astronomical works from Arabic into Latin.#xA0; The author shows that he was an important early transmitter of Arabic and Hebrew learning to the Latin north and greatly influenced later medieval thinkers. #xA0;Drawing from his analysis of nearly 170 manuscripts containing Alfonsi's works, along with the works of later authors who turned to Alfonsi as a source, Tolan uncovers much about who used Alfonsi's works and to what ends his works were put.

#xA0; He finds, for example, that Alfonsi's Disciplina clericalisprovided a mine of materials not only for thirteenth-century preachers but also for Boccaccio and Chaucer, and that arguments from his Dialogis contra Iudaeoswere taken up by Christian polemicists from Peter the Venerable to Alonso de Espina. #xA0;.