620 Renard the Fox
Press, 1982); Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilization of the
Renaissance in Italy,2 vols., trans. S. G. C. Middlemore,
introduction by Benjamin Nelson and Charles Trinkaus
(New York: Harper, 1958); Peter Burke, The Renaissance,
2d ed. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997); Charles Bur-
nett and Anna Contadini, eds., Islam and the Italian
Renaissance(London: The Warburg Institute, University
of London, 1999); Deno Geanakoplos, Byzantine East and
Latin West: Two Worlds of Christendom in Middle Ages and
Renaissance(New York: Barnes & Noble, 1966); Charles
Homer Haskins, The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century
(1927; reprint, New York: Meridian, 1957).
Renard the Fox See BEAST EPICS OR FABLES; FABLES
AND FABLIAUX OR COMIC TALES.
representative assemblies and institutions Medieval
representatives assemblies first appeared in the late 12th
and 13th centuries and spread throughout Western Chris-
tendom in the 14th and 15th centuries. They were most
common in towns and cities. Their members were in theory
chosen to represent the people but usually actually repre-
sented the interests of the small ruling elite who elected
them. At the same time regional or countrywide representa-
tive bodies composed initially of the feudal nobility, were
established for communication with a king or prince and
addressing subjects such as policy and taxation. In the 13th
century, these feudal assemblies were enlarged to accept cit-
izens who were elected to represent their towns, especially
in fiscal matters. Elected representatives of the clergy and
the knights then sat alongside prelates and barons, so that
now the representative assemblies featured the three estates
of society, the clergy, the nobility, and the middle class. In
ENGLANDthe word Parliamentfirst appeared in 1236; in
FRANCE the word Parlement, first used in 1250, was
reserved for courts of justice. The HOLYROMANEMPIRE
continued to use the term Diet.
Assemblies appeared earliest in southern Europe, for
instance, in PROVENCE in the late 12th century and
shortly thereafter in LEÓNand CASTILE. They spread
throughout England and France in the 13th century and
the Holy Roman Empire in the 14th century; but they did
not gain real influence until the second half of the 14th
century, when wars required extensive taxation. It was
then also that they called and met more frequently and
acquired the power to deal with princes.
These representative assemblies appealed to certain
concepts and principles derived from Roman LAW and
canon law, especially the principle that what concerns all
must be approved by all, a basis for taxation by consent.
The principle of the greater and wiser part of the members
assembled evolved to the practice of discerning the
majority by counting voices. The idea that another could
represent one evolved to the idea that these representatives
received a mandate from their electors to act in their name.
The decline of representative assemblies coincided
with the end of CONCILIARISMin the mid-15th century.
By then WARFAREwas less frequent and monarchs had
other resources that established regular systems of taxa-
tion and income that did not require the constant
approval of subjects.
See also CORTES; CONCILIARISM AND CONCILIAR
THEORY; PARLEMENT OF PARIS OR FRANCE; TAXATION,
TAXES, AND TRIBUTE.
Further reading:Thomas N. Bisson, Medieval Repre-
sentative Institutions, Their Origins and Nature(Hinsdale,
Ill.: Dryden Press, 1973); Bertie Wilkinson, The Creation
of Medieval Parliaments(New York: Wiley, 1972).Responsum literature, Jewish See GERSHOM BEN
JUDAH;JACOB BENMEIR;JEWS ANDJUDAISM;MAIMONIDES,
MOSES;TALMUD.Resurrection, Christian SeeAPOCALYPSE AND APOCA-
LYPTIC LITERATURE; LAST JUDGMENT; REDEMPTION.resurrection, Islamic(Bath) In pre-Islamic Arabia,
there was a belief that the SOULSof the dead lived on in
some shadowy way, but there was no concept of resurrec-
tion of the body. The QURANsuggested that there would
be a resurrection of both the body and the soul, but in
the Middle Ages, some Muslims believed only in the res-
urrection of the soul. The Quran described the day of res-
urrection, Yawm al-Qiyamor Yawm al-Din,with details
about its cataclysmic terrors and judgments. One had to
account for the way one had led his or her life.
See alsoHEAVEN; LASTJUDGMENT.
Further reading: al-Ghazali, The Remembrance of
Death and the Afterlife,trans. T. J. Winter (1989; reprint,
Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 1995); Jane I. Smith
and Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, The Islamic Understanding
of Death and Resurrection (Albany: State University of
New York Press, 1981).Reynard the Fox SeeBEAST EPICS OR FABLES; FABLES
AND FABLIAUX OR COMIC TALES.Rheims and Rheims Cathedral (Reims) Rheims was
initially the capital of the ancient Gallo-Roman province
of Belgica Secunda. It had a bishop by the mid-third cen-
tury. CLOVISwas baptized there on Christmas 498/499, the
founding of a Christian kingdom. Its saintly Bishop
Remigius (ca. 438–ca. 533) became one of the patrons of
FRANCE. His successors claimed the privilege of consecrat-
ing the kings of France and conferring magic powers
to cure kings’ diseases. Its cathedral of Notre Dame
became one of the best examples of 13th-century GOTHIC
architecture with its façade decorated with a gallery of the