Table of Contents -- Introduction: Friendship-The Quest for a Human Ideal and Value: From Antiquity to the Early Modern Time -- A. Early Modern Perspectives -- B. Friendship in Antiquity -- C. Marcus Tullius Cicero -- D. Friendship in Late Antiquity: Bishop (Saint) Augustine -- E. Friendship from the Early Middle Ages to the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries -- F. Friendship in Twelfth-Century English Monastic Circles: The Case of Aelred of Rievaulx -- G. Theological Approaches to Friendship: Thomas Aquinas -- H. A Variety of Voices: Old and New. Retrospectives and Innovative Perspectives on Friendship -- I. Friendship and Women: Still a Somewhat Unchartered Territory -- J. The Homosocial vs. the Homoerotic -- K. Friendship at the Courts -- L. Friendship between People and Animals: Interconnectedness of Culture and Nature -- M. Vernacular Medieval Spanish Commentators -- N. Friendship in the Italian World of Intellectuals: The Case of Brunetto Latini -- O. Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarch, as Proponents of the Ideal of Friendship: Voices from the Early Italian Renaissance -- P. Religious Friendship in the Late Middle Ages: Thomas à Kempis -- Q. Friendship in Late-Medieval German Literature: Sebastian Brant: A Last Hurrah for a Traditional Ethical Ideal? -- R. Friendship in Late-Medieval and Early-Modern Literature: A Variety of Vernacular Voices -- S. Women as Friends in the Middle Ages and Beyond: Still a Thorny Issue -- T. Women and Friendship (By Marilyn Sandidge) -- U. Early Modern Friendships: Additional Perspectives (By Marilyn Sandidge) -- V. The Opinion of the Encyclopedists: At the Threshold of Modernity -- W. Some Concluding Remarks -- X. Summaries of the Contributions to This Volume.

Y. The Decline of the Friendship Ideal? The Transformation of a Trope. Some Final Reflections -- Z. Some Dedicatory Words in the Spirit of Friendship -- Chapter 1 Friendship of Mutual Perfecting in Augustine's Confessions and the Failure of Classical amicitia -- Chapter 2 The Gift of Friendship: Beneficial and Poisonous: Friendships in the Byzantine Greek Passion of Sergius and Bacchus -- Chapter 3 Where Textual Bodies Meet: Anglo-Saxon Women's Epistolary Friendships -- Chapter 4 Sapienter amare poterimus: On Rhetoric and Friendship in the Letters of Heloise and Abelard -- Chapter 5 Peter the Venerable and Secular Friendship -- Chapter 6 Mysterious Friends in the Prayers and Letters of Anselm of Canterbury -- Chapter 7 Monastic Friendship in Theory and in Action in the Twelfth Century -- Chapter 8 Ideological Friendship In The Middle Ages: Bonizo of Sutri and His Liber Ad Amicum -- Chapter 9 Friendship in the Heroic Epic: Ruedegêr in the Nibelungenlied -- Chapter 10 Spiritual Friendship in the Works of Alfonso X of Castile: Images of Interaction Between the Sacred and Spiritual Worlds of Thirteenth-Century -- Chapter 11 The Spiritual Friendship of Henry Suso and Elsbeth Stagel -- Chapter 12 Engendering Obligation: Sworn Brotherhood and Love Rivalry in Medieval English Romance -- Chapter 13 Schotland Talking Bird and Gentle Heart: Female Homosocial Bonding in Chaucer's "Squire's Tale" -- Chapter 14 Sovereign Fathers and Sovereign Friends in Hamlet and Michel de Montaigne's "Of Friendship" -- Chapter 15 Die zwei Freunde des Leonardo da Vinci: Eine kunsthistorische Fallstudie (with an English abstract).

Chapter 16 Friendship and Good Counsel: The Discourses of Friendship and Parrhesia in Francis Bacon's The Essayes or Counsels, Civill and Morall -- Chapter 17 Painted Friends: Political Interests and the Transformation of International Learned Sociability -- Chapter 18 "If I must example bee": Donne's Petrarchan Heart as Speculum Amicitiae -- Chapter 19 George Herbert's Friendship with Christ in The Temple (1633) -- Chapter 20 Friendship and Enmity to God and Nation: The Complexities of Jewish-Gentile Relations in the Whitehall Conference of 1655 -- Illustrations -- Contributors -- Index: Persons, Subjects, Titles, Concepts.