Lively and deeply productive discussions have focused on the topics of "magnificence" and "the sublime" in the art and literature of antiquity, the Renaissance, and the ages following. They have engaged major figures from Ernst Gombrich to Theodore Adorno to Jean-Francois Lyotard. Yet, these discussions have virtually bypassed the Middle Ages. The essays in "Magnificence and the Sublime in Medieval Aesthetics" reclaim a position for the medieval period in the theoretical discussion of art, architecture, music, and literature. These analyses of an aesthetic of grandeur show an artistic practice in the Middle Ages that strove for and celebrated grand effects.