These studies respond to the challenge posed twenty years ago by John E. Murdoch, in whose honor they have been assembled: to interpret ancient and medieval mathematical and scientific texts not just as isolated intellectual productions but as responses to particular settings or contexts.
Two broad settings are explored here: that of the wider intellectual culture, where relations among mathematics, astronomy, natural philosophy - and also theology, logic and astrology - are shown to have shaped individual texts; and the context of lay society, where institutional structures, patronage, even personal relationships impinged upon scientific writing.
The volume reinforces the growing recognition that ancient and medieval scientific texts "made a difference" to their authors and audiences and must be understood in relation to topics like disciplinary identity, career advancement, lay interest, and practical applicability.

Edith Sylla is Professor of History at North Carolina State University. She is currently working on Jacob Bernoulli's Ars Coniectandi and on alternative perspectives on the Scientific Revolution, particularly that of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.
Michael R. McVaugh, Ph.D. (1965) in History (Princeton University) is Wiliam Smith Wells Professor of History at the University of North Carolina. He has published extensively on late medieval medicine, including Medicine Before the Plague (Cambridge, 1993).