Fruits of the most recent research on the worlds of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. This volume of the Haskins Society Journal furthers the Society's commitment to historical and interdisciplinary research on the early and central Middle Ages, focusing on the Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, and Angevin worlds.The topics of the essays range from the complexities of landholding and service in England after the Norman Conquest and the place of Portugal in the legal renaissance of the twelfth century, to the purpose and audiences of copiesof Anglo-Saxon charters produced by the late medieval community at Bury St Edmunds. There is an investigation of the hitherto overlooked narrative role of material objects in Orderic Vitalis'History, continuing the Journal's investigation of source-specific analyses, together with an exploration of the date and reliability of an important, but neglected, witness to the Norman conquest of Sicily. Other essays look at the longue duree of the ascetic practice of self-flagellation and its emergence in eleventh-century Italy; the place and meaning of religious practices in crusading, using the De expugnatione Lyxbonensi as laboratory; and aural and visual experience in the life and musical opus of Godric of Finchale. Contributors: Howard B. Clarke, Sarah Foot, John Howe, Monika Otter, Daniel Roach, Charles D. Stanton, Susanna A. Throop, Andre Vitoria.

Never before have the women of the Capetian royal dynasty in France been the subject of a study in their own right. The new research in Capetian Women challenges old paradigms about the restricted roles of royal women, uncovering their influence in social, religious, cultural, and even political spheres. The scholars in the volume consider medieval chroniclers' responses to the independent actions of royal women as well as modern historians' use of them as vehicles for constructing the past. The essays also delineate the creation of reginal identity through cultural practices such as religious patronage and the commissioning of manuscripts, tomb sculpture, and personal seals.

This lively narrative, written by a monk, relates the history of the abbey of Saffron Walden from its foundation around 1136 to the year 1203. Its characters include the English kings, the earls of Essex, and other local landowners, large and small, as well as the monks and other ecclesiastics. Its interest extends far beyond the local: the editors' introduction and notes establish the chronicle's position as a valuable historical source.

Nest of Deheubarth was one of the most notorious women of the Middle Ages, mistress of Henry I and many other men, famously beautiful and strong-willed, object of one of the most notorious abduction/elopements of the period and ancestress of one of the most famous dynasties in medieval Ireland, the Fitzgeralds. This volume sheds light on women, gender, imperialism and conquest in the Middle Ages. From it emerges a picture of a woman who, though remarkable, was not exceptional, representative not of a group of victims or pawns in the dramatic transformations of the high Middle Ages but powerful and decisive actors. The book examines beauty, love, sex and marriage and the interconnecting identities of Nest as wife/concubine/mistress, both at the time and in the centuries since her death, when for Welsh writers and other commentators she has proved a powerful symbol. -- .

This volume comprises nine articles on Islamic astronomy published since 1989 by Benno van Dalen. Van Dalen was the first historian of Islamic astronomy who made full use of the new possibilities of computers in the early 1990s. He implemented various statistical and numerical methods that can be used to determine the mathematical properties of medieval astronomical tables, and utilized these to obtain entirely new, until then unattainable historical results concerning the interdependence of individual tables and hence of entire astronomical works. His programmes for analysing tables, making sexagesimal calculations and converting calendar dates continue to be widely used. The five articles in the first part of this collection explain the principles of a range of statistical methods for determining unknown parameter values underlying astronomical tables and present extensive step-by-step examples for their use. The four articles in the second part provide extensive studies of materials in unpublished primary sources on Islamic astronomy that heavily depend on these methods. The volume is completed with a detailed index.

Medieval queens led richly complex lives and were highly visible women active in a man's world. Linked to kings by marriage, family, and property, queens were vital to the institution of monarchy.
In this comprehensive and accessible introduction to the study of queenship, Theresa Earenfight documents the lives and works of queens and empresses across Europe, Byzantium, and the Mediterranean in the Middle Ages. The book:
* introduces pivotal research and sources in queenship studies, and includes exciting and innovative new archival research
* highlights four crucial moments across the full span of the Middle Ages - ca. 300, 700, 1100, and 1350 - when Christianity, education, lineage, and marriage law fundamentally altered the practice of queenship
* examines theories and practices of queenship in the context of wider issues of gender, authority, and power.
This is an invaluable and illuminating text for students, scholars and other readers interested in the role of royal women in medieval society.

This volume offers the first comprehensive account of the monetary logic that guided the payment of wergild and blood money in early medieval conflict resolution. In the early middle ages, wergild played multiple roles: it was used to measure a person's status, to prevent and end conflicts, and to negotiate between an individual and the agents of statehood. This collection of interlocking essays by historians, philologists and jurists represents a major contribution to the study of law and society in Western Europe during the early Middle Ages. Contributors are Lukas Bothe, Warren Brown, Stefan Esders, Wolfgang Haubrichs, Paul Hyams, Tom Lambert, Ralph W. Mathisen, Rob Meens, Han Nijdam, Lisi Oliver, Harald Siems, Karl Ubl, and Helle Vogt. See inside the book.

Manmade marvels of the later medieval courts--animated golden birds, mechanical angels, and other fantastic machines--were not merely amusing distractions, but also agents of social negotiation and political import. In "Manmade Marvels," the dancing metal peacocks, animated statuary, and spectacular illusions of the romance tradition are disembedded from traditional literary representation as supernatural fictions, and situated in the political culture where mechanical marvels were fashioned to delight courts, garner prestige, and symbolize power. This book provides a synthesis of court politics and technological history, intellectual traditions, and the practices of everyday life. Lightsey restores these marvels to the cultural roles they played as they were created by craftsmen and consumed by elite culture, invigorating our understanding of the role of craft in embellishing noble lives with the marvelous.

The Cathars and the Albigensian Crusade brings together a rich and diverse range of medieval sources to examine key aspects of the growth of heresy and dissent in southern France in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and the Church's response to that threat through the subsequent authorisation of the Albigensian crusade. Aimed at students and scholars alike, the documents it discusses - papal letters, troubadour songs, contemporary chronicles in Latin and the vernacular, and inquisitorial documents - reflect a deeper perception of medieval heresy and the social, political and religious implications of crusading than has hitherto been possible. The reader is introduced to themes which are crucial to our understanding of the medieval world: ideologies of crusading and holy war, the complex nature of Catharism, the Church's implementation of diverse strategies to counter heresy, the growth of papal inquisition, southern French counter-strategies of resistance and rebellion, and the uses of Latin and the vernacular to express regional and cultural identity. This timely and highly original collection not only brings together previously unexplored and in some cases unedited material, but provides a nuanced and multi-layered view of the religious, social and political dimensions of one of the most infamous conflicts of the High Middle Ages. This book is a valuable resource for all students, teachers and researchers of medieval history and the crusades.

This original and authoritative text reveals how chivalry was part of the problem of violence in medieval Europe, not merely it's solution. If one ideal was to internalize restraint in knights, chivalry also worshipped hands-on violence, as a close reading of chivalric literature shows. In a developing society, chivalric ideals and practices were both praised and feared by those who sought its reform.

The Medieval Church: A Brief History argues for the pervasiveness of the Church in every aspect of life in medieval Europe. It shows how the institution of the Church attempted to control the lives and behaviour of medieval people, for example, through canon law, while at the same time being influenced by popular movements like the friars and heresy. This fully updated and illustrated second edition offers a new introductory chapter on 'the Basics of Christianity,' for students who might be unfamiliar with this territory. The book now has new material on some of the key individuals in church history: Benedict of Nursia, Hildegard of Bingen, Bernard of Clairvaux and Francis of Assisi as well as a more comprehensive study throughout of the role of women in the medieval church. Lynch and Adamo seek to explain the history of the Church as an institution, and to explore its all-pervasive role in medieval life. In the course of the thousand years covered in this book, we see the members and leaders of the Western Church struggle with questions that are still relevant today: What is the nature of God? How does a church keep beliefs from becoming diluted in a diverse society? What role should the state play in religion? The book is now accompanied by a website with textual, visual, and musical primary sources making it a fantastic resource for students of medieval history.

Bede the Scholar distils a decade of research by leading scholars on the Northumbrian monk, the Venerable Bede (c. 673-735). Considering Bede's place within the wider intellectual developments of the early medieval world, the book demonstrates the centrality of the Bible to his scholarship. The book breaks new ground for our understanding of its subject's self-image through investigation of the famous Ecclesiastical history of the English people, alongside lesser-known works such as the Martyrology, the commentary On Genesis, and the scriptural chapter headings he contributed anonymously to the Vulgate Bible.This volume is an essential contribution which deepens our understanding of the scholarly programme undertaken by one of the most important intellectual figures of the early middle ages. The chapters celebrate the depth and complexity of Bede's writings, whilst demonstrating their overall coherence and clarity. -- .

Saint Christina the Astonishing was born into a poor Belgian family in 1150. She 'died' aged 22 but at her requiem she rose from her coffin and flew away like a bird, wanting to escape the smell of sinful humanity. This was the first of many mad, disobedient exploits in her long and remarkable life. Jane Draycott and Lesley Saunders retell - through their own poems as well as brief extracts from medieval religious writers - Christina's story as a woman's search for selfhood. The book includes artworks from Peter Hay, which he created for the original edition in direct response to the poetry. First published in 1998 and long out of print, this new edition makes Jane Draycott and Lesley Saunders' sensual and exhilarating poetic collaboration available once more. 'Ascetic and excessive, exasperating, sometimes absurd, the life of the little-known St Christina provokes fantasies and questions. Was she a wonder worker? Or an anorexic, fuelled by hatred of the flesh? Or a powerful woman whose legendary flights set her free from her time and her place? Rather than offering pieties or diagnoses, Lesley Saunders and Jane Draycott, invite us to a feast of soul food. Their two distinctive voices meet the voices of the Middle Ages in an extraordinary blend of the sacred and the profane, the rapt and the irreverent, playful, sensual and deeply felt.' Philip Gross 'Poetry as exciting as this is rare: fusing an earthy sensuality with the spiritual, it lets us hear Christina's voice ringing clearly from the rafters.' Robyn Bolam

"Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People" was completed in 731 AD and still ranks among the most popular of history books. By the end of the 8th century, copies of it were to be found in many parts of England and on the Continent, some of which are still extant. If it were not for Bede's work, little would be known about the Anglo-Saxon invasion and the beginnings of Christianity in England, and such familiar names as Edwin and Oswald, Cuthbert and Chad, Hilda and Caedmon would be almost forgotten. This corrected reissue of the work makes use for the first time of a mid-8th-century manuscript discovered in Leningrad, provides a survey of the extant manuscripts and a new translation. It also attempts to bring up to date Plummer's edition of the work, published 80 years ago. It has been corrected to take into account J.M. Wallace-Hadrill's "Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People: A Historical Commentary" and to enable the reader to use the two in conjunction.

This book brings together challenging new essays from some of the leaders in Italian scholarship in three countries, to show the range of work that is currently being done not only on Florence but also on Naples, Ferrara and Lucca and on the relationship between cities and countryside.

Winner of the 2018 Josef IJsewijn Prize for Best Book on a Neo-Latin Topic Although many humanists, from Petrarch to Fulvio Orsini, had written briefly about library history, the De bibliothecis of Justus Lipsius was the first self-contained monograph on the topic. The De bibliothecis proved to be a seminal achievement, both in redefining the scope of library history and in articulating a vision of a public, secular, research institution for the humanities. It was repeatedly reprinted and translated, plagiarized and epitomized. Through the end of the nineteenth century, scholars turned to it as the ultimate foundation for any discussion of library history. In Ancient Libraries and Renaissance Humanism, Hendrickson presents a critical edition of Lipsius's work with introductory studies, a Latin text, English translation, and a substantial historical commentary.

Articles showcasing the fruits of the most recent scholarship in the field of fourteenth-century studies. The wide-ranging studies collected here reflect the latest concerns of and trends in fourteenth-century research, including work on politics, the law, religion, and chronicle writing. The lively (and controversial) debate around the death of Edward II, and the brief but eventful career of John of Eltham, earl of Cornwall, receive detailed treatment, as does the theory and implementation of both the law of treason in England and high status execution in Ireland. There is an investigation of the often overlooked, yet ever present, lesser parish clergy of pre-Black Death England, along with the notable connections between Roman remains and craft guild piety in fourteenth-century York.There are also chapters shedding new light on fourteenth-century chronicles: one examines the St Albans chronicle through the prism of chivalric culture, another analyses the importance of the Chester Annals of 1385-8 in the writing culture of the Midlands. Introduced with this volume is a new section on "Notes and Documents"; re-examined here is an often-cited letter from the reign of Richard II and the problematic, yet crucial, issue of its authorship and dating. James Bothwell is Lecturer in Later Medieval History at the University of Leicester; Gwilym Dodd is Associate Professor of Medieval History at the University of Nottingham Contributors: Paul Dryburgh, Aine Foley, Christopher Guyol, Andy King, Jessica Knowles, E. Amanda McVitty, D.A.L. Morgan, Philip Morgan, David Robinson.

Annie Abram was born in London in 1869 and died in Sussex in 1930. She contributed significantly to the twentieth-century historiography of late medieval England, researching the social, cultural and religious mores of the English laity and clergy. First published in 1909, this title explores the impact of economic changes on society during the fifteenth century. This was a period of important developments both socially and economically, which witnessed the rise of the middle class through industrialisation, agrarian change, and the growing economic and commercial character of towns. The chapters discuss these areas, as well as the industrial position of women and children, the economic position of the Church and the development of a national character. This is a fascinating classic work, which will be of great value to students researching the socio-economic history of late medieval England.

Annie Abram was born in London in 1869 and died in Sussex in 1930. As an historian, she contributed significantly to the twentieth-century historiography of late medieval England, researching the social, cultural and religious mores of the English laity and clergy. This title, first published in 1919, comprehensively explores the fabrics of late medieval society using evidence drawn from historical and literary works, official documents and illustrated manuscripts. Largely concentrating on the years between the start of the Black Death in 1348 and the end of the fifteenth century, a period in which we see important developments in the character and organisation of medieval England, chapters discuss the make-up of social order, life in a medieval town, the position of women in society, and the Church's relationship with the laity. A complementary title to Social Life in England in the Fifteenth Century (Routledge Revivals, 2013), this fascinating work will be of great value to history students requiring a detailed overview of the framework of late medieval English society and culture.

New scientific methods offer new insights in the past. Promising opportunities for archaeology and historiography are confronted with the challenges of interdisciplinary cooperation between the sciences and the humanities. This volume presents contributions by European researchers, arranged in four sections: fundamental questions of archaeology and biosciences, migrations, transformations, and social structures.

Eastward bound looks at travel and travellers in the medieval period. An international range of distinguished contributors offer discussions on a wide range of themes, from the experiences of Crusaders on campaign, to the lives of pilgrims and missionaries and traders in the Middle East. It examines their modes of travel, equipment and methods of navigation, and considers their expectations and experiences en route. The contributions also look at the variety of motives - public and private - behind the decision to travel eastwards to lands of strange and unfamiliar peoples. Other essays look at the attitudes of Middle-Eastern rulers to their visitors. In so doing they provide a valuable perspective and insight into the behaviour of the Europeans and non-Europeans alike. There have been few such accessible volumes, covering such a broad range of material for the reader. The book will be of use to students and scholars involved in the history, literature and historical geography of the period.

Albert of Aachen's History of the Journey to Jerusalem presents the story of the First Crusade (1095-1099) and the first generation of Latin settlers in the Levant (1099-1119). Volume 2, The Early History of the Latin States, provides a surprising level of detail about the reign of King Baldwin I (1100-1118), especially its earlier years and the crusading expeditions of 1101. It offers much more information than the only other substantial Latin account of the same events, by Fulcher of Chartres, and where it can be tested against other narratives, including Arabic and Greek sources, it proves to be worthy of both trust and respect. Susan B. Edgington's English translation has been widely praised, following its first publication in the Oxford Medieval Texts series, and is here presented with a new introduction and updated notes and bibliography.

This title, first published in 1989, was one of the first to directly address the legal dimension of bastard feudalism. John Bellamy explores the role and vulnerability of local officials and juries, the nature of the endemic land wars and the interference in the justice system by those at the top of the social chain. What emerges is a focus on the role of land in disputes, the importance of royal favour and political advantage and the attempt to suppress disruption. This is an interesting title, which will be of particular value to students researching the nature of late medieval and early Tudor feudalism, royal patronage and legal procedure.

Heinrich Von Treitschke (1834-1896) was a prolific German historian and political writer during the nineteenth century. An ardent admirer of Prussianism, Treitschke was also deeply anti-Semitic and anti-socialist. This translation by Eden and Cedar Paul of The Origins of Prussianism, published in 1942 and reissued in 1969, made Treitschke's 1862 classic essay available in English for the first time. It is a fascinating account of the thirteenth-century colonization of Old Prussia by the Teutonic Knights and the unification of Germany, which highlights his most prominent beliefs in the value of the State and the superiority of the German race. Treitschke's essay will fascinate anyone with an interest in the history of Old Prussia and nineteenth-century German politics and academic thought.