"Taking the Jewish community as a focal point, this book thoroughly explores the various "borders" geographical divides, religious affiliations, gender boundaries, genre divisions that ruled the lives and intellectual production of late medieval Jews"--Provided by publisher.

This book is a study of William de la Pole, the first English royal banker. E. B. Fryde discusses Pole's role as a merchant and financier, his political influence and the social preeminence he gained for himself and his family. The book addresses the growing significance of England's merchant class in financial and governmental affairs and examines the origins of one of the country's great families of the late medieval period.

Richard Rolle, the Yorkshire hermit and scholar (d. 1349) wrote two commentaries on the Psalms, one in Latin and one in English. Some fifty years after he died, his English commentary was revised by a series of Lollard writers, and this redaction was itself subsequently modified by other revisers, having a similar radical outlook. This edition presents for the first time a full edition of the first of the Lollard revision, and gives detailed evidence for the second. It is based on a full study of all manuscripts of both versions, and includes the commentaries on the twelve Canticles which accompanied the Psalter commentary, and seem to have been regarded as a part of the whole. This first Lollard revision reveals the work of a complex organisation: an academic team which worked on the text for a considerable time, and whose work was not in every respect complete. This is the first of a three-volume edition. Volume 1 contains the Introduction and Psalms 1-34; the remaining two volumes (to appear as O.S. 341 and 343) will contain the remainder of the text, Explanatory Notes, and Glossary.

The societies of ancient Europe underwent a continual process of militarisation, and this would come to be a defining characteristic of the early Middle Ages. The process was neither linear nor mono-causal, but it affected society as a whole, encompassing features like the lack of demarcation between the military and civil spheres of the population, the significance attributed to weapons beyond their military function and the wide recognition of martial values. Early medieval militarisation assembles twenty studies that use both written and archaeological evidence to explore the phenomenon of militarisation and its impact on the development of the societies of early medieval Europe. The interdisciplinary investigations break new ground and will be essential reading for scholars and students of related fields, as well as non-specialists with an interest in early medieval history. -- .

This volume brings together articles (including two hitherto unpublished pieces) that Susan Reynolds has written since the publication of her Fiefs and Vassals (1994). There she argued that the concepts of the fief and of vassalage, as generally understood by historians of medieval Europe, were constructed by post-medieval historians from the works of medieval academic lawyers and the writers of medieval epics and romances. Six of the essays reprinted here continue her argument that feudalism is unhelpful to understanding medieval society, while eight more discuss other aspects of medieval society, law, and politics which she argues provide a better insight into the history of western Europe in the middle ages. Three range outside the middle ages and western Europe in considering the idea of the nation, the idea of empire, and the problem of finding a consistent and comprehensible vocabulary for comparative and interdisciplinary history.

Crusades covers seven hundred years from the First Crusade (1095-1102) to the fall of Malta (1798) and draws together scholars working on theatres of war, their home fronts and settlements from the Baltic to Africa and from Spain to the Near East and on theology, law, literature, art, numismatics and economic, social, political and military history. Routledge publishes this journal for The Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East. Particular attention is given to the publication of historical sources in all relevant languages - narrative, homiletic and documentary - in trustworthy editions, but studies and interpretative essays are welcomed too. Crusades appears in both print and online editions.

This volume complements the selections of Wilferd Madelung's articles previously published by Variorum (Religious Schools and Sects in Medieval Islam, and Religious and Ethnic Movements in Medieval Islam). The first articles here examine legal and political aspects of early Shi`ism. The following studies relate to doctrinal views of the Zaydi imams al-Qasim b. Ibrahim al-Rassi and al-Natiq bi-l-Haqq and to Zaydi attitudes to Sufism. The final group focuses on the Isma`iliyya, their social and political history and aspects of their religious thought. A detailed index completes the volume.

Remembering Boethius explores the rich intersection between the reception of Boethius and the literary construction of aristocratic identity, focusing on a body of late-medieval vernacular literature that draws on the Consolation of Philosophy to represent and reimagine contemporary experiences of exile and imprisonment. Elizabeth Elliott presents new interpretations of English, French, and Scottish texts, including Machaut's Confort d'ami, Remede de Fortune, and Fonteinne amoureuse, Jean Froissart's Prison amoureuse, Thomas Usk's Testament of Love, and The Kingis Quair, reading these texts as sources contributing to the development of the reader's moral character. These writers evoke Boethius in order to articulate and shape personal identities for public consumption, and Elliott's careful examination demonstrates that these texts often write not one life, but two, depicting the relationship between poet and aristocratic patron. These works associate the reception of wisdom with the cultivation of memory, and in turn, illuminate the contemporary reception of the Consolation as a text that itself focuses on memory and describes a visionary process of education that takes place within Boethius's own mind. In asking how and why writers remember Boethius in the Middle Ages, this book sheds new light on how medieval people imagined, and reimagined, themselves.

Death was a constant, visible presence in medieval and renaissance Europe. Yet, the acknowledgement of death did not necessarily amount to an acceptance of its finality. Whether they were commoners, clergy, aristocrats, or kings, the dead continued to function literally as integrated members of their communities long after they were laid to rest in their graves. From stories of revenants bringing pleas from Purgatory to the living, to the practical uses and regulation of burial space; from the tradition of the ars moriendi, to the depiction of death on the stage; and from the making of martyrs, to funerals for the rich and poor, this volume examines how communities dealt with their dead as continual, albeit non-living members. Contributors are Jill Clements, Libby Escobedo, Hilary Fox, Sonsoles Garcia, Stephen Gordon, Melissa Herman, Mary Leech, Nikki Malain, Kathryn Maud, Justin Noetzel, Anthony Perron, Martina Saltamacchia, Thea Tomaini, Wendy Turner, and Christina Welch

Exploring a range of poverty experiences - socioeconomic, moral and spiritual - this collection presents new research by a distinguished group of scholars working in the medieval and early modern periods. Collectively they explore both the assumptions and strategies of those in authority dealing with poverty and the ways in which the poor themselves tried to contribute to, exploit, avoid or challenge the systems for dealing with their situation. The studies demonstrate that poverty was by no means a simple phenomenon. It varied according to gender, age and geographical location; and the way it was depicted in speech, writing and visual images could as much affect how the poor experienced their poverty as how others saw and judged them. Using new sources - and adopting new approaches to known sources - the authors share insights into the management and the self-management of the poor, and search out aspects of the experience of poverty worthy of note, from which can be traced lasting influences on the continuing understanding and experience of poverty in pre-modern Europe.

Henry V of England, the princely hero of Shakespeare s play, who successfully defeated the French at the Battle of Agincourt and came close to becoming crowned King of France, is one of the best known and most compelling monarchs in English history. This new biography takes a fresh look at his entire life and nine year reign, and gives a balanced view of Henry, who is traditionally seen as a great hero but has been more recently depicted as an obsessive egotist or, worse, a ruthless warlord. The book locates Henry s style of kingship in the context of the time, and looks at often neglected other figures who influenced and helped him, such as his father and his uncles, Henry and Thomas Beaufort. John Matusiak shows that the situation confronting Henry at the outset of his reign was far more favourable than is often supposed but that he was nonetheless a man of prodigious gifts whose extraordinary achievements in battle left the deepest possible impression upon his contemporaries.

A new narrative history of the Viking Age, interwoven with exploration of the physical remains and landscapes that the Vikings fashioned and walked: their rune-stones and ship burials, settlements and battlefields. To many, the word 'Viking' brings to mind red scenes of rape and pillage, of marauders from beyond the sea rampaging around the British coastline in the last gloomy centuries before the Norman Conquest. It is true that Britain in the Viking Age was a turbulent, violent place. The kings and warlords who have impressed their memories on the period revel in names that fire the blood and stir the imagination: Svein Forkbeard and Edmund Ironside, Ivar the Boneless and Alfred the Great, Erik Bloodaxe and Edgar the Pacifier amongst many others. Evidence for their brutality, their dominance, their avarice and their pride is still unearthed from British soil with stunning regularity. But this is not the whole story. In Viking Britain, Thomas Williams has drawn on his experience as project curator of the British Museum exhibition of Vikings: Life and Legend to show how the people we call Vikings came not just to raid and plunder, but to settle, to colonize and to rule. The impact on these islands was profound and enduring, shaping British social, cultural and political development for hundreds of years. Indeed, in language, literature, place-names and folklore, the presence of Scandinavian settlers can still be felt, and their memory - filtered and refashioned through the writings of people like J.R.R. Tolkien, William Morris and G.K.Chesterton - has transformed the western imagination. This remarkable book makes use of new academic research and first-hand experience, drawing deeply from the relics and landscapes that the Vikings and their contemporaries fashioned and walked: their runestones and ship burials, settlements and battlefields, poems and chronicles. The book offers a vital evocation of a forgotten world, its echoes in later history and its implications for the present.

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This is the first study of noblewomen in 12th-century England and Normandy, and of the ways in which they exercised power. It draws on a rich mix of evidence to offer an important reconceptualization of women's role in aristocratic society, and in doing so suggests new ways of looking at lordship and the ruling elite in the high middle ages. The book considers a wide range of literary sources such as chronicles, charters, seals and governmental records to draw out a detailed picture of noblewomen in the 12th-century Anglo-Norman realm. It asserts the importance of the lifecycle in determining the power of these aristocratic women, thereby demonstrating that the influence of gender on lordship was profound, complex and varied.

This innovative study offers an up-to-date analysis of the archaeology of the North Sea. Robert Van de Noort traces the way people engaged with the North Sea from the end of the last ice age, around 10,000 BC, to the close of the Middle Ages, about AD 1500. Van de Noort draws upon archaeological research from many countries, including the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Belgium and France, and addresses topics which include the first interactions of people with the emerging North Sea, the origin and development of fishing, the creation of coastal landscapes, the importance of islands and archipelagos, the development of seafaring ships and their use by early seafarers and pirates, and the treatments of boats and ships at the end of their useful lives.

There was a time seven centuries ago when Famagusta's wealth and renown could be compared to that of Venice or Constantinople. The Cathedral of St Nicholas in the main square of Famagusta, serving as the coronation place for the Crusader Kings of Jerusalem after the fall of Acre in 1291, symbolised both the sophistication and permanence of the French society that built it. From the port radiated impressive commercial activity with the major Mediterranean trade centres, generating legendary wealth, cosmopolitanism, and hedonism, unsurpassed in the Levant. These halcyon days were not to last, however, and a 15th century observer noted that, following the Genoese occupation of the city, 'a malignant devil has become jealous of Famagusta'. When Venice inherited the city, it reconstructed the defences and had some success in revitalising the city's economy. But the end for Venetian Famagusta came in dramatic fashion in 1571, following a year long siege by the Ottomans. Three centuries of neglect followed which, combined with earthquakes, plague and flooding, left the city in ruins. The essays collected in this book represent a major contribution to the study of Medieval and Renaissance Famagusta and its surviving art and architecture and also propose a series of strategies for preserving the city's heritage in the future. They will be of particular interest to students and scholars of Gothic, Byzantine and Renaissance art and architecture, and to those of the Crusades and the Latin East, as well as the Military Orders. After an introductory chapter surveying the history of Famagusta and its position in the cultural mosaic that is the Eastern Mediterranean, the opening section provides a series of insights into the history and historiography of the city. There follow chapters on the churches and their decoration, as well as the military architecture, while the final section looks at the history of conservation efforts and assesses the work that now needs to be done.

First published in 1954, this book explores the political ideas of the Middle Ages. It covers the period from the investiture struggle to the end of the fifteenth century and provides comprehensive readings of otherwise inaccessible source material. Each chapter begins with an introductory essay on the subject at hand that leads to a number of translated passages, numerous enough to display a variety of opinion and long enough to indicate the process of thought as well as its conclusions. This book is the first of a two volume set and will be useful to teachers and advanced students of political theory and medieval history. Topics discussed in this volume include law, property and lordship, political authority and community.

First published in 1954, this book explores the political ideas of the Middle Ages. It covers the period from the investiture struggle to the end of the fifteenth century and provides comprehensive readings of otherwise inaccessible source material. Each chapter begins with an introductory essay on the subject at hand that leads to a number of translated passages, numerous enough to display a variety of opinion and long enough to indicate the process of thought as well as its conclusions. This book is the second of a two volume set and will be useful to teachers and advanced students of political theory and medieval history. Topics discussed in this volume include authority in the Church, the problem of the Empire and the relationship between the Church and the State.

Essays demonstrating the importance and inflence of Italian culture on medieval Britain. Between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, the rise of international trade, the growth of towns and cities, and the politics of diplomacy all helped to foster productive and far-reaching connections and cultural interactionsbetween Britain and Italy; equally, the flourishing of Italian humanism from the late fourteenth century onwards had a major impact on intellectual life in Britain. The aim of this book is to illustrate the continuity andthe variety of these exchanges during the period. Each chapter focuses on a specific area (book collection, historiography, banking, commerce, literary production), highlighting the significance of the productive interchange ofpeople and ideas across diverse cultural communities; it is the lived experience of individuals, substantiated by written evidence, that shapes the book's collective understanding of how two European cultures interacted with eachother so fruitfully. MICHELE CAMPOPIANO is Senior Lecturer in Medieval Latin Literature at the University of York; HELEN FULTON is Professor of Medieval Literature at the University of Bristol. Contributors: Helen Bradley, Margaret Bridges, Michele Campopiano, Carolyn Collette, Victoria Flood, Helen Fulton, Bart Lambert, Ignazio del Punta

The medieval landscape, as traditionally viewed through the eyes of scholars, was hardly populated by women - aside from the occasional dazzling queen or mistress, strong-willed abbess, or exotic mystic. This picture has been dramatically altered by the scholarship of the 1970s, 80s and 90s, as women have been restored to the medieval scene. However, to date, young unmarried women or maidens have attracted little academic attention.

"Conceptually well organized, stylistically clear, intellectually thoughtful, and pedagogically useful."

- Thomas Head, Speculum

"For its humane and learned approach to its enormous canvas, as well as for the cogency with which it penetrates at speed to the essentials of a vanished historical epoch, this History of the Church in the Middle Ages deserves a very wide audience indeed."

- Barrie Dobson, English Historical Review

"To have written a scholarly and very readable history of the Western Church over a millennium is a remarkable tour de force, for which Donald Logan is to be warmly congratulated."

- C.H Lawrence, The Tablet

"A feat of historical synthesis, most confident in its telling of the coming of Christianity. Books like Logan's are needed more than ever before."

- Miri Rubin, TLS

In this fascinating survey, F. Donald Logan introduces the reader to the Christian church, from the conversion of the Celtic and Germanic peoples to the discovery of the New World. He reveals how the church unified the people of Western Europe as they worshipped with the same ceremonies and used Latin as the language of civilized communication. From remote, rural parish to magnificent urban cathedral, A History of the Church in the Middle Ages explores the role of the church as a central element in determining a thousand years of history.

This new edition brings the book right up to date with recent scholarship, and includes an expanded introduction exploring the interaction of other faiths - particularly Judaism and Islam - with the Christian church.

The twelve essays in "Women and Wealth in Late Medieval Europe" re-examine the vexing issue of women, money, wealth, and power from distinctive perspectives--literature, history, architectural history--using new archival sources. The contributors examine how money and changing attitudes toward wealth affected power relations between women and men of all ranks, especially the patriarchal social forces that constrained the range of women's economic choices. Employing theories on gender, culture, and power, this volume reveals wealth as both the motive force in gender relations and a precise indicator of other, more subtle, forms of power and influence mediated by gender.