Peacemaking in the Middle Ages explores the making of peace in the late-twelfth and early thirteenth centuries based on the experiences of the kings of England and the kings of Denmark. From dealing with owing allegiance to powerful neighbours to conquering the 'barbarians', this book offers a vision of how relationships between rulers were regulated and maintained, and how rulers negotiated, resolved, avoided and enforced matters in dispute in a period before nation states and international law. This is the first full-length study in English of the principles and practice of peacemaking in the medieval period. Its findings have wider significance and applications, and numerous comparisons are drawn with the peacemaking activities of other western European rulers, in the medieval period and beyond. This book will appeal to scholars and students of medieval Europe, but also those with a more general interest in kingship, warfare, diplomacy and international relations. -- .

This book will appeal to scholars and general readers who are interested in Byzantine History, Society, and Culture, the History of Masculinity, and the History of Sexuality / This book challenges contemporaty views by placing at centre stage Byzantine men's desiring relations with one another / This book transforms our understanding of Byzantine elite men's culture and is an important addition to the history of sex and desire between men.

In this collection of essays Gerard Gouiran, one of the world's leading and much-loved scholars of medieval Occitan literature, examines this literature from a primarily historical perspective. Through texts offering hitherto unexplored insights into the history and culture of medieval Europe, he studies topics such as the representation of alterity through female figures and Saracens in opposition to the ideal of the Christian knight; the ways in which the narrating of history can become resistance and propaganda discourse in the clash between the Catholic Church and the French on the one hand, and the Cathar heretics and the people of Occitania on the other; questions of intertextuality and intercultural relations; cultural representations fashioning the West in contact with the East; and Christian dissidence in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Written in an approachable style, the book will be of historical, literary and philological interest to scholars and students, as well as any reader curious about this hitherto little-known Occitan literature. (CS1087).

This book uses the tools of analytic philosophy and close readings of medieval Christian philosophical and theological texts in order to survey what these thinkers said about what today we call 'disability.' The chapters also compare what these medieval authors say with modern and contemporary philosophers and theologians of disability. This dual approach enriches our understanding of the history of disability in medieval Christian philosophy and theology and opens up new avenues of research for contemporary scholars working on disability. The volume is divided into three parts. Part One addresses theoretical frameworks regarding disability, particularly on questions about the definition(s) of 'disability' and how disability relates to well-being. The chapters are then divided into two further parts in order to reflect ways that medieval philosophers and theologians theorized about disability. Part Two is on disability in this life, and Part Three is on disability in the afterlife. Taken as a whole, these chapters support two general observations. First, these philosophical theologians sometimes resist Greco-Roman ableist views by means of theological and philosophical anti-ableist arguments and counterexamples. Here we find some surprising disability-positive perspectives that are built into different accounts of a happy human life. We also find equal dignity of all human beings no matter ability or disability. Second, some of the seeds for modern and contemporary ableist views were developed in medieval Christian philosophy and theology, especially with regard to personhood and rationality, an intellectualist interpretation of the imago Dei, and the identification of human dignity with the use of reason. This volume surveys disability across a wide range of medieval Christian writers from the time of Augustine up to Francisco Suarez. It will be of interest to scholars and graduate students working in medieval philosophy and theology, or disability studies.

The Ga?itatilaka and its Commentary: Two Medieval Sanskrit Mathematical Texts presents the first English annotated translation and analysis of the Ga?itatilaka by Sripati and its Sanskrit commentary by the Jaina monk Si?hatilakasuri (13th century CE). Si?hatilakasuri's commentary upon the Ga?itatilaka is a key text for the study of Sanskrit mathematical jargon and a precious source of information on mathematical practices of medieval India; this is, in fact, the first known Sanskrit mathematical commentary written by a Jaina monk, about whom we have substantial information, to survive to the present day. In presenting the first annotated translation of these two Sanskrit mathematical texts, this volume focusses on language in mathematics and puts forward a novel, fresh approach to Sanskrit mathematical literature which favours linguistic, literary features and textual data. This key resource makes these important texts available in English for the first time for students of Sanskrit, ancient and medieval mathematics, South Asian history, and philology.

This volume traces transformations in attitudes toward, ideas about, and experiences of religion and the senses in the medieval and early modern period. Broad in temporal and geographical scope, it challenges traditional notions of periodisation, highlighting continuities as well as change. Rather than focusing on individual senses, the volume's organisation emphasises the multisensoriality and embodied nature of religious practices and experiences, refusing easy distinctions between asceticism and excess. The senses were not passive, but rather active and reactive, res-ponding to and initiating change. As the contributions in this collection demonstrate, in the pre-modern era, sensing the sacred was a complex, vexed, and constantly evolving process, shaped by individuals, environment, and religious change. The volume will be essential reading not only for scholars of religion and the senses, but for anyone interested in histories of medieval and early modern bodies, material culture, affects, and affect theory.

Medieval castles were not just showcases for the royal and powerful, they were also the centerpieces of many people's daily lives. A travel guide as well as a historical text, this volume looks at castles not just as ruined buildings, but as part of the cultural and scenic landscape. The 88 photographs illustrate the different architectural concepts and castle features discussed in the text. The book includes glossaries of terminology, an appendix listing all the castles mentioned and their locations, notes, bibliography and index.

This book reconstructs the historical transition in the undivided Panjab during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It shows that the assertion of Mughal and Afghan suzerainty faced sustained resistance from local elements, particularly the autonomous tribes and hill chiefdoms. In central plains, Dulla Bhatti mobilized the toilers of his ancestral domain and, leading a relentless fight against the Mughal oppression, became an abiding symbol of resistance in the collective memory. The multicultural legacy of Panjab evolved through diverse strands of spirituality. The jogis, wedded to monastic discipline, supernatural abilities and land grants, gained acceptance through their exertions for social betterment. The Sabiri and Qadiri silsilas channelized mystical urges towards the technique of prime recitation. The popular verses of Shah Husain, Baba Lal and Sultan Bahu proposed a loving relation with God. The legendary lovers, perishing in the struggles against patriarchal forces, promoted a merger of dissent with spirituality. In the city of Lahore, the material pursuits and cultural life were visible in a mosaic of descriptions, including episodes of social tension. The book understands the upliftment of depressed castes as a defining feature of Sikhism. It places egalitarian concern of the Sikh Gurus alongside the anti-caste protests of Namdev, Kabir and Ravidas. Owing to scriptural authority and congregational equality, the members of depressed castes attained a numerical majority in the Sikh warrior bands that shook the foundations of the Mughal state. The work relies on evidence from the Persian chronicles, Mughal newsletters, Sufi writings, Sikh literature and Punjabi folklore. Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

This book explores questions in new research by expert historians and archaeologists in their field / This book will appeal to all those interested in the Knights Hospitaller, Ottoman History, Crusader Studies, and Early Modern European History / This book will appeal to both researchers and students alike

The Latin Middle Ages were characterised by a vast array of different representations of nature. These conceptualisations of the natural world were developed according to the specific requirements of many different disciplines, with the consequent result of producing a fragmentation of images of nature. Despite this plurality, two main tendencies emerged. On the one hand, the natural world was seen as a reflection of God's perfection, teleologically ordered and structurally harmonious. On the other, it was also considered as a degraded version of the spiritual realm - a world of impeccable ideas, separate substances, and celestial movers. This book focuses on this tension between order and randomness, and idealisation and reality of nature in the Middle Ages. It provides a cutting-edge profile of the doctrinal and semantic richness of the medieval idea of nature, and also illustrates the structural interconnection among learned and scientific disciplines in the medieval period, stressing the fundamental bond linking together science and philosophy, on the one hand, and philosophy and theology, on the other. This book will appeal to scholars and students alike interested in Medieval European History, Theology, Philosophy, and Science.

The virtue of an interdisciplinary and multi-authored collection such as this one is that it can gather the necessary range of expertise to look into the complexities of disease and environment from different perspectives - allowing for both a scientifically- and culturally-minded readership to find interest in the discussion of epidemic and other disease. The volume brings environmental history into dialogue with the histories of medicine, science, and environmental thought, reflecting one of the best new trends in current scholarship on the relationship between humanity and non-human Nature. This edited volume will be the first to provide students and scholars with a comprehensive look at both how the environment is implicated in pre-modern disease regimes and how contemporary populations made efforts to mitigate the challenges that these disease regimes generated. It is also the first volume to take a long view by examining the environment-disease relationship across the traditional medieval-early modern divide to show both change and continuity.

Donations to the Knights Hospitaller in Britain and Ireland, 1291-1400 is the first study of donations to the Knights Hospitaller throughout England and Ireland during the late-thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The book demonstrates that patrons donated to both military and non-military orders for much the same reasons, particularly family connections or the desire for spiritual benefit, rather than an interest in crusading. Such a conclusion has important implications for the treatment of the military orders by scholars of medieval religion, who traditionally have either overlooked these orders entirely or relegated them to a subfield of crusade studies rather than treating them as a full part of mainstream religious life. By reincorporating the military orders into mainstream religious history, discussion will be furthered in a range of fields and debates, such as ecclesiastical landholding, lay-church relations, the role of women in religion, and the processes of the Reformation. By focusing on the period 1291 to 1400, the book considers the impact of the loss of the Holy Land in 1291; the subsequent diffusion in crusade activity to the Baltic and Spain; the intensification of the order's career as English royal servants in Wales, Scotland, and Ireland; and the Hospitallers' crusade to Rhodes in 1309-10. This book will appeal to scholars and students of the Hospitallers, as well as those interested in medieval Britain and Ireland.

This book explores a corpus of Epirote architecture, frescoes, sculpture, and inscriptions from the early thirteenth to the early fourteenth century / This book will appeal to those researching and studying Late Byzantine art and culture / This study offers a new perspective on Byzantine political and cultural history in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade.

Examining ethnic identity, memory, and use of the past through the lens of the history of Italy during the post-Roman/early Middle Ages, this book guides postgraduate and upper level undergraduate students through these new research areas and explores the importance of their study. The book focuses ethnic identity, memory, and use of the past. Particular attention is devoted to the way some authors were sometimes influenced by their own "present" in their reconstruction of the past. Enabling students to see how the past was 'used' by those who recorded it. The volume also assesses the challenges that the features of the primary sources and sometimes their scarcity poses to their interpretations, providing a useful guide for students engaging with these sources for the first time.

Examining ethnic identity, memory, and use of the past through the lens of the history of Italy during the post-Roman/early Middle Ages, this book guides postgraduate and upper level undergraduate students through these new research areas and explores the importance of their study. The book focuses ethnic identity, memory, and use of the past. Particular attention is devoted to the way some authors were sometimes influenced by their own "present" in their reconstruction of the past. Enabling students to see how the past was 'used' by those who recorded it. The volume also assesses the challenges that the features of the primary sources and sometimes their scarcity poses to their interpretations, providing a useful guide for students engaging with these sources for the first time.

He did not return to Morocco for another twenty-nine years, travelling instead through more than forty countries on the modern map, covering seventy-five thousand miles and getting as far north as the Volga, as far east as China and as far south as Tanzania. He wrote of his travels, and comes across as a superb ethnographer, biographer, anecdotal historian and occasional botanist and gastronome.

With this edition by Mackintosh-Smith, Battuta's "Travels" takes its place alongside other indestructible masterpieces of the travel-writing genre.

This is the first edition of the life of St Modwenna, an obscure Irish saint whose bones supposedly came to rest in the West Midlands abbey of Burton. Abbot Geoffrey of Burton's account of her life sheds much light on the Latinity, religious attitudes, and historical consciousness of this Benedictine author, while his collection of miracle-stories associated with her shrine is an immensely valuable source for the social and religious history of England in the twelfth century.

This book analyzes the acquisition and use of texts by the parish clergy in the diocese of Eichstatt between 1400 and 1520 to refute the amusing, but misleading, image of the lustful and ignorant cleric so popular in the satirical literature of the period. By the fifteenth-century, more widely available local schooling and increasing university attendance had improved the educational level of the clergy; priests were bureaucrats as well as pastors and both roles required extensive use of the written word. What priests read is a question of fundamental importance to our understanding of the late medieval parish and the role of the clergy as communicators and cultural mediators. Priests were entrusted with saying the Mass, preaching doctrine and repentance, honoring the saints, plumbing the conscience, and protecting the legal rights of the Church. They baptized children, blessed the fields, and prayed for the souls of the dead. What priests read would have informed how they understood and how they performed their social and religious roles. By locating and contextualizing the manuscripts, printed books, and parish records that were once in the hands of priests in the diocese, the author has found evidence for the unexpected: the avid acquisition of books; a theological awareness; and an emerging professional identity. This marks an important revision to the conventional view of a dramatic era marked by both the transition from manuscripts to printed books and the outbreak of the Reformation.

The grass-roots approach allows for a better understanding of religion as it shows how it encompassed all spheres of daily life. By exploring how pastoral care took shape at the local levels of society, the volume is useful in showing how the ideal of leading everybody to salvation was a central element of Carolingian culture. This will be useful for all students and scholars who are interested in the ecclesiastical history of Europe in the Carolingian period. The various sections on the roles of the priest, such as priests as experts, shows how well-educated local priests did not only know how to baptise and preach, but could also advise on matters concerning health, legal procedure and even the future, which provides a more detailed and nuanced view of the role of the priest in this period.

Waiting for the End of the World? addresses the archaeological, architectural, historical and geological evidence for natural disasters in the Middle Ages between the 11th and 16th centuries. This volume adopts a fresh interdisciplinary approach to explore the many ways in which environmental hazards affected European populations and, in turn, how medieval communities coped and responded to short- and long-term consequences. Three sections, which focus on geotectonic hazards (Part I), severe storms and hydrological hazards (Part II) and biophysical hazards (Part III), draw together 18 papers of the latest research while additional detail is provided in a catalogue of the 20 most significant disasters to have affected Europe during the period. These include earthquakes, landslides, tsunamis, storms, floods and outbreaks of infectious diseases. Spanning Europe, from the British Isles to Italy and from the Canary Islands to Cyprus, these contributions will be of interest to earth scientists, geographers, historians, sociologists, anthropologists and climatologists, but are also relevant to students and non-specialist readers interested in medieval archaeology and history, as well as those studying human geography and disaster studies. Despite a different set of beliefs relating to the natural world and protection against environmental hazards, the evidence suggests that medieval communities frequently adopted a surprisingly 'modern', well-informed and practically minded outlook.

Slavs in the Making takes a fresh look at archaeological evidence from parts of Slavic-speaking Europe north of the Lower Danube, including the present-day territories of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia. Nothing is known about what the inhabitants of those remote lands called themselves during the sixth century, or whether they spoke a Slavic language. The book engages critically with the archaeological evidence from these regions, and questions its association with the "Slavs" that has often been taken for granted. It also deals with the linguistic evidence-primarily names of rivers and other bodies of water-that has been used to identify the primordial homeland of the Slavs, and from which their migration towards the Lower Danube is believed to have started. It is precisely in this area that sociolinguistics can offer a serious alternative to the language tree model currently favoured in linguistic paleontology. The question of how best to explain the spread of Slavic remains a controversial issue. This book attempts to provide an answer, and not just a critique of the method of linguistic paleontology upon which the theory of the Slavic migration and homeland relies. The book proposes a model of interpretation that builds upon the idea that (Common) Slavic cannot possibly be the result of Slavic migration. It addresses the question of migration in the archaeology of early medieval Eastern Europe, and makes a strong case for a more nuanced interpretation of the archaeological evidence of mobility. It will appeal to scholars and students interested in medieval history, migration, and the history of Eastern and Central Europe.

Beginning with Saint Barbatianus, a fifth-century wonderworking monk and confessor to the Empress Galla Placidia, this book focuses on the changes in the religious landscape of Ravenna, a former capital of the Late Roman Empire, through the Middle Ages. During this period, written stories about saints and their relics not only offered guidance and solace but were also used by those living among the ruins of a once great city-particularly its archbishops, monks, and the urban aristocracy-to reflect on its past glory. This practice remained important to the citizens of Ravenna as they came to terms with the city's revival and renewed relevance in the tenth century under Ottonian rule. In using the vita of Barbatianus as a central text, Edward M. Schoolman explores how saints and sanctity were created and ultimately came to influence complex political and social networks, from the Late Roman Empire to the High Middle Ages.