Articles centred on the use made by European nations of medieval texts and other artefacts to define their history and origins. The 19th century was a time of fierce national competition for the "ownership" of medieval documents and the legitimation of national histories. This volume contains papers dealing with the attempts of French scholars to claim English documents (and vice versa), as also of disputes between Scandinavian and British scholars, and Dutch, German and Italian scholars. Regionalism is also a repeated topic, with claims made for the autonomy of Frisia within the Netherlands, and Languedoc within France. Other papers deal with the rediscovery of medieval music, with early American attempts to redirect the course of 20th century poetry by appeal to medieval precedent, and with the continuing vitality of Dante's Divina Commedia (especially the Inferno) in the light of 20th century experience. The volume as a whole sheds new light on the whole process of appropriating history, which remains a vital and contentioustopic, both inside and outside the academic world. CONTRIBUTORS: MARK BURDE, MAGNUS FJALLDAL, ALPITA DE JONG, ANNETTE KREUZIGER-HERR, NILS HOLGER PETERSEN, RACHEL DRESSLER, KARL FUGELS, WILLIAM QUINN, PETER CHRISTENSEN

On December 22, 1550 an old bricklayer named Richard Plantagenet was buried at Eastwell in Kent. Unusually for a bricklayer, he had been able to read Latin and, when pressed, he had claimed to be a natural son of King Richard III and to have met him the day before the Battle of Bosworth. Yet had he simply been Richard III's bastard he would have been styled "of Gloucester" or given the name of his birthplace. Richard III openly acknowledged and provided for his other bastards. Why did he not do the same for Richard Plantagenet? Most tellingly, where is the evidence that Prince Richard actually died? In an original and intriguing scenario, David Baldwin argues that while some elements of Richard Plantagenet's story may be authentic, it is possible that he dared not reveal his real identity: Richard, Duke of York, the rightful king. David Baldwin has searched contemporary documents to unearth the clues that underpin his theory and has visited all the places associated with Richard Plantagenet. In doing so, he has opened up an entirely new line of investigation and exonerated Richard III of the greatest of the crimes imputed to him. Dead princes were a potential embarrassment, but a living prince would have been a real danger and a closely guarded secret, not only in Richard's reign but in the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII.

First English translation of key chronicle for study of the rise of the Normans. This is the first English translation of a powerful work of semi-imaginary history which gave the Normans a past, present, and future at the outset of their triumphant century. Completed in or soon after 1015 by a visiting Frenchscholar, it is a study in verse and prose of one family's rise from defeat and exile in the world of the heathen Vikings to an honoured place among the great territorial rulers of France. It recounts two campaigns in England by the founder, Rollo, and a series of stirring political, military and religious events on the Continent, most notably the dreadful murder of Rollo's son William, and the kidnapping, escape and precarious early career of Dudo's firstpatron, Count Richard I. The author's exuberant imagination is matched by his language, so presenting the unwary reader with difficulties, which ERIC CHRISTIANSEN notes and discusses throughout, defining and explaining themany poetic metres and prose embellishments used, and identifying the sources of numerous borrowings; he also re-examines and collates the manuscripts and printed versions of the text, and considers the most recent scholarship inthe field. The late ERIC CHRISTIANSEN was Fellow of New College and University Lecturer at Oxford.

This volume examines the Melkite church from the Arab invasion of Syria in 634 until 969. The Melkite Patriarchates were established in Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria and, following the Arab campaigns in Syria and Egypt, they all came under the new Muslim state. Over the next decades the Melkite church underwent a process of gradual marginalization, moving from the privileged position of the state confession to becoming one of the religious minorities of the Caliphate. This transition took place in the context of theological and political interactions with the Byzantine Empire, the Patriarchate of Constantinople, the Papacy and, over time, with the reborn Roman Empire in the West. Exploring the various processes within the Melkite church this volume also examines Caliphate-Byzantine interactions, the cultural and religious influences of Constantinople, the synthesis of Greek, Arab and Syriac elements, the process of Arabization of communities, and Melkite relations with distant Rome.

What did medieval authors know about their world? Were they parochial and focused on just their monastery, town, or kingdom? Or were they aware of the broader medieval Europe that modern historians write about? This collection brings the focus back to medieval authors to see how they described their world. While we see that each author certainly had their own biases, the vast majority of them did not view the world as constrained to their small piece of it. Instead, they talked about the wider world, and often they had informants or textual sources that informed them about the world, even if they did not visit it themselves. This volume shows that they also used similar ideas to create space and identity - whether talking about the desert, the holy land, or food practices in their texts. By examining medieval authors and their own perceptions of their world, this collection offers a framework for discussions of medieval Europe in the twenty-first century.

In 1550-51, English Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer engaged in a debate with Bishop Stephen Gardiner. Archbishop Cranmer was asserting a new Reformed view for England's Eucharist theology, but he faced opposition from England's leading traditional theologian, Gardiner. Gardiner remained faithful to the traditional doctrine of transubstantiation, while Cranmer was formulating a Spiritual Presence theology. This book analyzes the debate, asking how both Cranmer and Gardiner arrived at opposing theologies despite being involved similarly in English religion and politics. To answer the question, the book examines each author's use of scripture, continental Reformers, and early Church Fathers. The book also argues that the personal and political context surrounding the two men shaped the nature of the theological debate. While trying to push Edward VI's England toward greater Reformation, Cranmer faced continued opposition from Gardiner who was imprisoned throughout Edward's reign. Gardiner sought release from prison and a return to authority, while Cranmer sought validation for his new theology and its associated legislation. To counter Gardiner's challenge, Cranmer had to create a clear Eucharistic theology. This political and personal climate therefore forced Cranmer to create England's Spiritual Presence theology by 1552 that was adopted in the 1558 Elizabethan Settlement and Anglican Church. It was this debate that set Anglicanism for England.

Offenbach's operas were a significant force for cultural change, both in his own time and in the decades to follow. In this book, Laurence Senelick demonstrates the ways in which this musical phenomenon took hold globally, with Offenbach's work offering an alternative, irreverent, sexualized view of life which audiences found liberating, both personally and socially. In the theatre, the composer also inspired cutting-edge innovations in stagecraft and design, and in this book, he is recognized as a major cultural influence, with an extensive impact on the spheres of literature, art, film, and even politics. Senelick argues that Offenbach's importance spread far beyond France, and that his provocative and entertaining works, often seen as being more style than substance, influenced numerous key artists, writers, and thinkers, and made a major contribution to the development of modern society.

Essays on the connections between politics and society in the middle ages, showing their interdependence. Christine Carpenter's influential work on late-medieval English society aspires to encompass a wide spectrum of human experience. Her vision of "total" history embeds the study of politics in a multi-dimensional social frameworkwhich ranges from mentalities and ideology to economy and geography. This collection of essays celebrates Professor Carpenter's achievement by drawing attention to the social underpinning of political culture; the articles reflectthe range of her interests, chronologically from the thirteenth century to the sixteenth, and thematically from ideology and culture, through government and its officials, the nobility, gentry and yeomanry, the law and the church, to local society. The connection between centre and locality pervades the volume, as does the interplay of the ideological and cultural with the practical and material. The essays highlight both how ideas were moulded in political debate and action, and how their roots sprang from social pressures and interests. It also emphasises the wider cultural aspects of topics too-easily conceived as local and material. BENJAMIN THOMPSON is Fellow and Tutor in History at Somerville College, Oxford; JOHN WATTS is Professor of Later Medieval History at the University of Oxford and Fellow and Tutor of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Contributors: Jackson Armstrong, Caroline Burt, Tony Moore, Richard Partington, Ted Powell, Andrea Ruddick, Andrew Spencer, Benjamin Thompson, John Watts, Theron Westervelt, Jenny Wormald.

This concise and unique volume explores the vital relationship between testimony, memory, and the community in medieval society. Joel T. Rosenthal assembles various categories of testimonies to illuminate how "ordinary" Late Medieval people saw themselves as units of their community, their awareness of the issues surrounding the theater of birth, their interest in the world of and beyond the village, and what aspects of the ubiquitous mother Church were worth recalling. Supported by primary sources and by modern scholarly focus on such issues as social memory, village life, rumor and gossip, and demography, this book provides both a wealth of source material and insightful discussion on how historians can chart the role of memory and community in its shaping of medieval identity and society.

This new translation offers a faithful yet accessible English-language rendering of the twelfth-century Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolomitanorum, the earliest known Latin account of the First Crusade. Although an anonymous work, it has become the exemplar for all later histories and retellings of the First Crusade. As such, it is filled with vivid descriptions of the hardships suffered by the crusaders, with deeds of personal heroism, with courtly intrigues, with betrayal and cowardice, and with a relentless faith that would see the attainment of the desired goal: the capture of Jerusalem by the crusaders in 1095. There is a great deal of mystery surrounding this anonymous account, especially in regard to its authorship; place, date, and purpose of composition; narrative methodology; and point of view. It is also a sweeping tale that swiftly moves from the first preaching of the crusade by Pope Urban II, to the ragtag and ultimately doomed effort of the popular People's Crusade, and then the more disciplined and concerted campaign by the French and Norman nobility that led to the conquest of the Holy Land by the crusaders. Based on the latest scholarly research, including a substantive introduction that explores the questions surrounding the Gesta and its historical context, this definitive translation will bring the First Crusade and its era to life for all readers.

The literature of chivalry and of courtly love has left an indelible impression on western ideas. What is less clear is how far the contemporary warrior aristocracy took this literature to heart and how far its ideals had influence in practice, especially in war. These are questions that Maurice Keen is uniquely qualified to answer. This book is a collection of Maurice Keen's articles and deals with both the ideas of chivalry and the reality of warfare. He discusses brotherhood-in-arms, courtly love, crusades, heraldry, knighthood, the law of arms, tournaments and the nature of nobility, as well as describing the actual brutality of medieval warfare and the lure of plunder. While the standards set by chivalric codes undoubtedly had a real, if intangible, influence on the behaviour of contemporaries, chivalry's idealisation of the knight errant also enhanced the attraction of war, endorsing its horrors with a veneer of acceptability.

A life of Matilda-empress, skilled military leader, and one of the greatest figures of the English Middle Ages "[Matilda] will attract a growing audience interested in stories of women challenging the male-dominated European past."-Alexandra Locking, Medieval Review "A lively and authoritative account."-Katherine Harvey, Times Literary Supplement Matilda was a daughter, wife, and mother. But she was also empress, heir to the English crown-the first woman ever to hold the position-and an able military general. This new biography explores Matilda's achievements as military and political leader, and sets her life and career in full context. Catherine Hanley provides fresh insight into Matilda's campaign to claim the title of queen, her approach to allied kingdoms and rival rulers, and her role in the succession crisis. Hanley highlights how Matilda fought for the throne, and argues that although she never sat on it herself her reward was to see her son become king. Extraordinarily, her line has continued through every single monarch of England or Britain from that time to the present day.

Engaging the Crusades is a series of volumes which offer windows into a newly-emerging field of historical study: the memory and legacy of the Crusades. Together these volumes examine the reasons behind the enduring resonance of the Crusades and present the memory of crusading in the modern period as a productive, exciting and much needed area of investigation. Controversial Histories assembles current international views on the Crusades from across Europe, Russia, Turkey, the USA and the Near and Middle East. Historians from the related countries present short narratives that deal with two questions: What were the Crusades? and What do they mean to "us" today? Narratives are from one of possible several "typical" points of view of the related country and present an international comparison of the dominant image of each respective historical culture and cultures of remembrance. Bringing together 'victim perspectives' and 'perpetrator perspectives', 'key players' and 'minor players', they reveal both shared and conflicting memories of different groups. The narratives are framed by an introduction about the historical and political significance of the Crusades, and the question of history education in a globalized world with contradicting narratives is discussed, along with guidelines on how to use the book for teaching at university level. Offering extensive material and presenting a profile of international, academic opinions on the Crusades, Controversial Histories is the ideal resource for students and educators of Crusades history in a global context as well as military history and the history of memory.

This book, first published in 1973, examines the period when wars, famines and epidemics bred widespread conflicts, culminating in the revolutionary years of 1378-82 with the Florentine 'Ciompi', revolts in Flanders and France and the risings among English labourers. The analysis ends with the Hussite crisis which gave the movement a new aspect. The troubles were varied, with hunger riots in cities and brigandage in the country, open struggles between lords and peasants, urban conflicts over municipal power, and labour conflicts over pay and hours.

This book makes use of extensive primary source material such as chronicles, legal records, and medical treatises as well as appropriate secondary works drawn from historical and scientific scholarship, providing students with a comprehensive overview of disease in England. It examines how infectious diseases such as plague, syphilis, or the English Sweat and everyday medical issues, such as dysentery, affected people and how/why they spread. Enabling students to see the link between disease and society. This book examines how people tried to cope with disease in a variety of ways, such as improvements in hygiene and provides comparisons with present issues. Allowing students to see the differences and similarities with the social reaction to and ways people dealt with disease in the past and now.

This is a study of papal bureaucracy during the Renaissance, a time when the Pope was among the most powerful of European rulers. The men who ran the Renaissance Papacy were an important and talented group, including among their number luminaries of Italian humanist literature and scholarship, distinguished church leaders, and statesmen of far-reaching influence. Based on extensive research in Italian archives, The Pope's Men explores the bureaucracy of an early modern state, and the patronage network which permeated and in many ways controlled it. Peter Partner sets the ruling elite of the Renaissance Papacy in its social and political context, and analyses its composition and the ways it operated. He shows the struggle for power in Rome among the competing Italian regions and families. This is a fascinating and scholarly study of men who could be scholars, poets, thinkers, and patrons of the arts, as well as servants of a state of great spiritual and temporal power.

This book addresses the complex question of the significance of regions in the creation of Romanesque, particularly in relation to transregional and pan-European artistic styles and approaches. Individual chapters explore the generation and reception of forms, the conditions that give rise to the development of transregional styles and the agencies that cut across territorial boundaries. There are studies of regional styles in Aquitaine, Castile, Sicily, Hungary and Scandinavia, workshops in Worms and the Welsh Marches, the transregional nature of liturgical furnishings, the cultural geography of the new monastic orders, metalworking in Hildesheim and the valley of the Meuse, and the links which connect Piemonte with Conques.

By allying Blomkvist's network-kingdoms with Sindbaek's nodal market-networks, it is argued that the political and economic character of Viking-Age Britain and Ireland - my 'Insular Scandinavia' - is best understood if Dublin and Jorvik are seen as being established as nodes of a market-based network kingdom. Based on a dataset relating to the then developing bullion economies of the central and eastern Scandinavian worlds and southern Scandinavia in particular, it is argued that war-band leaders from, or familiar with, 'Danish' markets like Hedeby and Kaupang transposed to Insular Scandinavia the concept of polities based on establishment of markets and the protection of routeways between them. Using this book, readers can think of interlinked Dublin and Great Army elites creating an Insular version of a Danish-style nodal market kingdom based on commerce and silver currencies. A Viking Market Kingdom in Ireland and Britain will help specialist researchers and students of Viking archaeology make connections between southern Scandinavia and the market economy of the Ui Imair ('descendants of Ivarr') operating out of the twin nodes of Dublin and Jorvik via the initial establishment of Hiberno-Scandinavian longphuirt and the related winter-camps of the Viking Great Army.

This book looks specifically at the years leading up to Mussato's public coronation, on 3rd December 1315, as poet laureate for his city / His writings are a key component of his political manoeuvres as he tried to navigate through the troubled waters of northern Italian politics and will therefore appeal to those interested in that topic / The book demonstrates how the sources pertaining to Mussato's life and career are part of an exercise in self-promotion and self-fashioning, intended to secure his position within factional politics, but rooted in a philosophical approach derived from his early classical studies.

Invaluable both for reference and collection development (with a 150-page bibliography), this guide to mainly prehistoric sites, cultures, and artifacts in the United States and Canada features some 1800 signed entries by 151 expert contributors that highlight the information upon which present North American prehistory is based. A scholarly achievement.

"Library Journal"

This dictionary of more than 1800 entries represents a collaboration of 159 archaeologists, each an authority on a particular region. The result is a source of basic information on the major prehistorical cultures, archaeological sites, and types of artifacts found in North America. The sites were selected from the more than one-half million prehistoric archaeological sites recorded in North America because they are the principal ones upon which the major chronologies, classifications, and interpretations of the continent's prehistory are based. The reference has entries for most major types of artifacts and details the important cultures, including their phases and subdivisions. At the end of each entry is a list of sources which refers primarily to published works, but which also cites unpublished documents on file at universities, museums, and government agencies when these represent the only available source of information.

In this major new study, Nicolas Tackett proposes that the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) witnessed both the maturation of an East Asian inter-state system and the emergence of a new worldview and sense of Chinese identity among educated elites. These developments together had sweeping repercussions for the course of Chinese history, while also demonstrating that there has existed in world history a viable alternative to the modern system of nation-states. Utilising a wide array of historical, literary, and archaeological sources, chapters focus on diplomatic sociability, cosmopolitan travel, military strategy, border demarcation, ethnic consciousness, and the cultural geography of Northeast Asia. In this ground breaking new approach to the history of the East Asian inter-state system, Tackett argues for a concrete example of a pre-modern nationalism, explores the development of this nationalism, and treats modern nationalism as just one iteration of a phenomenon with a much longer history.

This collaborative two-volume literary history of Europe, the first yet attempted, unfolds through ten sequences of places linked by trade, travel, topography, language, pilgrimage, alliance, disease, and artistic exchange. The period covered, 1348-1418, provides deep context for understanding current developments in Europe, particularly as initiated by the destruction and disasters of World War II. We begin with the greatest of all European catastrophes: the 1348 bubonic plague, which killed one person in three. Literary cultures helped speed recovery from this unprecedented 'ground zero' experience, providing solace, distraction, and new ideals to live by. Questions of where Europe begins and ends, then as now, and disputes over whom truly 'belongs' on European soil are explored, if not solved, through writing. A war that would last for a century convulsed much of western Europe. Divisions between Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christianities endured, and in 1378 the West divided again between popes of Avignon and Rome. Arabic literary cultures linked Fes and Granada to Jerusalem and Damascus; Persian and Turkish writings began to flourish south and west of Constantinople; Jewish intellectuals treasured Arabic texts as well as Hebrew writings; Armenian colophons proved unique. From 1414-18 western nations gathered to heal their papal schism while also exchanging literary, humanist, and musical ideas; visitors from the East hoped for commitment to wider European peace. Freed from nation state historiography, as bequeathed by the nineteenth century, these 82 chapters freshly assess the free movement of European literature in all its variety, local peculiarity, and regenerative power.

Bede's Ecclesiastical History is our main source for early Christian Anglo-Saxon England, but how was it written? When? And why? Scholars have spent much of the last half century investigating the latter question - the 'why'. This new study is the first to systematically consider the 'how' and the 'when'. Richard Shaw shows that rather than producing the History at a single point in 731, Bede was working on it for as much as twenty years, from c. 715 to just before his death in 735. Unpacking and extending the period of composition of Bede's best-known book makes sense of the complicated and contradictory evidence for its purposes. The work did not have one context, but several, each with its own distinct constructed audiences. Thus, the History was not written for a single purpose to the exclusion of all others. Nor was it simply written for a variety of reasons. It was written over time - quite a lot of time - and as the world changed during that time, so too did Bede's reasons for writing, the intentions he sought to pursue - and the patrons he hoped to please or to placate.

This biography of Queen Maria de Molina thematically explores her life and demonstrates her collective exercise of power and authority as queen. Throughout her public life, Maria de Molina's resilient determination, as queen and later as regent, enabled her to not only work tirelessly to establish an effective governing partnership with her husband King Sancho IV, which never occurred, but also to establish the legitimacy of her children and their heirs and their right to rule. Such legitimacy enabled Queen Maria de Molina's son and grandson, under her tutelage, to fend off other monarchs and belligerent nobles. The author demonstrates the queen's ability to govern the Kingdom of Castile-Leon as a partner with her husband King Sancho IV, a partnership that can be described as an official union. A major theme of this study is Maria de Molina's role as dowager queen and regent as she continued to exercise her queenly power and authority to protect the throne of her son Fernando IV and, later, of her grandson Alfonso XI, and to provide peace and stability for the Kingdom of Castile-Leon.

The ancient Greeks attributed great importance to the sacred during war and campaigning, as demonstrated from their earliest texts. Among the first four lines of the Iliad, for example, is a declaration that Apollo began the feud between Achilles and Agamemnon and sent a plague upon the Greek army because its leader, Agamemnon, had mistreated Apollo's priest. In this first in-depth study of the attitude of military commanders towards holy ground, Sonya Nevin addresses the customs and conduct of these leaders in relation to sanctuaries, precincts, shrines, temples and sacral objects. Focusing on a variety of Greek kings and captains, the author shows how military leaders were expected to react to the sacred sites of their foes. She further explores how they were likely to respond, and how their responses shaped the way such generals were viewed by their communities, by their troops, by their enemies and also by those like Herodotus, Thucydides and Xenophon who were writing their lives. This is a groundbreaking study of the significance of the sacred in warfare and the wider culture of antiquity.