In early Christianity it was established that every church should have a light burning on the altar at all times. In this unique study, Eternal light and earthly concerns, looks at the material and social consequences of maintaining these 'eternal' lights. It investigates how the cost of lighting was met across western Europe throughout the whole of the Middle Ages, revealing the social organisation that was built up around maintaining the lights in the belief that burning them reduced the time spent in Purgatory. When that belief collapsed in the Reformation the eternal lights were summarily extinguished. The history of the lights thus offers not only a new account of change in medieval Europe, but also a sustained examination of the relationship between materiality and belief. -- .

Scientific Practices in European History, 1200-1800 presents and situates a collection of extracts from both widely known texts by such figures as Copernicus, Newton, and Lavoisier, and lesser known but significant items, all chosen to provide a perspective on topics in social, cultural and intellectual history and to illuminate the concerns of the early modern period. The selection of extracts highlights the emerging technical preoccupations of this period, while the accompanying introductions and annotations make these occasionally complex works accessible to students and non-specialists. The book follows a largely chronological sequence and helps to locate scientific ideas and practices within broader European history. The primary source materials in this collection stand alone as texts in themselves, but in illustrating the scientific components of early modern societies they also make this book ideal for teachers and students of European history.

Examines the political development of Portugal between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. Taking place amid the struggle between Christendom and the Islamic world for control over the Iberian Peninsula, the formation of Portugal also depended on the growing European influence felt throughout the peninsula during these centuries.

Featured here is a modern translation of a medieval herbal, with a study showing how this technical treatise on herbs was turned into a literary curiosity in the nineteenth century. The contours of this second edition replicate the first; however, it has been revised and updated throughout to reflect new scholarship and new findings. New information is presented on Oswald Cockayne, the nineteenth-century philologist who first translated the Old English medical texts for the modern world. Here the medieval text is read as an example of technical writing (i.e., intended to convey instructions/information), not as literature. The audience it was originally aimed at would know how to diagnose and treat medical conditions and knew or was learning how to follow its instructions. For that reason, while working on the translation, specialists in relevant fields were asked to shed light on its terse wording, for example, herbalists and physicians. Unlike many current studies, this work discusses the Herbarium and other medical texts in Old English as part of a tradition developed throughout early-medieval Europe associated with monasteries and their libraries. The book is intended for scholars in cross-cultural fields; that is, with roots in one field and branches in several, such as nineteenth-century or medieval studies, for historians of herbalism, medicine, pharmacy, botany, and of the Western Middle Ages, broadly and inclusively defined, and for readers interested in the history of herbalism and medicine.

The Routledge Encyclopedias of the Middle Ages comprises of sixteen comprehensive reference titles covering a range of regions and themes in the Medieval period. First published between 1993 and 2006, the Encyclopedias provide complete and multidisciplinary guides to topics such as Women and Gender, Archaeology, Islamic and Jewish Civilization and Science, Technology and Medicine, as well as a number of regions including Italy, Scandinavia, France, England and the Middle East. Written by leading experts in the field, these reference works will be valuable resources not only to students and scholars of the middle ages, but also those studying a number of humanities and social sciences. They are also accessible to general and introductory readers.

Maria de Luna was one of late medieval Spain's most intriguing female personalities. In a period characterized by powerful male rulers, she combined patronage and a pious cultural program to extend her political power, both formally and informally. However, hers was a figure that did not challenge or undermine the image of the monarch, and instead completed it. Using Maria de Luna, Silleras-Fernandez examines the four pillars of medieval queenship: formal authority, family relations, religious patronage, and household and court through an exhaustive study of her letters and administrative and financial records. This book brings to light the potentials and limits of female power in Iberia on the cusp of modernity and adds to our understanding of queenship in late medieval and early modern Europe.

This broad-reaching collection of essays constitutes a thorough introduction to the fields and methodologies concerned with studies of textiles and dress of the Middle Ages. New themes and critical viewpoints from many disciplines are brought to bear on the medieval material in the areas of archaeology, art and architecture, economics, law, history, literature, religion, and textile technology. The contributors address surviving objects and artifacts and interpret representations in texts and images. The articles extend in time from the fifth to the sixteenth centuries, and cover Europe from Scandinavia, England, and Ireland in the north, to Italy and the Mediterranean basin in the south. Emphasis is placed on the significant role of trade and cultural exchanges as they impact appearance and its constituent materials.

R.C. Van Caenegem is one of the few legal historians to have crossed national boundaries successfully. His knowledge of the various codes and customs of the European Continent in general and the Low Countries in particular enables him to bring a fresh eye to the English Common law. Four of these nine essays have not been published in English before.

This book provides an original and multidisciplinary approach on Magna Carta (1215) as a joint heritage, a source of inspiration both for long established democracies and countries which only recently experienced the Rule of Law. Far from simply extolling the virtues associated with Magna Carta, it explores the gaps of the Great Charter. Instead of dealing separately with the historians' and the lawyers' outlooks as two conflicting perspectives, it juxtaposes the views of medievalist and contemporary historians with those of practicing lawyers and law academics, offering readers a thorough yet accessible historic and legal analysis of the charter and its meaning for the citizens of twenty-first century democracies. At a time of the erosion of civil liberties and fundamental rights, The Rights and Aspirations of the Magna Carta provides a rare insight into the 1215 medieval charter and its legacy.

This fascinating volume examines the enduring influence of courtly tradition and courtly love, particularly in contemporary popular culture. The ten chapters explore topics including the impact of the medieval troubadour in modern love songs, the legacy of figures such as Tristan, Iseult, Lancelot, Guinevere, and Merlin in modern film and literature, and more generally, how courtly and chivalric conceptions of love have shaped the Western world's conception of love, loyalty, honor, and adultery throughout history and to this day.

The Powers Phase Project was a multiyear archaeological program undertaken in southeastern Missouri by the University of Michigan in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The project focused on the occupation of a large Pleistocene-age terrace in the Little Black River Lowland-a large expanse of lowlying land just east of the Ozark Highland-between roughly A. D. 1250 and A. D. 1400. The largest site in the region is Powers Fort-a palisaded mound center that - ceived archaeological attention as early as the late nineteenth century. Archa- logical surveys conducted south of Powers Fort in the 1960s revealed the pr- ence of numerous smaller sites of varying size that contained artifact assemblages similar to those from the larger center. Collectively the settlement aggregation became known as the Powers phase. Test excavations indicated that at least some of the smaller sites contained burned structures and that the burning had sealed household items on the floors below the collapsed architectural e- ments. Thus there appeared to be an opportunity to examine a late prehistoric settlement system to a degree not possible previously. Not only could the s- tial relation of communities in the system be ascertained, but the fact that str- tures within the communities had burned appeared to provide a unique opp- tunity to examine such things as differences in household items between and among structures and where various activities had occurred within a house. With these ideas in mind, James B. Griffin and James E.

Nature and Illusion is the first extended treament of the portrayal of nature in Byzantine art and literature. In this richly illustrated study, Henry Maguire shows how the Byzantines embraced terrestrial creation in the decoration of their churches during the fifth to seventh centuries but then adopted a much more cautious attitude toward the depiction of animals and plants in the middle ages, after the iconoclastic dispute of the eighth and ninth centuries. In the medieval period, the art of Byzantine churches became more anthropocentric and less accepting of natural images. The danger that the latter might be put to idolatrous use created a constant state of tension between worldliness, represented by nature, and otherworldliness, represented by the portrait icons of the saints. The book discusses the role of iconoclasm in affecting this fundamental change in Byzantine art, as both sides in the controversy accused the other of "worshipping the creature rather than the Creator." An important theme is the asymmetrical relationship between Byzantine art and literature with respect to the portrayal of nature. A series of vivid texts described seasons, landscapes, gardens, and animals, but these were more sparingly illustrated in medieval art. Maguire concludes by discussing the abstraction of nature in the form of marble floors and revetments and with a consideration of the role of architectural backgrounds in medieval Byzantine art. Throughout Nature and Illusion, medieval Byzantine art is compared with that of Western Europe, where different conceptions of religious imagery allowed a closer engagement with nature.

Producing Christian Culture takes as its thread the 'interpretative genres' within which medieval people engaged with the Bible. Contributors to the volume present specific material as a case study illustrative of a specific genre, whether devotional, homiletical, scholarly, or controversial. The chronological range moves from St Augustine to the use of gospel texts in polemical writing of the first two decades of the 1500s, with focal sections on early medieval Anglo-Saxon and Carolingian theology, the scholastic turn of the High Middle Ages, and the influence of vernacular writing in the later Middle Ages. The tremendous range and vitality of medieval responses to biblical texts are highlighted within the studies.

This book focuses on the network of the Genoese colonies in the Black Sea area and their diverse multi-ethnic societies. It raises the problems of continuity of the colonial patterns, reveals the importance of the formation of the late medieval / early modern colonialism, the urban demography, and the functioning of the polyethnic entangled society of Caffa in its interaction with the outer world. It offers a novel interpretation of the functioning of this late medieval colonial polyethnic society and rejects the widely accepted narrative portraying the whole history of Caffa of the fifteenth century as a period of constant decline and depopulation.

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.

New Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Poland and Prussia: The Impact of Gdansk draws together the latest reseach conducted by local historians and archaeologists on the city of Gdansk and its impact on the surrounding region of Pomerania and Poland as a whole. Beginning with Gdansk's early political history and extending from the 10th to the 16th century, its twelve chapters explore a range of political, social, and socio-cultural historical questions and explain such phenomena as the establishment and development of the Gdansk port and city. A prominent theme is a consideration of the interactions between Gdansk and Poland and Prussia, including a look into the city's links with the State of the Teutonic Order in Prussia and the Kingdom of Poland under the rule of the Piast and Jagiellonian dynasties. The chapters are placed in the historical context of medieval Poland as well as the broader themes of religion, the matrimonial policy of noble families or their contacts with the papacy. This book is an exciting new study of medieval Poland and unparalleled in the English-speaking world, making it an ideal text for those wanting to deepen their knowledge in this subject area.

The history of medieval Germany is still rarely studied in the English-speaking world. This collection of essays by distinguished German historians examines one of most important themes of German medieval history, the development of the local principalities. These became the dominant governmental institutions of the late medieval Reich, whose nominal monarchs needed to work with the princes if they were to possess any effective authority. Previous scholarship in English has tended to look at medieval Germany primarily in terms of the struggles and eventual decline of monarchical authority during the Salian and Staufen eras - in other words, at the "failure" of a centralised monarchy. Today, the federalised nature of late medieval and early modern Germany seems a more natural and understandable phenomenon than it did during previous eras when state-building appeared to be the natural and inevitable process of historical development, and any deviation from the path towards a centralised state seemed to be an aberration. In addition, by looking at the origins and consolidation of the principalities, the book also brings an English audience into contact with the modern German tradition of regional history (Landesgeschichte). These path-breaking essays open a vista into the richness and complexity of German medieval history.

The eleventh century in Byzantium is all about being in between, whether this is between Basil II and Alexios Komnenos, between the forces of the Normans, the Pechenegs and the Turks, or between different social groupings, cultural identities and religious persuasions. It is a period of fundamental changes and transformations, both internal and external, but also a period rife with cliches and dominated by the towering presence of Michael Psellos whose usually self-contradictory accounts continue to loom large in the field of Byzantine studies. The essays collected here, which were delivered at the 45th Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, explore new avenues of research and offer new perspectives on this transitional period. The book is divided into four thematic clusters: 'The age of Psellos' studies this crucial figure and seeks to situate him in his time; 'Social structures' is concerned with the ways in which the deep structures of Byzantine society and economy responded to change; 'State and Church' offers a set of studies of various political developments in eleventh-century Byzantium; and 'The age of spirituality' offers the voices of those for whom Psellos had little time and little use: monks, religious thinkers and pious laymen.

This invigorating study places medieval romance narrative in dialogue with theories and practices of gift and exchange, opening new approaches to questions of storytelling, agency, gender and materiality in some of the most engaging literature from the Middle Ages. It argues that the dynamics of the gift are powerfully at work in romances: through exchanges of objects and people; repeated patterns of love, loyalty and revenge; promises made or broken; and the complex effects that time works on such objects, exchanges and promises. Ranging from the twelfth century to the fifteenth, and including close discussions of poetry by Chaucer, the Gawain-Poet and romances in the Auchinleck Manuscript, this book will prompt new ideas and debate amongst students and scholars of medieval literature, as well as anyone curious about the pleasures that romance narratives bring. -- .

Starting with an essay on the Renaissance as the concluding phase of the Middle Ages and ending with appreciations of Paul Oskar Kristeller, the great twentieth-century scholar of the Renaissance, this new volume by John Monfasani brings together seventeen articles that focus both on individuals, such as Erasmus of Rotterdam, Angelo Poliziano, Marsilio Ficino, and NiccolA(2) Perotti, and on large-scale movements, such as the spread of Italian humanism, Ciceronianism, Biblical criticism, and the Plato-Aristotle Controversy. In addition to entering into the persistent debate on the nature of the Renaissance, the articles in the volume also engage what of late have become controversial topics, namely, the shape and significance of Renaissance humanism and the character of the Platonic Academy in Florence.

Research on early medieval Cyprus has focused on the late antique "golden age" (late fourth/early fifth to seventh century) and the so-called Byzantine "Reconquista" (post-AD 965) while overlooking the intervening period. This phase was characterized, supposedly, by the division of the political sovereignty between the Umayyads and the Byzantines, bringing about the social and demographic dislocation of the population of the island. This book proposes a different story of continuities and slow transformations in the fate of Cyprus between the late sixth and the early ninth centuries. Analysis of new archaeological evidence shows signs of a continuing link to Constantinople. Moreover, together with a reassessment of the literary evidence, archaeology and material culture help us to reappraise the impact of Arab naval raids and contextualize the confrontational episodes throughout the ebb and flow of Eastern Mediterranean history: the political influence of the Caliphate looked stronger in the second half of the seventh century, the administrative and ecclesiastical influence of the Byzantine empire was held sway from the beginning of the eighth to the twelfth century. Whereas the island retained sound commercial ties with the Umayyad Levant in the seventh and eighth centuries, at the same time politically and economically it remained part of the Byzantine sphere. This belies the idea of Cyprus as an independent province only loosely tied to Constantinople and allows us to draw a different picture of the cultural identities, political practices and hierarchy of wealth and power in Cyprus during the passage from Late Antiquity to the early Middle Ages.

The study of Anglo-Norman history has been greatly enhanced in recent years by seeing the political context of the day not as a static feudal network, but as a changing pattern of personal and political allegiance, in which the careful control of reward and punishment by the monarch to ensure loyalty was of prime importance in ensuring the stability of the crown. Few historians have done more to show the working of this system than Warren Hollister. Monarchy, Magnates and Instututions in the Anglo-Norman World brings together a collection of his work pubished since 1968 and makes available a coherent and clear view of the major features of the period. Professor Hollister shows how the threat of civil war after the death of William the Conqueror dominated political loyalties until the battle of Tinchebray (1106), and the skill of Henry I in ensuring the support of the magnates both before and after the defeat of Roberrt of Normandy; the careers of three magnates, Robert Malet, William of Warrene and William de Mandeville are traced to demonstrate the dependence of the fortunes of such men and their families on the maintenance of good relations with the king.The author goes on to examine the beginnings of institutional government: the early history of the English treasury; the separation of the magnates from the curiales, those with administrative functions at court; and the importance of the career of Roger of Salisbury. Monarchy, Magnates and Institutions also includes a view of the argument over the effects of the Conquest on feudalism, and an assessment of the nature of the Angevin empire and the viability of the Anglo-Norman state. Finally Professor Hollister provides the clearest and most definite answer possible in terms of the available evidence to the speculations - including murder and magic - about the death of William Rufus in 1100.

The county of Tripoli in what is now North Lebanon is arguably the most neglected of the so-called 'crusader states' established in the Middle East at the beginning of the twelfth century. The present work is the first monograph on the county to be published in English, and the first in any western language since 1945. What little has been written on the subject previously has focused upon the European ancestry of the counts of Tripoli: a specifically Southern French heritage inherited from the famous crusader Raymond IV of Saint-Gilles. Kevin Lewis argues that past historians have at once exaggerated the political importance of the counts' French descent and ignored the more compelling signs of its cultural impact, highlighting poetry composed by troubadours in Occitan at Tripoli's court. For Lewis, however, even this belies a deeper understanding of the processes that shaped the county. What emerges is an intriguing portrait of the county in which its rulers struggled to exert their power over Lebanon in the face of this region's insurmountable geographical forces and its sometimes bewildering, always beguiling diversity of religions, languages and cultures. The counts of Tripoli and contemporary Muslim onlookers certainly viewed the dynasty as sons of Saint-Gilles, but the county's administration relied upon Arabic, its stability upon the mixed loyalties of its local inhabitants, and its very existence upon the rugged mountains that cradled it. This book challenges prevailing knowledge of this little-known crusader state and by extension the medieval Middle East as a whole. .