Church and Chronicle in the Middle Ages is a collection of essays presented to John Taylor, former Life Fellow and medieval scholar at the University of Leeds. The essays in the volume have two clear foci, also those of John Taylor's own work: the study of history-writing in the middle ages and the late medieval church. With contributions key scholars on topics such as the hagiography of Saint-Wandrille, Swein Forkbeard and the historians, personal seals in 13th-century England, women in the Plumpton Correspondence and medievalism in counter-reformation Sicily, this volume is a rich and varied collection of medieval scholarship and a fitting tribute to Taylor's work from his friends and colleagues.

The chastity belt is one of those objects people have commonly identified with the "dark" Middle Ages. This book analyzes the origin of this myth and demonstrates how a convenient misconception, or rather contorted imagination, of an allegedly historical practice has led to profoundly erroneous interpretations of alleged control mechanisms used by jealous husbands in the Middle Ages.

The celebrated Great Mosque of Damascus was built in the early eighth century by the Umayyad caliph al-Wal?d b. 'Abd al-Malik. This book provides a detailed study of this Mosque. Using textual, visual, and archaeological evidence, the author attempts to reconstruct some of the basic formal and decorative features of the Umayyad mosque, to locate it within its broader urban context, and to consider its role within al-Wal?d's unprecedented programme of architectural patronage. The work explores the intracultural and intercultural functions of religious architecture within an official visual discourse intended to project a distinctive Muslim identity in a manner determined by Umayyad political aspirations. It will be of particular interest to those concerned with the relationship between the Umayyad caliphate and Byzantium.

Britain is a treasure trove of medieval architecture. Almost every village and town in the land has a church that was built during the period, whose history is legible - to those who know how to look - in every arch, capital, roof vault, and detail of window tracery. By learning how to identify the stylistic phases that resulted from shifts in architectural fashion, it is possible to date each part of a church to within a decade or two; this book introduces all the key features of each succeeding style, from Anglo-Saxon and Norman through to the three great gothic styles, Early English, Decorated and Perpendicular. It will be indispensable to anyone who enjoys exploring medieval churches, and who wants to understand and appreciate their beauty more deeply.

The Persistence of Medievalism seeks to examine the ways medieval genre shapes contemporary public culture. Through an exploration of several contemporary cultural phenomena, this book reveals the narrative underpinnings of public discourse. The ways these particular forms of storytelling shape our assumptions are examined by Angela Jane Weisl through a series of examples that demonstrate the intrinsic ways medievalism persists in the modern world, thus perpetuating archaic ideas of gender, ideology, and doctrine.

Assembled in honour of John H. A. Munro (University of Toronto), the volume groups nineteen original studies by a diversified panel of scholars. The essays explore late medieval market mechanisms and associated institutional, fiscal and monetary, organizational, decision-making, legal and ethical issues, as well as various aspects of production, consumption and market integration. The geographical scope stretches from North-Western and Central Europe to North and West Africa, and the individual contributions deal with a variety of local, regional, and long-distance markets and networks. The mix of approaches, cutting-edge archival research, and presentations of current projects addresses the interests of scholars in diverse fields, from economic to social and institutional history. The volume offers a full bibliography of John H. A. Munro's works.

The defeat of the Spanish Armada did not put an end to Spanish sea power, nor to Spain's ambitions in northern Europe. By the mid-1590s, Spain had recovered from the disaster of 1588, and the renewed naval wars together with the outbreak of rebellion in Ireland form the principal themes of this book. R. B. Wernham sets out to examine these major events of the last years of Queen Elizabeth's reign and to assess their impact on English policy. Professor Wernham shows how much of the impetus in foreign policy derived from the Earl of Essex, whose personal ambition and practical incompetence brought frustration and danger, and ultimately led him through rebellion to the scaffold. It was left to Mountjoy in Ireland, to Leveson and a new generation of sea commanders, and above all to Robert Cecil, to bring war and rebellion to a reasonably satisfactory conclusion. The Return of the Armadas is a superbly integrated and lucidly written study in grand strategy by a leading historian of Elizabethan affairs. It carries to its conclusion the story begun in his After the Armada.

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.

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.

The process of colonisation that followed the Norman Conquest defined much of the history of England over the next 150 years, structurally altering the distribution of land and power in society. This theme is defined in a previously unpublished lecture on Colonial England, given in 1994, but it runs through all the sixteen essays in this collection. J.C. Holt's subjects include Domesday Book, the establishment of knight-service, aristocratic structures and nomenclature, the relation of family to property, security of title and inheritance, among other matters. He comments on the work of Maitland, Round and Stenton and ends with studies of the treaty of Winchester (1153), the rasus regis, and Magna Carta.

Simon de Montfort, the leader of the English barons, was the first leader of a political movement to seize power from a reigning monarch. The charismatic de Montfort and his forces had captured most of south-eastern England by 1263 and at the battle of Lewes in 1264 King Henry III was defeated and taken prisoner. De Montfort became de facto ruler of England and the short period which followed was the closest England was to come to complete abolition of the monarchy until Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth. The Parliament of 1265 - known as De Montfort's Parliament - was the first English parliament to have elected representatives. Only fifteen months later de Montfort's gains were reversed when Prince Edward escaped captivity and defeated the rebels at the Battle of Evesham. Simon de Montfort was killed. Following this victory savage retribution was exacted on the rebels and authority was restored to Henry III. Adrian Jobson captures the intensity of de Montfort's radical crusade through these most revolutionary years in English history in this spirited and dramatic narrative.

A Companion to Islamic Granada gathers, for the first time in English, a number of essays exploring aspects of the Islamic history of this city from the 8th through the 15th centuries from an interdisciplinary perspective. This collective volume examines the political development of Medieval Gharnata under the rule of different dynasties, drawing on both historiographical and archaeological sources. It also analyses the complexity of its religious and multicultural society, as well as its economic, scientific, and intellectual life. The volume also transcends the year 1492, analysing the development of both the mudejar and the morisco populations and their contribution to Grenadian culture and architecture up to the 17th century. Contributors are: Barbara Boloix-Gallardo, Maria Jesus Viguera-Molins, Alberto Garcia-Porras, Antonio Malpica-Cuello, Bilal Sarr-Marroco, Allen Fromherz, Bernard Vincent, Maribel Fierro-Bello, M Luisa Avila-Navarro, Juan Pedro Monferrer-Sala, Jose Martinez-Delgado, Luis Bernabe-Pons, Adela Fabregas-Garcia, Josef Zenka, Amalia Zomeno-Rodriguez, Delfina Serrano-Ruano, Julio Samso-Moya, Celia del Moral-Molina, Jose Miguel Puerta-Vilchez, Antonio Orihuela-Uzal, Ieva Reklaityte, and Rafael Lopez-Guzman.

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.

The Danelaw brings together an impressive body of work. Cyril Hart deals with both the main outline of the Danelaw, its administration and institutions, and its detail: the origin and development of particular provinces, boroughs, sokes and wapentakes; Danelaw charters and wills; battles, including Maldon seen in terms of topography; families, such as that of Athelstan 'Half King'; and individuals including Hereward the Wake, rescued from Victorian Romanticism and put on as sound a historical basis as the evidence will permit.

This clear and concise book focuses on the history of the major realms in Northern Europe during a period in which the relatively stable society of the High Middle Ages was shaken by wars, plague and depopulation. Taking into account, and challenging, the findings of recent research, Margaret L. Kekewich and Susan Rose present their own distinctive interpretations. Britain, France and the Empire, 1350-1500 - contrasts the structure of rural society with the growing importance of towns and traders - examines the development of the political structures within the various realms - pays particular attention to the way in which ideals of kingship were or were not fulfilled in practice - discusses warfare and logistics - considers the enormous significance of religion alongside the evolution of a distinctive court society and the growth of intellectual interests. Adopting a thematic approach, and illustrated throughout, this is the ideal introductory guide to a transitional period in European history.

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.

This book explores the world of religious thinking on imprisonment, and how images of imprisonment were used in monastic thought, the cult of saints, the early inquisitions, preaching and hagiographical literature and the world of the crusades to describe a conception of inclusion and freedom that was especially meaningful to medieval Christians.

This first biography of Richard, third Duke of York, examines the political opposition of a great lord to Henry VI's regime. Active in the government of Lancastrian Normandy, he served twice as lieutenant of Ireland where, on his second visit, he did much to consolidate the trend towards Irish autonomy. The major interest of his career, however, lies in the increasing isolation of a once loyal subject. Suspect in the late 1440s, and even more so after the great revolt of 1450, he was driven into opposition during the following decade despite serving for two effective periods - here evaluated for the first time - as Protector of England. In 1455 violence replaced politics at St Albans, and England collapsed into the Wars of the Roses. Five years later, following his unsuccessful claim to the throne - an event for which fresh evidence is presented - he resorted once again to violence, dying in battle and leaving to his son Edward the claim which brought the first Yorkist to the throne.

Werewolf Histories is the first academic book in English to address European werewolf history and folklore from antiquity to the twentieth century. It covers the most important werewolf territories, ranging from Scandinavia to Germany, France and Italy, and from Croatia to Estonia.

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.

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 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. .

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.