Volume XVI/2 of History of Universities contains the customary mix of learned articles, book reviews, conference reports, and bibliographical information, which makes this publication such an indispensable tool.

This is a highly original reappraisal of the role of Piers Gaveston in English history and of his personal relationship with Edward II. It challenges the accepted view that Gaveston had a homosexual affair with Edward, and reassesses the main events of Gaveston's career, including his exiles from England and the scandal over the alleged theft of royal jewels. Pierre Chaplais draws his evidence from documentary and narrative sources including unpublished record evidence. The conclusions are fascinating and often surprising. The unusual features of the famous royal charter of 6 August 1307, which granted the earldom of Cornwall to Gaveston are discussed at length for the first time. Special attention is also paid to the king's personal intervention in the drafting and sealing of documents relating to Gaveston, and to the history of the great seal of absence used while Edward was in France in 1308. This unique criticism of the documentary evidence by a leading diplomatist and historian of the period reveals the reality behind the myths surrounding Piers Gaveston, and makes fascinating reading.

"Hybridity, Identity and Monstrosity in Medieval Britain" examines an island made turbulent by conquest and civil war. Focusing upon history writing, ethnography, and saints' lives, this book details how community was imagined in the twelfth century; what role the monsterization of the Welsh, Irish and Jews played in bringing about English unity; and how writers who found the blood of two peoples mixed in their bodies struggled to find a vocabulary to express their identity. Its chapters explores the function and origin of myths like the unity and separateness of the English, the barbarism of the Celtic Fringe, the innate desire of Jews to murder Christian children as part of their Pesach ritual. Populated by wonders like a tempest formed of blood, a Saracen pope, strange creatures suspended between the animal and the human, and corpses animated with uncanny life, "Hybridity, Identity and Monstrosity in Medieval Britain" maps how collective identities form through violent exclusions, and details the price paid by those who find themselves denied the possibility of belonging.

Documents recording the interrogation of sixteen women and the nature of their unusual spiritual practices, now available in a full edition and, for the first time, a full English translation. In September 1332, in the town of Swidnica, an important economic and communication centre of what was then Silesia, a group of sixteen women stood before the Dominican inquisitor, John of Schwenkenfeld, to testify about the local community of beguines, who called themselves the Hooded Sisters or the Daughters of Odelindis. We are fortunate that the original records of this heresy interrogation have survived, preserved as a notarial instrument drawn up shortly afterwards, eventually transferred to the Papal Curia, and now kept in the Vatican Library. The documents provide unique insights into the everyday life and spirituality of this group of lay women, as they attempted to adopt the ideals of vita apostolica. They lived in the strict poverty they thought necessary for spiritual perfection, and took part in austere ascetic practices, including regular flagellation and a strict diet regime, aiming to mortify sinful flesh and help them achieve mystical union with God. Using this evidence, the authors of this book piece together a sense of who these interrogated beguines were and the nature of their spiritual practices. Were they pious illiterates, or self-trained theologians, keenly interested in debates around the doctrine of such intellectuals as Master Eckhart, John Duns Scotus and Thomas Aquinas? The book also addresses the nature of their interrogation and the conduct of Friar John of Schwenkenfeld. And it contains a full edition and, for the first time, a full English translation of the documents themselves.

Originally published between 1927 and 1982, the volumes in this set: Outline the social, economic and topographical factors which brought about the Renaissance Examine the great Italian Renaissance cities and their families. Two volume focus in particular on the Medici women. Discuss the French Renaissance and its literary and artistic heritage. Survey the artistic manifestations of European Renaissance with particular reference to early 20th Century London collections in Sculpture, Art, Bronzes, Ceramics and Glass. Contrast various currents of thought in the Renaissance with their medieval counterparts or forerunners.

The volumes in this set, originally published between 1938 and 1994, draw together research by leading academics in the area of medieval history and medieval literature, and provide a rigorous examination of related key issues. The volume examines medieval history from the early Middle Ages, right up until the Reformation, as well as the effect of the medieval period on later cultures, such as the Victorians. This collection draws together books on the monarchy, medieval philosophy, religion, art, music, psychology and architecture as well as volumes on medieval archeology. The collection also brings together key volumes on medieval literature of the period, with formative works examining medieval religious literature, medieval legends and oral tradition. The collection also includes titles examining specific poems from the period such as Piers Plowman, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Pearl, as well as volumes on influential writers of the period such as Jean Froissant, John Lydgate and Margery Kempe. This collection brings back into print a collection of insightful and detailed books on the diverse medieval period and will be a must have resource for academics and students, not only of history and literature, but of anthropology, music, psychology and religion.

For many years, scholars struggled to write the history of the constitution and political structure of the Holy Roman Empire. This book argues that this was because the political and social order could not be understood without considering the rituals and symbols that held the Empire together. What determined the rules (and whether they were followed) depended on complex symbolic-ritual actions. By examining key moments in the political history of the Empire, the author shows that it was a vocabulary of symbols, not the actual written laws, that formed a political language indispensable in maintaining the common order.

The twelve essays in this volume, each written by a leading specialist, present an accessible and comprehensive introduction to Italian Renaissance society, intellectual history, and politics, with each contribution reflecting the most recent innovations in the way that historians view and study the period.

In The Rise and Fall of Nikephoros II Phokas, Denis Sullivan presents five Byzantine Greek texts that document the remarkable career of Nikephoros II Phokas, emperor from 963 until his death in 969. The first three texts are historical chronicles covering the period 944-963, which sees Nikephoras' rise from military general. The fourth is a "historical epic" poem on the successful Byzantine expedition against Arab Crete in 960-961, for which Nikephoros was the field commander. The last text is a liturgical office that declares the slain emperor a martyr and a saint. These texts, translated into English for the first time, provide information on the Phokades that is not found elsewhere in the Greek sources, and the chronicles appear to reflect now lost pro-Phokan family sources.

The career of William Marshal, who rose from being the penniless, landless younger son of a middle-ranking nobleman to be regent of England in the minority of Henry III, is one of the most extraordinary stories of the Middle Ages.His biography was completed shortly after his death by a household minstrel and we are fortunate that it survives to give a unique portrait of a twelfth-century knight's life in the early days of tournaments and chivalry as wellas his career in warfare and politics.

Stone statues, indigenous to the early Turks, appeared in the vast territory of the Asian steppes, from Southern Siberia to Central Asia and across the foothills of the Ural Mountains. The custom originated among Cumans in Eastern Europe. The skill of erecting anthropomorphic stelae required proficiency in processing different kinds of stone and wood, and was characterized by artistic value of representations, as well as by the timeless aesthetics of the canon. The author presents the results of her formative studies into the collection of the Cuman sculptures of the Veliko-Anadol Forest Museum, Ukraine. The book delves into the history of research on Cuman stone stelae, resulting in great reading for all archeologists and historians alike.

James I "the Conqueror," king of Arago-Catalonia, conquered Mediterranean Spain from Islam during fifty crusading years (1225-1276). From his many surrender treaties, only two survive in their interlinear bilingual originals, both presented here. Each reflects the fragmentation of post-Almohad Islam, the warrior heroes of Islam carving recalcitrant principalities out of the confusion, the hard-fought local negotiations and the confrontation between two radically opposed mentalities.
The full meaning of these battered and deteriorated bits of parchment emerges only from minute reconstruction of the Arabic and Latinate texts and especially from ever-widening circles of changing contexts in each world, an historical kaleidoscope.
Many surprises here await students of medieval Europe, the Islamic West, Spain, the Crusades, diplomacy, Mudejars/Moriscos, and cultural conflict and interchange.

In this intriguing book, best-selling author Alf Mapp, Jr. explores three periods in Western history that exploded with creativity: Elizabethan England, Renaissance Florence, and America's founding. What enabled these societies to make staggering jumps in scientific knowledge, develop new political structures, or create timeless works of art?

"The Journal of Socho" is one of the most individual self-portraits in the literary history of medieval Japan. Its author, Saiokuken Socho (1448-1532)--the preeminent linked-verse ("renga") poet of his time--was an eyewitness to Japan's violent transition from the medieval to the early modern age. Written between 1522 and 1527, during the Age of the Country at War ("Sengoku jidai"), his journal provides a vivid portrayal of cultural life in the capital and in the provinces, together with descriptions of battles and great warrior families, the dangers of travel through war-torn countryside, and the plight of the poor.
The journal records four of Socho's journeys between Kyoto and Suruga Province, where he served as the poet laureate of the Imagawa house, as well as several shorter excursions and periods of rest at various hermitages. The diverse upbringing of its author--a companion of nobles and warlords, a student of the orthodox poetic neoclassicism of the "renga" master Sogi, and a devotee of the iconoclastic Zen prelate Ikkyu--afforded him rich insights into the cultural life of the period.
"The Journal of Socho" is remarkable for its breadth and freshness of observation, whether of the activities of literary men and the affairs of great courtiers and daimyo or of the daily lives of local warriors and commoners. This variety of cultural detail is matched by the journal's wealth of prose genres: travel diary, eremitic writing, historical chronicle, conversation, and correspondence. In addition, Socho has given us more than 600 verses that together illustrate most of the principal poetic genres of the time: "renga," "waka," "choka," "wakan renku," and comic or unorthodox "haikai" verses.

Based on close analyses of contemporary texts, and backed by an examination of the origins of the elements transferred and of the process of transmission, the contributors to this volume focus on the perception and adaptation of knowledge and cultural elements in the West. Taking a variety of approaches, they shed light on the changing lines of communication between the Byzantine empire and other parts of the Mediterranean, on the one hand, and the Burgundian, Frankish and Anglo-Saxon realms and the Papacy on the other.

A detailed examination of a distinctive group of female religious communities, founded by royal families in Anglo-Saxon England, this title shows that the fortunes of the nunneries were inextricably linked with those of the royal families who were their patrons. It explores how they often had to reconcile potentially conflicting demands from the secular and ecclesiastical worlds and looks at the opportunities the nunneries provided for royal women to exercise the types of public power and authority that in the early middle ages were often the preserve of men. Within the royal family nexus, entry into the church was a gendered role performed by its women and an option that was not generally available to royal males. As a result some remarkable women were able both to run major religious houses and to intervene in contemporary family politics. All too often the roles of such women in church and state have been underplayed in conventional ecclesiastical and political histories; this title hopes to restore some of the respect that these powerful women undoubtedly enjoyed in their own lifetimes.

The current debate about the best methods of European organization - central or regional - is influenced by an awareness of regional identity, which offers an alternative to the rigidities of organization by nation-state. Yet where does the sense of regionalism come from? What are the distinctive factors that transform a geographical area into a particular 'region'? Tom Scott addresses these questions in this study of one apparently 'natural' region - the Upper Rhine - between 1450 and 1600. This region has been divided between three countries and so historically marginalized, yet Dr Scott is able to trace the existence of a sense of historical regional identity cutting across national frontiers, founded on common economic interests. But that identity was always contingent and precarious, neither 'natural' nor immutable.

Margaret, saint and 11th-century Queen of the Scots, remains an often-cited yet little-understood historical figure. Her world was the product of perspectives and models from Nordic, Kievan, Hungarian, Anglo-Saxon, Norman, and Scottish traditions, with all the expectations and admonitions which they pressed upon her. Likewise, her cult evolved within interconnected dynastic, political, ecclesiastical, and papal agendas. This book proposes to bridge the gap between what is known about Margaret and what has been surmised in order to provide a contextual understanding of her life and early cult. Catherine Keene's analysis of sources in terms of both time and place - including her Life of Saint Margaret, translated for the first time - allows for an informed understanding of the forces that shaped this captivating woman.

This work presents a brief narrative of the title subject, interweaving deft evaluations of the critical points of historical thought.

Francis of Assisi, whose Gospel performance captured the imagination of his day, fostered a movement of men and women who were fascinated by the transformative power of the embodied Word. Learned or unlettered, theologian or penitent, their shared conviction took form in various gestures, languages, and literary genres. For their part, medieval artisans and craftsmen reflected this Franciscan predilection to preach in architecture, frescoes, and reliquaries. In "Franciscans and Preaching," scholars from Europe and North Amercia offer the first extensive English language study of medieval Franciscan preaching. Contributors are C. Colt Anderson, Joshua C. Benson, Michael W. Blastic, Jay M. Hammond, J.A. Wayne Hellmann, Timothy J. Johnson, Beverly M. Kienzle, Francesco Lucchini, Steven J. McMichael, Alison More, Stephen Mossman, Patrick Nold, Darleen Pryds, Amanda Quantz, Bert Roest, Michael Robson, Francisco Javier Rojo Alique, and Nicholas W. Youmans.

In popular imagination, the Vikings are remembered as fierce warrior seamen who campaigned through Western Europe, terrorizing British, Frankish, and Irish societies. Yet is it possible that the great Viking armies left more in their wake than carnage and destruction? The stories of two families-the Olafssons, who transformed a pirate camp in Ireland into the kingdom of Dublin, and the Haraldssons, whose rule encompassed Hebrides, Galloway, and the Isle of Man-suggest that the Vikings did indeed leave behind a much greater legacy.
Between the tenth and twelfth centuries, these two Viking families, descendants of men whom earlier chroniclers dismissed as pagan pirates, established themselves as Christian rulers whose domain straddled the Scandinavian and Celtic worlds. The Olafssons and Haraldssons carved out empires that inspired fear and made their families fabulously wealthy. From their ranks came the settlers who gave name to the Danelaw in Britain, Fingal in Ireland, and Normandy in Francia. Celebrated in Icelandic sagas and poems, Irish tales, and French history, the Olafssons and Haraldssons took part in the last successful Scandinavian invasion of Britain and the overthrow of the last Old English kingdom, even as they allied with, fought against, and married their Irish neighbors.
Though the families had come to these lands as conquerors, they soon learned the importance of cooperating with those they had vanquished. Even as they worshipped pagan gods, the Olafssons and Haraldssons both became important benefactors to the Christian church. They also played a crucial role in the economic revival of northern Europe as trading ships from their ports sailed throughout theAtlantic and the goods they produced traveled as far west as Canada. Under their rule, the seas became a connector for a shared culture, commercially, artistically, and socially.
Challenging traditional views of the Vikings' culture, Benjamin Hudson shows the role that these two great dynasties played in the Second Viking age. The rise and transformation of the Olafssons and Haraldsssons from the tenth to the twelfth centuries highlights a period and people important for understanding the political, religious, and cultural development of Europe in the High Middle Ages.

The essays in this volume reflect on and build on the remarkable legacies of Robert Mark and Andrew Tallon, who pioneered the application of high-technology research methods to the study of Gothic architecture. Combining personal reminiscences and historiographical discussions with meticulous geometrical and structural analyses based on photogrammetric and laser-scanned building surveys, this book offers valuable new perspectives not only on Mark and Tallon themselves, but also on major churches including the abbeys of Saint-Denis and Alcobaca, Santa Maria Novella in Florence, Notre-Dame in Paris, and the cathedrals of Clermont, Reims and Wells. Contributors are: Sheila Bonde, Robert Bork, Lindsay S. Cook, Michael Davis, James Hillson, Kyle Killian, Peter Kurmann, Clark Maines, Ethan Mark, Stephen Murray, Sergio Sanabria, Dany Sandron, Ellen Shortell, Elizabeth B. Smith, Rebecca Smith, Arnaud Timbert, Stefaan Van Liefferinge, and Nancy Wu.

From 1095 to the end of the thirteenth century, the crusades touched the lives of many thousands of British people, even those who were not crusaders themselves. In this introductory survey, Kathryn Hurlock compares and contrasts the crusading experiences of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Taking a thematic approach, Hurlock provides an overview of the crusading movement, and explores key aspects of the crusades, such as: - Where crusaders came from - When and why the papacy chose to recruit crusaders - The impact on domestic life, as shown through literature, religion and taxation - Political uses of the crusades - The role of the military orders in Britain This wide-ranging and accessible text is the ideal introduction to this fascinating subject in early British history.