Scholarly interest and popular interest in the military orders show no sign of abating. This volume records the proceedings of the fifth conference in 2009, and, like the earlier volumes in the series, is essential reading for everyone interested in the progress of research into these powerful institutions.

Between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries, the social and cultural worlds of medieval Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean were transformed by the religious impetus of the crusades. Today we bear witness to these transformations in the material and environmental record revealed by new archaeological excavations and reappraisals of museum collections. This volume highlights new archaeological knowledge being developed by scholars working in the fields of history, archaeology, numismatics, and architecture to demonstrate its potential to change and augment our understanding of the crusades. The 16 chapters in this volume deploy a contemporary scientific approach to archaeology of the crusades to give an up-to-date account into the diverse range of research in this area. They explore five key themes: the implications of scientific methods, new excavations and surveys, architectural analyses, sigillography, and the application of social interpretations. Together these chapters provide a new way of approaching the study of the crusades, and demonstrate the value of taking a holistic view that utilises the full diverse range of evidence available to us.

Alexander III was one of the most important popes of the Middle Ages and his papacy (1159-81) marked a significant watershed in the history of the Western Church and society. This book provides a long overdue reassessment of his papacy and his achievements, bringing together thirteen essays which review existing scholarship and present the latest research and new perspectives. Individual chapters cover topics such as Alexander's many contributions to the law of the Church, which had a major impact upon Western society, notably on marriage, his relations with Byzantium, and the extension of papal authority at the peripheries of the West, in Spain, Northern Europe and the Holy Land. But dominant are the major clashes between secular and spiritual authority: the confrontation between Henry II of England and Thomas Becket after which Alexander eventually secured the king's co-operation and the pope's eighteen-year conflict with the German emperor, Frederick I. Both the papacy and the Western Church emerged as stronger institutions from this struggle, largely owing to Alexander's leadership and resilience: he truly mastered the art of survival.

This volume looks at 'visions of community' in a comparative perspective, from Late Antiquity to the dawning of the age of crusades. It addresses the question of why and how distinctive new political cultures developed after the disintegration of the Roman World, and to what degree their differences had already emerged in the first post-Roman centuries. The Latin West, Orthodox Byzantium and its Slavic periphery, and the Islamic world each retained different parts of the Graeco-Roman heritage, while introducing new elements. For instance, ethnicity became a legitimizing element of rulership in the West, remained a structural element of the imperial periphery in Byzantium, and contributed to the inner dynamic of Islamic states without becoming a resource of political integration. Similarly, the political role of religion also differed between the emerging post-Roman worlds. It is surprising that little systematic research has been done in these fields so far. The 32 contributions to the volume explore this new line of research and look at different aspects of the process, with leading western Medievalists, Byzantinists and Islamicists covering a wide range of pertinent topics. At a closer look, some of the apparent differences between the West and the Islamic world seem less distinctive, and the inner variety of all post-Roman societies becomes more marked. At the same time, new variations in the discourse of community and the practice of power emerge. Anybody interested in the development of the post-Roman Mediterranean, but also in the relationship between the Islamic World and the West, will gain new insights from these studies on the political role of ethnicity and religion in the post-Roman Mediterranean.

First published in 1997, this collection includes papers on Crusader-era architecture in Palestine with a focus on 'Atlit, the castle of 'Ajlun and on the Citadel of Jerusalem, both the papers and sites of which have previously been difficult to access. The volume is presented partly to repair the very real deficit in the literature on Crusader architecture and partly as a fitting memorial to the author, who died in 1992. 'Atlit in particular held a special significance for C.N. Johns, being the site of his first major project as a field archaeologist. His Guide to 'Atlit, a masterly summary of his findings, remains the most complete and comprehensive account of the castle and its suburb. The studies collected here pay tribute to their author's enduring contribution to the medieval archaeology of the Near East. The first part of the book deals with the 'Pilgrim's Castle', the great Templar fortress and town at 'Atlit. The significance of Johns' excavations at this site has been relatively neglected, because it remains in a military area, inaccessible to visitors, and because almost the entire stock of his major publication was lost in 1947. This 'Guide to 'Atlit', a synthesis of historical, archaeological and architectural research on the monument, is reprinted here together with all the interim reports relating to the medieval period. Also included are Johns' studies on the Citadel of Jerusalem, the 'Tower of David', and on the Islamic castle of 'Ajlun. Together, they represent a fundamental contribution to the study of the period of the Crusades and to the military architecture of the Middle Ages. The notes by Denys Pringle bring the accounts up to date in the light of recent research.

Published in 1937: The author's work on the Renaissance in Italy is too well known, not only to students of the period, but now a wider circle of readers, for any introduction to be necessary.

A study of the performance of queenship by two Tudor monarchs, showing the strategies they used to assert their power. Catherine of Aragon (r.1509-33) and her sister-in-law Margaret Tudor (r.1503-13) presided as queens over the glittering sixteenth-century courts of England and Scotland, alongside their husbands Henry VIII of England and James IVof Scotland. Although we know a great deal about these two formidable sixteenth-century kings, we understand very little about how their two queens contributed to their reigns. How did these young, foreign women become effective and trusted consorts, and powerful political figures in their own right? This book argues that Catherine and Margaret's performance of queenship combined medieval queenly virtues with the new opportunities for influence and power offered by Renaissance court culture. Royal rituals such as childbirth and the Royal Maundy, courtly spectacles such as tournaments, banquets and diplomatic summits, or practices such as arranged marriages and gift-giving, were all moments when Catherine and Margaret could assert their honour, status and identity as queens. Their husbands' support for their activities at court helped bring them the influence and patronage necessary to pursue their ownpolitical goals and obtain favour and rewards for their servants and followers. Situating Catherine and Margaret's careers within the history of the royal courts of England and Scotland and amongst their queenly peers, this book reveals these two queens as intimately connected agents of political influence and dynastic power.

The cutting-edge papers in this collection reflect the wide areas to which John Pryor has made significant contributions in the course of his scholarly career. They are written by some of the world's most distinguished practitioners in the fields of Crusading history and the maritime history of the medieval Mediterranean. His colleagues, students and friends discuss questions including ship construction in the fourth and fifteenth centuries, navigation and harbourage in the eastern Mediterranean, trade in Fatimid Egypt and along the Iberian Peninsula, military and social issues arising among the crusaders during field campaigns, and wider aspects of medieval warfare. All those with an interest in any of these subjects, whether students or specialists, will need to consult this book.

In pre-industrial societies, in which the majority of the population lived directly off the land, few issues were more important than the maintenance of soil fertility. Without access to biodegradable wastes from production processes or to synthetic agrochemicals, early farmers continuously developed strategies aimed at adding nutritional value to their fields using locally available natural materials. Manure really mattered, its collection/creation, storage, and spreading becoming major preoccupations for all agriculturalists no matter what environment they worked or at what period. This book brings together the work of a group of international scholars working on social, cultural, and economic issues relating to past manure and manuring. Contributors use textual, linguistic, archaeological, scientific and ethnographic evidence as the basis for their analyses. The scope of the papers is temporally and geographically broad; they span the Neolithic through to the modern period and cover studies from the Middle East, Britain and Atlantic Europe, and India. Together they allow us to explore the signatures that manure and manuring have left behind, and the vast range of attitudes that have surrounded both substance and activity in the past and present.

Our imagination reveals our experience of ourselves and our world. The late philosopher of science and poetry Gaston Bachelard introduced the notion that each image that comes to mind spontaneously is a visual representation of the cognitive and affective pattern that is moving us at the time - often unconsciously. When such a mental image inspires a picture or text, it evokes in the mind of the reader or beholder a replication of the internal pattern that originally inspired the artist or writer. Thus mental images are rarely empty phantasies. Whereas intellectual concepts are conscious constructions of abstracted relations, mental images evoked by texts and pictures often point - like dreams - to pre-verbal experience that patterns itself through multiplying associations and analogies. These mental images can also manifest their own limits, pointing indirectly to experiences beyond what can be expressed and communicated. The six essays in this volume seek to uncover the dynamic patterns in verbal and pictorial images and to evaluate their potentialities and limitations. Thematically ordered according to their specific focus, the essays begin with material images and move on to increasing degrees of immateriality. The subjects treated are: verbal descriptions of an icon and of a statue; imaginative visions and auditions evoked by material depictions; verbal imagery describing imagined sculptures and scenes as compared with drawings of a moving historical pageant; drawings of symbolic figures representing subtle relationships between verbal expositions that cannot be syntactically represented; dream images that precipitate actual healing; and aural patterns in a sounded text that are experienced as 'images' of affective dynamisms.

This book forms part of the Evergetis Project which aims to investigate all surviving texts associated with the Monastery of the Theotokos Evergetis founded in 1049 near Constantinople. A book-length introduction sets out the historical significance of the house for the development of Byzantine monasticism and discusses its administration, liturgy and way of life. An English translation of the Hypotyposis (the monastery's foundation document) is provided, accompanied by detailed notes. Previous scholarship on the authorship of the Hypotyposis and the evolution of the text is discussed and linguistic analysis used to suggest that traces of the original foundation document by Paul Evergetinos can be identified within it. The Hypotyposis was widely used as a model for later Byzantine and Slavonic typika and the precise relationship of these documents one to the other is demonstrated in detail. The volume also includes prosopographical material on the known patrons of the monastery, a discussion of its library, English translations of later Greek and Latin texts referring to the monastery and a suggested reconstruction of Paul Evergetinos' original foundation document.

Braveheart reached a global audience with its powerful re-telling of the almost forgotten story of William Wallace and his struggle to defend Scotland's freedom. Described as ?the most politically influential movie of the 20th century?, it also had a part to play in the political change that swept Scotland, mobilising public opinion to aid the return of a Scottish Parliament after a gap of 300 years. Braveheart: From Hollywood to Holyrood is the first book about this movie phenomenon, discussing the life and legacy of William Wallace through the modern image of the hero as presented in the film. Written with the co-operation of Randall Wallace, author of the screenplay and novelisation of Braveheart, and including never before published photographs, this is the long-awaited handbook for Braveheart fans around the world.

In this study, author Caroline Huey analyzes the copious literary output of medieval poet and barber-surgeon Hans Folz in all its variety-whether Meisterlied, Reimpaarspruch or carnival play. Heretofore, published research to do with Folz's multifaceted and compelling oeuvre has been fragmentary, because scholars have restricted themselves by genre in examining themes in Folz's work. By integrating the different themes across Folz's output, and by integrating consideration (previously neglected by earlier critics) of Folz's role as barber-surgeon, Huey offers new insights as to the interaction of these themes and to the character of the poet's work overall. She shows that ultimately Folz is concerned with the circulation of knowledge and power, correct and incorrect behavior, and, above all, with finding order. In each chapter, Huey examines a particular theme from Folz's life and/or work. She looks at how adeptly he commandeers the new technology of printing to further his own ends; how his ubiquitous physicality connects his medical body to his Christian body; his attitude toward women; and the anti-Jewish thread in his work.

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

First published in 1923, this formative history of Ireland is an extensive study of the period from 1086 - 1513. Beginning with the O'Brien High Kinship, Edmund Curtis takes us through the Anglo-Norman conquest and its sequel, ending with the death of Gerald 'the Great Earl' of Kildare in 1513, a date when the second English conquest of Ireland (the 'Tudor Reconquest') became imminent.

This is a reissue of a definitive landmark study of Irish history by one of greatest Irish historians of the twentieth century.

This book traces the shared culture of the Chinese elite from the seventh to the twelfth centuries. The early T'ang definition of 'This Culture of Ours' combined literary and scholarly traditions from the previous five centuries. The late Sung Neo-Confucian movement challenged that definition. The author argues that the Tang-Sung transition is best understood as a transition from a literary view of culture - in which literary accomplishment and mastery of traditional forms were regarded as essential - to the ethical orientation of Neo-Confucianism, in which the cultivation of one's innate moral ability was regarded as the goal of learning. The author shows that this transformation paralleled the collapse of the T'ang order and the restoration of a centralized empire under the Sung, underscoring the connection between elite formation and political institutions.

Who can concentrate on thoughts of Scripture or philosophy and be able to endure babies crying ... ? Will he put up with the constant muddle and squalor which small children bring into the home? The wealthy can do so ... but philosophers lead a very different life ... So, according to Peter Abelard, did his wife Heloise state in characteristically stark terms the antithetical demands of family and scholarship. Heloise was not alone in making this assumption. Sources from Jerome onward never cease to remind us that the life of the mind stands at odds with life in the family. For all that we have moved in the past two generations beyond kings and battles, fiefs and barons, motherhood has remained a blind spot for medieval historians. Whatever the reasons, the result is that the historiography of the medieval period is largely motherless. The aim of this book is to insist that this picture is intolerably one-dimensional, and to begin to change it. The volume is focussed on the paradox of motherhood in the European Middle Ages: to be a mother is at once to hold great power, and by the same token to be acutely vulnerable. The essays look to analyse the powers and the dangers of motherhood within the warp and weft of social history, beginning with the premise that religious discourse or practice served as a medium in which mothers (and others) could assess their situation, defend claims, and make accusations. Within this frame, three main themes emerge: survival, agency, and institutionalization. The volume spans the length and breadth of the Middle Ages, from late Roman North Africa through ninth-century Byzantium to late medieval Somerset, drawing in a range of types of historian, including textual scholars, literary critics, students of religion and economic historians. The unity of the volume arises from the very diversity of approaches within it, all addressed to the central topic.

Medieval Islamic society set great store by the transmission of history: to edify, argue legal points, explain present conditions, offer political and religious legitimacy, and entertain. Modern scholars, too, have had much to say about the usefulness of early Islamic history-writing, although this debate has traditionally focused overwhelmingly on the central Islamic lands.

This book looks instead at local and regional history-writing in Medieval Iberia. Drawing on numerous Arabic texts historical, geographical and biographical composed and transmitted in al-Andalus, North Africa and the Islamic east between the ninth and fourteenth centuries, Nicola Clarke offers a nuanced and detailed analysis of narratives about the eighth-century Muslim conquest of Iberia. Comparing how individual episodes, characters, and themes are treated in different texts, and how this treatment relates to intellectual debates, literary trends, and socio-political conditions at the time of writing, she shows how competing priorities shaped myriad variations on a single story and how the scholars and patrons of a corner of the Islamic world distant from Baghdad viewed their own history.

Offering a framework in which historians of Christian Iberia (and of Christian Europe more generally) can approach and make sense of culturally-significant texts from Muslim Iberia, this book will also be relevant to broader debates about the historiography of early Islam. As such, it will be of great interest to scholars of historiography, world history and Islamic studies.

The history of western notions about Islam is of obvious scholarly as well as popular interest today. This book investigates Christian images of the Muslim Middle East, focusing on the period from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, when the nature of divine as well as human power was under particularly intense debate in the West.

Ivan Kalmar explores how the controversial notion of submission to ultimate authority has in the western world been discussed with reference to Islam 's alleged recommendation to obey, unquestioningly, a merciless Allah in heaven and a despotic government on earth. He discusses how Abrahamic faiths Christianity and Judaism as much as Islam demand devotion to a sublime power, with the faith that this power loves and cares for us, a concept that brings with it the fear that, on the contrary, this power only toys with us for its own enjoyment. For such a power, Kalmar borrows Slavoj Zizek 's term "obscene father." He discusses how this describes exactly the western image of the Oriental despot - Allah in heaven, and the various sultans, emirs and ayatollahs on earth and how these despotic personalities of imagined Muslim society function as a projection, from the West on to the Muslim Orient, of an existential anxiety about sublime power.

Making accessible academic debates on the history of Christian perceptions of Islam and on Islam and the West, this book is an important addition to the existing literature in the areas of Islamic studies, religious history and philosophy.

This volume explores the changes that occurred during the Viking Age, as Scandinavian societies fell in line with the larger forces that dominated the Insular world and Continental Europe, absorbing the powerful symbiosis of Christianity and monarchy, adapting to the idea of royal lineage and supremacy, and developing a buzzing urbanism coupled with large-scale trade networks. Presenting research on the grand context of the Viking Age alongside localised studies, it contributes to the furthering of collaborations between local and 'outsider' research on the Viking Age. Through a diversity of approaches on the Viking homelands and the wider world of the Vikings, it offers studies of a range of phenomena, including urban and rural settlements; continuity in the use of places as well as new types of places specific to the Viking Age; the social significance of change; the construction and maintenance of social identity both within the 'homelands' and across large territories; ethnicity; and ideas of identity and the creation and recreation of identity both at home and abroad. As such, it will appeal to historians and archaeologists with interests in Viking-Age studies, as well as scholars of Scandinavian studies.

This is the first English translation of the Venerable Bede's commentary on the book of Genesis. Dealing as it does with the biblical account of the creation of the world and of mankind, and of mankind's fall from grace and exile into the life of time, On Genesis offers essential insights into Bede's fundamental assumptions as a theologian, historian, and scientific cosmologist. Bede's role in laying the foundations of the modern world cannot be overemphasised. From his quantitative approach to questions of science to his introduction of the Anno Domini system of dating and his text-critical methods of biblical analysis, he anticipated and influenced modern ways of thinking. Bede regarded the opening chapters of Genesis as the foundation narrative of the world. From it Bede derived the theoretical basis for his scientific treatises and his notion of the English as a chosen people of God, which informs the Ecclesiastical History. This translation and introduction attempts to make Bede's commentary accessible to anyone with an interest in his work.

This collection brings together two flourishing areas of medieval scholarship: gender and religion. It examines gender-specific religious practices and contends that the pursuit of holiness can destabilise binary gender itself. Though saints may be classified as masculine or feminine, holiness may also cut across gender divisions and demand a break from normally gendered behaviour. This work of interdisciplinary cultural history includes contributions from historians, art historians and literary critics and will be of interest not only to medievalists, but also to students of religion and gender in any period.

In 1930 the Cretan healer Nikolaos Konstantinos Theodorakis of Meronas re-copied a notebook containing medical lore passed down through his family over generations. The present volume offers an edition of this notebook together with an English translation, the first of its kind. It belongs to the genre of iatrosophia, practical handbooks dating mainly to the 17th to 19th centuries which compiled healing wisdom, along with snippets of agricultural, meteorological and veterinary advice, and admixtures of religion, astrology and magic. Both fascinating and of critical importance, iatrosophia allow glimpses of classical and Byzantine medical sources and illustrate the vitality and resilience of Greek traditional medical and botanical knowledge. From years spent exploring local healing customs in Crete's Amari region, Patricia Clark is able to present Theodorakis' iatrosophion against a rich historical, geographical and social background. Introductory essays and explanatory notes to the translation give context to the iatrosophion and provide the specialized information necessary for a good understanding of the text. The abundant materia medica of the notebook is treated in a substantial appendix. Each animal, mineral, plant or product is provided with an overview of its various names through the millennia. Such entries are not only a key to understanding the Greek medical legacy, but also a vivid illustration of its usage from antiquity to the present day.

Religious Scholars and the Umayyads analyzes legal and theological developments during the Marwanid period (64/684--132/750), focusing on religious scholars who supported the Umayyads. Their scholarly network extended across several generations and significantly influenced the development of the Islamic faith. Umayyad qadois, who represented the intersection of religious authority and imperial power, were particularly important. This book challenges the long-standing paradigm that the emerging Muslim faith was shaped by religious dissenters who were hostile to the Umayyads. A prosopographical analysis of Umayyad-era scholars demonstrates that piety and opposition were not necessarily synonymous. Reputable scholars served as qadois, tutors and advisors to Umayyad caliphs and governors. Their religious credentials were untarnished by their association with the Umayyads and they appear prominently in later hoadith collections and fiqh works. This historiographical study demonstrates that excessive reliance on al-Toabari's chronicle has distorted the image of the Umayyads. Alternatively, biographical sources produced by later hoadith scholars reveal a rich tradition of Umayyad-era religious scholarship that undermines al-Toabari's assumptions. Offering a better understanding of early Islamic religious development, this book is a valuable resource for students and researchers in the fields of Islamic history, Islamic legal studies and Arabic historiography.

This volume brings together for the first time an updated collection of articles exploring poverty, poor relief, illness, and health care as they intersected in Western Europe, the Mediterranean and the Middle East, during a 'long' Middle Ages. It offers a thorough and wide-ranging investigation into the institution of the hospital and the development of medicine and charity, with focuses on the history of music therapy and the history of ideas and perceptions fundamental to psychoanalysis. The collection is both sequel and complement to Horden's earlier volume of collected studies, Hospitals and Healing from Antiquity to the Later Middle Ages (2008). It will be welcomed by all those interested in the premodern history of healing and welfare for its breadth of scope and scholarly depth.