The luxurious spending habits of Italians in the Renaissance are well known. This is the first comprehensive study of the sumptuary laws that attempted to regulate the consumption of luxuries. Catherine Kovesi Killerby provides a chronological, geographical, and thematic survey of more than 300 laws enacted in over 40 cities throughout Italy, and sets them in their social context.

Harold Godwineson was king of England from January 1066 until his death at Hastings on 14th October of that year. Although he was not the only candidate for the succession to the childless King Edward the Confessor, Harold had a far stronger claim than William of Normandy to the throne. For much of the reign of Edward the Confessor, who was married to Harold's sister Edith, the Godwine family, led by Earl Godwine, had dominated English politics. In The House of Godwine Emma Mason tells the turbulent story of a remarkable family which, until Harold's unexpected defeat, looked far more likely than the dukes of Normandy to provide the long-term rulers of England. But for the Norman conquest, an Anglo-Saxon England ruled by the Godwine dynasty would have developed very differntly from that dominated by the Normans.

Maximus the Confessor and his Companions provides the first English translations of seven documents from the seventh century which recount the legal trials, banishment, and deaths of the monk Maximus the Confessor, his disciples and friends, and Pope Martin I. The background to these documents is formed by Byzantine imperial religious policy, radical change in the Byzantine empire, Arab and Persian attacks, and the close ties which existed between Maximus and his followers and the West.

Status and gender are two closely associated concepts within medieval society, which tended to view both notions as binary: elite or low status, married or single, holy or cursed, male or female, or as complementary and cohesive as multiple parts of a societal whole. With contributions on topics ranging from medieval leprosy to boyhood behaviors, this interdisciplinary collection highlights the various ways "status" can be interpreted relative to gender, and what these two interlocked concepts can reveal about the construction of gendered identities in the Middle Ages.

The conflict between England and France in the 14th and 15th centuries never ceases to fascinate. This stimulating edited collection, inspired by the Problems in Focus volume originally published in 1971, provides a fresh and accessible insight into the key aspects of The Hundred Years War. With chapters written by leading experts in the field, based on new methodologies and recent advances in scholarship, this book places the Anglo-French wars into a range of wider contexts, such as politics, the home front, the church, and chivalry. Adopting a sustained comparative approach, with attention paid to both England and France, The Hundred Years War Revisited provides a clear and comprehensive synthesis of the major trends in research on the Hundred Years War. Concise and thought-provoking, this is essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students of medieval history.

This volume presents one of the most important historical sources for medieval Islamic scholarship - Khwandamir's "The Reign of the Mongol and the Turk". It covers the major empires and dynasties of the Persianate world from the 13th to the 16th century, including the conquests of the Mongols, Tamerlane, and the rise of the Safavids. Distinguished linguist and orientalist, Wheeler M. Thackston, provides a lucid, annotated translation that makes this key material accessible to a wide range of scholars.

This ground-breaking study offers a new paradigm for understanding the beliefs and religions of the Goths, Burgundians, Sueves, Franks and Lombards as they converted from paganism to Christianity between c.350 and c.700 CE. Combining history and theology with approaches drawn from the cognitive science of religion, Belief and Religion in Barbarian Europe uses both written and archaeological evidence to challenge many older ideas. Beginning with a re-examination of our knowledge about the deities and rituals of their original religions, it goes on to question the assumption that the Germanic peoples were merely passive recipients of Christian doctrine, arguing that so-called 'Arianism' was first developed as an 'entry-level' Christianity for the Goths. Focusing on individual ethnic groupings in turn, it presents a fresh view of the relationship between religion and politics as their rulers attempted to opt for Catholicism. In place of familiar debates about post-conversion 'pagan survivals', contemporary texts and legislation are analysed to create an innovative cognitive perspective on the ways in which the Church endeavoured to bring the Christian God into people's thoughts and actions. The work also includes a survey of a wide range of written and archaeological evidence, contrasting traditional conceptions of death, afterlife and funerary ritual with Christian doctrine and practice in these areas and exploring some of the techniques developed by the Church for assuaging popular anxieties about Christian burial and the Christian afterlife.

This volume presents one of the most important historical sources for medieval Islamic scholarship: The Compendium of Chronicles, written by the vizier to the Mongol Ilkhans of Iran, Rashiduddin Fazlullah. It includes a valuable survey of the Turkic and Mongolian peoples, a history of Genghis Khan's ancestors, and a detailed account of his conquests. Distinguished linguist and orientalist, Wheeler M. Thackston, provides a lucid, annotated translation that makes this key material accessible to a wide range of scholars.

The lord in his hall, the monk in his cloister: we often think of medieval people as living most of their lives in the constant company of others. But there was always another middle ages, characterised by the hermit's solitude as well as by the private apartments of the rich. By the later middle ages more and more men and women - including monks and nuns - aspired to enjoy time and space apart for purposes of prayer, recreation and scholarship. Diana Webb traces these trends in this highly original book. Ranging widely from Roman times to the Renaissance, and covering both religious and secular life, Privacy and Solitude uses an unusual approach to illuminate a major historical development.

Anonymous' and Stephanus' commentaries, written in the 12th century AD, are the first surviving commentaries on Aristotle's Rhetoric. Their study, including the environment in which they were written and the philosophical ideas expressed in them, provides a better understanding of the reception of Aristotle's Rhetoric in Byzantium, the Byzantine practice of commenting on classical texts, and what can be called "Byzantine philosophy". For the first time, this book explores the context of production of the commentaries, discusses the identity and features of their authors, and reveals their philosophical and philological significance. In particular, I examine the main topics discussed by Aristotle in the Rhetoric as contributing to persuasion, namely valid and fallacious rhetorical arguments, ethical notions, emotional response and style, and I analyse the commentators' interpretations of these topics. In this analysis, I focus on highlighting the value of the philosophical views expressed, and on creating a discussion between the Byzantine and the modern interpretations of the treatise. Conclusively, the two commentators need to be considered as independent thinkers, who aimed primarily at integrating the treatise within the Aristotelian philosophical system.

Medieval Iceland is known for the fascinating body of literary works it produced, from ornate court poetry to mythological treatises to sagas of warrior-poets and feud culture. This book investigates the institutions and practices of education which lay behind not only this literary corpus, but the whole of medieval Icelandic culture, religion, and society. By bringing together a broad spectrum of sources, including sagas, law codes, and grammatical treatises, it addresses the history of education in medieval Iceland from multiple perspectives. It shows how the slowly developing institutions of the church shaped educational practices within an entirely rural society with its own distinct vernacular culture. It emphasizes the importance of Latin, despite the lack of surviving manuscripts, and teaching and learning in a highly decentralized environment. Within this context, it explores how medieval grammatical education was adapted for bilingual clerical education, which in turn helped create a separate and fully vernacularized grammatical discourse.

In medieval and early modern Britain, people would refer to their local district as their 'country', a term now largely forgotten but still used up until the First World War. Core groups of families that remained rooted in these 'countries', often bearing distinctive surnames still in use today, shaped local culture and passed on their traditions. In The Grass Roots of English History, David Hey examines the differing nature of the various local societies that were found throughout England in these periods. The book provides an update on the progress that has been made in recent years in our understanding of the history of ordinary people living in different types of local societies throughout England, and demonstrates the value of studying the varied landscapes of England, from towns to villages, farmsteads, fields and woods to highways and lanes, and historic buildings from cathedrals to cottages. With its broad coverage from the medieval period up to the Industrial Revolution, the book shows how England's socio-economic landscape had changed over time, employing evidence provided by archaeology, architecture, botany, cultural studies, linguistics and historical demography. The Grass Roots of English History provides an up-to-date account of the present state of knowledge about ordinary people in local societies throughout England written by an authority in the field, and as such will be of great value to all scholars of local and family history.

This book traces the origins and evolution of the enmity between England and France over the four hundred years in which England was a continental European land power. The medieval claim to the throne of France was not formally abandoned by the British monarchy until 1802. The so-called Hundred Years War between England and France was never concluded by a peace treaty.This book argues that medieval and early modern England, like Britain today, was a two-faced polity: one face looked westward and northward towards its Celtic neighbours; the other faced eastward and southward towards continental Europe. Ultimately, from the reign of Edward III onwards, the French throne itself became the object of English ambitions and the book discusses the implications of Henry V's pursuit of that claim and its aftermath. It emphasizes the extent to which the story of Joan of Arc, for example, has become a myth which has contributed its share to the perpetuation of Anglo-French antipathy and estrangement. The book also examines the emergence of English national identity and the part played by language in this process, as the English increasingly defined themselves against their French enemy.But the common assumptions, behavioural patterns, and culture which bound the upper ranks of English and French society together throughout this period are also stressed. The book ends with a discussion of the legacy left by this 'continentalist' phase of English history to the changed, but by no means totally transformed, world of early modern Europe.

A full colour map showing London about 1270 to 1300 - its walls and gates, parish churches, early monasteries and hospitals, and a growing number of private houses. The city's streets and alleyways had been established. Dominating London are the Tower of London in the east, the old St Paul's Cathedral in the west and London Bridge in the south. Up-river in Westminster, the abbey and the royal palace had been well established, and the great Westminster Hall is very evident. London's playground in Southwark was beginning to grow.

The first Franciscan friar to occupy a chair of theology at Oxford, Adam Marsh became famous both in England and on the continent as one of the foremost Biblical scholars of his time. He moved with equal assurance in the world of politics and the scholastic world of the university. Few men without official position can have had their advice so eagerly sought by so many in high places. He was counsellor to King Henry III and the queen, the spiritual director of Simon de Montfort and his wife, the devoted friend and counsellor of Robert Grosseteste, and consultant to the rulers of the Franciscan order. Scholars have long recognized the importance of his influence as mentor and spiritual activator of a circle of idealistic clergy and laymen, whose pressure for reform in secular government as well as in the Church culminated in the political upheavals of the years 1258-65. The collection of his letters, compiled by an unknown copyist within thirty years of his death, is perhaps the most illuminating and historically important series of private letters to be produced in England before the fifteenth century. The inclusion among his correspondents of such notable figures as Grosseteste, Simon de Montfort, Queen Eleanor, and Archbishop Boniface, make the collection a source of primary importance for the political history of England, the English Church, and the organization of Oxford University in the turbulent middle years of the thirteenth century. This critical edition, which supersedes the only previous edition published by J. S. Brewer in the Rolls Series nearly 150 years ago, is accompanied for the first time by an English translation. One batch of correspondence is included in this volume, along with an introduction that elucidates the role of Adam Marsh in the political and religious movements of the thirteenth century. A further set of letters and an index will follow in Volume II.

This volume in Oxford Medieval Text contains Eadmer's Lives of Saints Oda, Dunstan, and Oswald, as well as the Miracles of Dunstan and Oswald. These three English saints, together with AEthelwold of Winchester, were key figures in the Benedictine revival of the tenth century, which saw a flowering of Anglo-Saxon religious, artistic, and literary culture. Eadmer of Canterbury (c.1060-c.1130), the secretary, confidant, and biographer of Saint Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury (1033-1109), was one of the most important historians and biographers in the period after the Norman Conquest. His works, written in Latin, look back constantly to the Anglo-Saxon past, while at the same time they accurately reflect the present-day realities of the wider European society into which England had been forcibly integrated. Manuscripts of his Lives of the Saints circulated widely in both in England and France, but apart from his Life of Anselm they have been little studied, and have remained largely untranslated. The works newly edited and translated in this edition provide many insights into the wider political history of the pre- and post-Conquest periods, as well as important evidence for the cults of the saints in Canterbury and Worcester.

This is an up-to-date history of the years 1471-1529. It examines the period in its own right, treating it neither as an epilogue to the Middle Ages nor as a prelude to modern times. The book begins with a narrative of political events and the main developments in foreign affairs. The author stresses the extent to which dynastic and royal issues influenced both internal and external policy.

The book then develops an analysis of the structure of political activity. Through chapters on the court, country and parliament, the author examines the ways in which royal power was reconstructed following the disasters of the mid-fifteenth century. He explains the need for kings to work in co-operation with men of independent means in the shires, and assesses the extent to which royal authority was vulnerable to adverse opinion.

The final part of the book examines the economy and society of the period. It discusses, for instance, contemporary commonplaces about social rank, family, community and commonwealth. It also contains a new analysis of the changing role of London. The author ends with a reassessment of general economic development, again highlighting the problems of explaining the period simply in the context of transition from one distinct age to another.

This comprehensive resource explores the intersection of religion, politics, and the supernatural that spawned the notorious witch hunts in Europe and the New World. "Witch Hunts in the Western World: Persecution and Punishment from the Inquisition through the Salem Trials" traces the evolution of western attitudes towards magic, demons, and religious nonconformity from the Roman Empire through the Age of Enlightenment, placing these chilling events into a wider social and historical context. Witch hunts are discussed in eight narrative chapters by region, highlighting the cultural differences of the people who incited them as well as the key reforms, social upheavals, and intellectual debates that shaped European thought. Vivid accounts of trials and excerpts from the writings of both witch hunters and defenders throughout the Holy Roman Empire, France, the British Isles and colonies, Southern Europe, Scandinavia, and Eastern Europe bring to life one of the most intriguing and shocking periods in Western history.

This in-depth and comprehensive resource explores the intersection of religion, politics, and the supernatural that spawned the notorious witch hunts in Europe and the New World. "Witch Hunts in the Western World" traces the evolution of western attitudes towards magic, demons, and religious nonconformity from the Roman Empire through the Age of Enlightenment, placing these chilling events into a wider social and historical context. Witch hunts are discussed in fascinating detail by region, highlighting the cultural differences of the people who incited them as well as the key reforms, social upheavals, and intellectual debates that shaped European thought. Vivid accounts of trials and excerpts from the writings of both witch hunters and defenders throughout the Holy Roman Empire, France, the British Isles and colonies, Southern Europe, Scandinavia, and Eastern Europe bring to life one of the most intriguing and shocking periods in Western history.

Accessible narrative chapters make this a fascinating volume for general readers while offering a wealth of historic information for students and scholars. Features include a complete glossary of terms, timeline of major events, recommended reading selections, index, and black and white illustrations.

Mariu saga, the Old Norse-Icelandic life of the Virgin Mary, survives in nineteen manuscripts. While the 1871 edition of the saga provides two versions based on multiple manuscripts and prints significant variants in the notes, it does not preserve the literary and social contexts of those manuscripts. In the extant manuscripts Mariu saga rarely exists in the codex by itself. This study restores the saga to its manuscript contexts in order to better understand the meaning of the text within its manuscript matrix, why it was copied in the specific manuscripts it was, and how it was read and used by the different communities that preserved the manuscripts.

Beatific Enjoyment in Medieval Scholastic Debates examines the religious concept of enjoyment as discussed by scholastic theologians in the Latin Middle Ages. Severin Kitanov argues that central to the concept of beatific enjoyment (fruitio beatifica) is the distinction between the terms enjoyment and use (frui et uti) found in Saint Augustine's treatise On Christian Learning. Peter Lombard, a twelfth-century Italian theologian, chose the enjoyment of God to serve as an opening topic of his Sentences and thereby set in motion an enduring scholastic discourse. Kitanov examines the nature of volition and the relationship between volition and cognition. He also explores theological debates on the definition of enjoyment: whether there are different kinds and degrees of enjoyment, whether natural reason unassisted by divine revelation can demonstrate that beatific enjoyment is possible, whether beatific enjoyment is the same as pleasure, whether it has an intrinsic cognitive character, and whether the enjoyment of God in heaven is a free or un-free act. Even though the concept of beatific enjoyment is essentially religious and theological, medieval scholastic authors discussed this concept by means of Aristotle's logical and scientific apparatus and through the lens of metaphysics, physics, psychology, and virtue ethics. Bringing together Christian theological and Aristotelian scientific and philosophical approaches to enjoyment, Kitanov exposes the intricacy of the discourse and makes it intelligible for both students and scholars.

Gervase of Tilbury's Otia Imperialia was written in the early thirteenth century for his patron, the Holy Roman Emperor Otto IV. This is the first English translation of this major medieval text which is both learned and entertaining, full of scientific and theological speculation and a wealth of accounts of folklore and popular belief.

Many cultures, including Greeks, Romans, French, and British, have taken great pride in legends that recount the foundation of their society. This book demonstrates the contexts in which a medieval British matriarchal legend, the Albina narrative, was paired over time with a patriarchal narrative, which was already widely disseminated, leading to the attribution of British origins to the warrior Brutus. By the close of the Middle Ages, the Albina tale had appeared in multiple versions in French, Latin, English, Welsh, and Dutch. This study investigates the classical roots of the narrative and the ways it was manipulated in the Middle Ages to function as a national foundation legend. Of especial interest are the dynamic qualities of the text: how it was adapted over the span of two centuries to meet the changing needs of medieval writers and audiences. The currency in the Middle Ages of the Albina narrative is attested to by its inclusion in nearly all the extant manuscripts of the Middle English Prose Brut, many of the French and Latin Bruts, and in a variety of other chronicles and romances. In total, there are over 230 manuscripts surviving today that contain versions of the Albina tale. Despite this, however, relatively little modern scholarship has focused on this widely disseminated and adapted legend. This book provides the first-ever overview of the entire Albina tradition, from its roots to its eventual demise as a popularly accepted narrative. The Classical basis of the narrative in the Hypermnestra story and the ways it was manipulated in the medieval era to function as a national foundation legend are considered. Folkloric, biblical, and legal influences on the development of the tradition are addressed. The tale is viewed through a variety of lenses to suggest ways it may have functioned or was put to use in the Middle Ages. The study concludes with an overview of the narrative's demise in the Renaissance. This is a useful reference source for medievalists and other scholars interested in chronicle studies, literature, folklore, foundation narratives, manuscript studies, and historiography. It will also be useful to art historians who wish to study the various depictions of the Albina narrative in illuminated texts. The tale's emphasis on matriarchy and its subversion of the accepted societal norm will attract the interest of scholars in feminist studies. As the first analysis of the Albina tradition as a whole, it will be a valuable cornerstone for later studies.

This volume is one of the most important historical sources for medieval Islamic scholarship - Mirzar Haydar's "Tarikh- i - Rashidi" (History of Rashid). It offers a history of the Khans of Moghulistan, the vast stretch of territory between the ancient cities of Central Asia and Mongolia, and was written in the early 16th century by Mirza Haydar, a Turco-Mongol military general and ruler of Kashmir. Distinguished linguist and orientalist, Wheeler Thackston, presents a lucid, annotated translation that makes this key material accessible to a wide range of scholars.

Historical Works from Medieval Wales is the fourth volume in The Library of Medieval Welsh Literature series. It introduces readers to the genre of medieval Welsh historical texts on the basis of a broad selection of annotated passages, which range from an account of the legendary origin of Britain to the fall of the last native prince. Each passage is preceded by an introductory paragraph indicating the source and relating it to its wider historical and literary context. The selections are accompanied by a substantial introduction, extensive linguistic notes, and a full glossary. The introduction discusses gemeral features of medieval historiography, as well as the manuscripts and edited works from which the excerpts have been taken. The second part of the introduction contains a detailed description of the language (orthography, morphology and syntax) employed in the selected passages. The volume aims to make Middle Welsh historical texts accessible to third level students whose first language is not Welsh, but can also be used and enjoyed by native speakers of Welsh, students and interested readers, who are interested in an overall view of historical texts from medieval Wales. Patricia Williams is a retired lecturer in Welsh language and literature at the University of Manchester.