Armies of the Dark Ages spans the period from 600 AD to 1066 and describes Byzantine, Sub-Roman, Pictish, Irish, Visigothic, Lombard, Merovingian, Carolingian, Ottonian, Viking, Russian, Slav, Avar, Khazar, Magyar, Bulgar, Pecheneg, Ghuzz, Alan, Armenian, Sassanid, Arab, Andalusian, Near Eastern, Saxon, Norman, Italian and Spanish armies. It examines tactics and strategy, organisation and formations as well as providing a detailed guide to the dress and equipment of the armies of the period. Comprehensive illustrations complement the text and the result is a wealth of information for anyone interested in the warfare of the time. Long out of print, the book has been a source of inspiration to wargamers and academic historians alike. It is reprinted here in its complete 1980 second edition with an updated bibliography.

"This book illuminates the origins of the great European witch hunts by placing early witch trials in the comparative light of other criminal proceedings in Basel, Lucerne and Nuremberg. The study reveals that the increasingly harsh treatment was paralleled by mounting judicial severity in general, as well as by a keen interest in social control"--

The way people see the past tells us much about their present interests and about their sense of identity. This book examines both what men of the day knew about their past, and in particular about the Roman Empire, and shows how such knowledge was used to authenticate claims and attitudes. These original essays, by distinguished scholars, are wide-ranging both geographically, from Russia to Iberia, and in scope, dealing with legal, ecclesiastical, noble and scholarly attitudes.

Did medieval women have the power to choose? This is a question at the heart of this book which explores three court cases from Yorkshire in the decades after the Black Death. Alice de Rouclif was a child heiress made to marry the illegitimate son of the local abbot and then abducted by her feudal superior. Agnes Grantham was a successful businesswoman ambushed and assaulted in a forest whilst on her way to dine with the Master of St Leonard's Hospital. Alice Brathwell was a respectable widow who attracted the attentions of a supposedly aristocratic conman. These are their stories.

"The Culture of Christendom" brings together original essays by distinguished historians on medieval European history. Their range reflects the breadth of Denis Bethell's own interests, which though centred on the high medieval church encompassed the culture of the middle ages as a whole.

"Women in England in the Middle Ages" looks at 'all sorts and conditions' of women from c.500 to c.1500 A.D., concentrating on common experiences over their life-cycle, as daughters, wives and mothers, and the contrasts derived from their position in the social hierarchy. Most women lived out their lives in their own village or town, but queens and noblewomen exercised power and patronage locally and at the royal court. Religion played a significant part in women's lives; some became nuns and abbesses, while the majority were involved in their own parish and community. Inevitably, women's lives changed over time, but, in bringing up their children and balancing family and work, medieval women faced many of the problems of their modern counterparts.

While Karl Leyser was pre-eminent in the English-speaking world as the historian of medieval Germany, his work has increased our understanding of European society as a whole. In particular, he brought to life nobles and ecclesiastics, by combining a profound knowledge of the primary sources with an imaginative ability to understand motives and attitudes. Warriors and Churchmen in the High Middle Ages brings together essays by Karl Leyser's pupils, many of them distinguished historians in their own right, on subjects which he himself illuminated.

A major new biography of the Black Prince. 'A clear-eyed and thrilling vision of the man behind the legend' DAN JONES. 'Pacy, vivid and extremely readable' TLS. In 1346, at the age of sixteen, he won his spurs at Crecy; nine years later he conducted a brutal raid across Languedoc; in 1356 he captured the king of France at Poitiers; as lord of Aquitaine he ruled a vast swathe of southwestern France. He was Edward of Woodstock, eldest son of Edward III, but better known to posterity as 'the Black Prince'. Michael Jones tells the remarkable story of a great warrior-prince - and paints an unforgettable portrait of warfare and chivalry in the late Middle Ages.

This book is a new survey of the Celtic and Roman traditions in Merovingian Gaul, Lombard Italy, and the British Isles from 590-768. In it Corning argues that the main areas of conflict between the two traditions during this period were the Easter controversy and by extension the style of tonsure. Corning's work serves as a valuable case study of the ways in which the early medieval Church attempted to reach consensus on divisive issues.

This collection of original essays repositions medieval literary studies after an era of historicism. Analyzing the legacy of Marxist and materialist theory on medieval literary criticism, the collection offers new ways of reading texts historically. Drawing upon aesthetic, ethical, and cultural vantage points and methods, these essays demonstrate that a variety of approaches and theories are "historical" and can change what it means to historicize medieval literature. By defining our post-historical moment in medieval English literary studies in terms of new possibilities, this collection will have broad appeal to those interested in the English Middle Ages, history, culture, and reading itself.

Despite attempts to suppress early women's speech, this study demonstrates that women were still actively engaged in cultural practices and speech strategies that were both complicit with the patriarchal ideology whilst also undermining it.

Historians of premodern Europe often think in terms of 'small worlds': a series of regional societies functioning independently of each other. This -approach works well for isolated areas but is less obviously applicable to England, the most centralised country in Europe. How far England was centrally controlled and how far power in reality remained in the localities are key considerations in understanding English history both in the middle ages and after-wards.
The essays in "Regionalism and Revision" all address these questions, both by analysing how the problem should be approached and by examining what the exercise of power involved in local terms. Did the gentry dominate local office by virtue of their intrinsic importance in their counties or were they dependent for the continuation of their power and wealth on the renewal of their commissions from the central government? How did magnates mediate influence at the centre on behalf of the localities, and how were they repaid for it? How did officials appointed by the crown, including sheriffs and JPs, react to having to impose unpopular burdens, such as purveyance, upon the counties?

This book explores the late medieval English cults which evolved around 'political martyrs' - men who had been violently killed in political circumstances and later venerated, though never canonized.It is the first monograph to study political martyrdom. It innovatively locates late medieval cults of political martyrs in their religious, social and cultural context. It uses a broad range of primary sources. It provides a detailed study of important case studies.This book explores the late medieval English cults which evolved around 'political martyrs'. By examining these cults the richness of political culture is revealed, and insights offered into the ways in which belief, worship, social and civic identities, and political language and practice were continuously constructed and re-constructed.

If the idea of the medieval has been widely deployed in the colonial and neocolonial West as a marker of cultural backwardness, the Anglo-American perspective has often regarded Spain as part of a historically underdeveloped world and as a late-comer to Protestant/Enlightenment traditions of democracy, tolerance, and progress. Yet the many cultural dimensions of medieval Iberia make it pressingly relevant to current critiques of western modernity. This volume, which brings into dialogue historians and literary scholars in medieval and modern Iberian cultures, interrogates the contemporary significance of the distant Spanish past, particularly in regard to tensions in the relationship between the West and Islam. Rejecting an illusory space of neutrality, the search for relevance is envisioned as an ethically and politically necessary form of inquiry.

This interdisciplinary book integrates the historical practices regarding material excrement and its symbolic representation, with special focus on fecopoetics and Chaucer's literary agenda. Filth in all its manifestations--material (including privies, dung on fields, and as alchemical ingredient), symbolic (sin, misogynist slander, and theological wrestling with the problem of filth in sacred contexts) and linguistic (a semantic range including dirt and dung)--helps us to see how excrement is vital to understanding the Middle Ages. Applying fecal theories to late medieval culture, Morrison concludes by proposing Waste Studies as a new field of ethical and moral criticism for literary scholars.

Following the demise of the Carolingian dynasty in 987 the French lords chose Hugh Capet as their king. He was the founder of a dynasty that lasted until 1328. Although for much of this time, the French kings were weak, and the kingdom of France was much smaller than it later became, the Capetians nevertheless had considerable achievements and also produced outstanding rulers, including Philip Augustus and St Louis. This wide-ranging book throws fascinating light on the history of Medieval France and the development of European monarchy.

Elves and elf-belief during the Anglo-Saxon period are reassessed in this lively and provocative study. Anglo-Saxon elves [Old English aelfe] are one of the best attested non-Christian beliefs in early medieval Europe, but current interpretations of the evidence derive directly from outdated nineteenth- and early twentieth-century scholarship. Integrating linguistic and textual approaches into an anthropologically-inspired framework, this book reassesses the full range of evidence. It traces continuities and changes in medieval non-Christian beliefs with a new degree of reliability, from pre-conversion times to the eleventh century and beyond, and uses comparative material from medieval Ireland and Scandinavia to argue for a dynamic relationship between beliefs and society. Inparticular, it interprets the cultural significance of elves as a cause of illness in medical texts, and provides new insights into the much-discussed Scandinavian magic of seidr. Elf-beliefs, moreover, were connected withAnglo-Saxon constructions of sex and gender; their changing nature provides a rare insight into a fascinating area of early medieval European culture. Shortlisted for the Katharine Briggs Folklore Award 2007 ALARIC HALL is a fellow of the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies.

Building on over a century of scholarly achievements and advances, this book addresses the core problem of how to incorporate gender in the study of the history of medieval Europe, and why it is important to do so. Providing a succinct overview of the field, Patricia Skinner guides us through debates and innovations in the study of gender in medieval history. Noting that the rise of gender studies has happened at a different pace in different regions, this unique text addresses the national variations of approach visible in US and European scholarly traditions. Packed with key authors, alternative approaches and suggestions for engaging with medieval sources, this text is an essential tool for students and scholars of medieval history at all levels.

The Children's Crusade was possibly the most extraordinary episode in the history of the crusades. The pueri (children, youngsters) of 1212 set out to recover Jerusalem and the True Cross in medieval Europe's first youth movement. Over the centuries their unarmed crusade has been imagined and re-imagined. The first full-length modern study in English of this memorable popular crusade sheds new light on its history and offers new perspectives on its supposedly dismal outcome. Its richly re-imagined history and mythistory is explored from the thirteenth century to the late-twentieth century. Its mythistorians include: Matthew Paris, Voltaire, D'Annunzio, Brecht, Runciman, Andrzejewski, Bernard Thomas, Kurt Vonnegut and Agatha Christie.

Market Power explores society and economy in medieval Iberia, examining the intersection of regional commercial interests, lordship, and royal authority as part of the evolution of a small village into a rural market town. This analysis of notarial registers from Santa Coloma de Queralt addresses significant themes in medieval history, such as the market economy, commerce and credit, and the interactions of businessmen across religious boundaries. ?

In this collection of essays Nicholas Brooks explores some of the earliest and most problematical sources, both written and archaeological, for early English history. In his hands, the structure and functions of Anglo-Saxon origin stories and charters (whether authentic or forged) illuminate English political and social structures, as well as ecclesiastical, urban and rural landscapes. As well as previously published essays, "Anglo-Saxon Myths: State and Church, 400-1066" includes a new account of the English origin myth and a review of the developments in the study of Anglo-Saxon charters over the last twenty years.