This collection of documents in translation brings together the seminal sources for the late Merovingian Frankish kingdom. It inteprets the chronicles and saint's lives rigorously to reveal new insights into the nature and significance of sanctity, power and power relationships. The book makes available a range of 7th- and early 8th-century texts, five of which have never before been translated into English. It opens with a broad-ranging explanation of the historical background to the translated texts and then each source is accompanied by a full commentary and an introductory essay exploring its authorship, language and subject matter. The sources are rich in the detail of Merovingian political life. Their subjects are the powerful in society and they reveal the successful interplay between power and sanctity, a process which came to underpin much of European culture throughout the early Middle Ages. -- .

That there was an influx of silver dirhams from the Muslim world into eastern and northern Europe in the ninth and tenth centuries is well known, as is the fact that the largest concentration of hoards is on the Baltic island of Gotland. Recent discoveries have shown that dirhams were reaching the British Isles, too. What brought the dirhams to northern Europe in such large numbers? The fur trade has been proposed as one driver for transactions, but the slave trade offers another - complementary - explanation. This volume does not offer a comprehensive delineation of the hoard finds, or a full answer to the question of what brought the silver north. But it highlights the trade in slaves as driving exchanges on a trans-continental scale. By their very nature, the nexuses were complex, mutable and unclear even to contemporaries, and they have eluded modern scholarship. Contributions to this volume shed light on processes and key places: the mints of Central Asia; the chronology of the inflows of dirhams to Rus and northern Europe; the reasons why silver was deposited in the ground and why so much ended up on Gotland; the functioning of networks - perhaps comparable to the twenty-first-century drug trade; slave-trading in the British Isles; and the stimulus and additional networks that the Vikings brought into play. This combination of general surveys, presentations of fresh evidence and regional case studies sets Gotland and the early medieval slave trade in a firmer framework than has been available before.

This book provides a fresh introduction to the political history of late medieval France duing the turbulent period of the "Hundred Years' War," taking into account the social, economic and religious contexts. Graeme Small considers not just the monarchy but also prelates, noble networks and the emerging municipalities in this new analysis.

This collection of sources demonstrates the variety of evidence that survives of English women in all walks of life from the time of Edward I to the eve of the Reformation. The sources are introduced by a substantial overview of current thinking about English medieval women below the level of the greater aristocracy. In addition, Goldberg explores many of the methodological problems and strengths of particular sources. Individual chapters explore the life-cycle themes of childhood, adolescence, married life, widowhood and old age. The study then moves on to examine such topics as work in town and country, prostitution, the law, recreation and devotion. In every case the reader is exposed to a range of sources, but particular attention is paid to those sources that reflect actual experience or provide insights into the lives of ordinary women rather than the prescriptive or purely literary texts. A particular feature of this collection is the extensive use of church court depositions that allow the voices of peasant women, servant girls, bourgeois wives, or poor widows to be heard across the centuries. The sources are presented in a form designed to be accessible to undergraduates, but of interest to teachers and researchers alike. -- .

Al-Mu'ayyad fi'l-DIn al-ShIrzI (died 470/1087), was an outstanding, multi-talented Fatimid scholar of Persian origin. He excelled as a missionary-agent, statesman, poet, preacher and theologian. Based on his autobiography, this work provides an insight into the remarkable life and achievements of al-Mu'ayyad through the important stages of his career, describing his daring attempt to win over the Buyids of western Iraq to the Fatimid cause, his dangerous flight to Cairo and finally his expedition to Syria and Iraq to build up an alliance of local rulers against the invading Saljuk Turks. The author demonstrates that in addition to being an intriguing personal account, the life of al-Mu'ayyad is a rich source of Islamic history in the 5/llth century, which deals with crucial events in the struggle between the Fatimids, Abbasids, Buyids and Saljuks for supremacy in the Muslim world.

This book brings together an international group of scholars to offer new perspectives on the political impact and afterlife of the dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix (138-78 B.C.), one of the most important figures in the complex history of the last century of the Roman Republic. It looks beyond the march on Rome, the violence of the proscriptions, or the logic of his political reforms, and offers case studies to illustrate his relations with the Roman populace, the subject peoples of the Greek East, and his own supporters, both veterans and elites, highlighting his long-term political impact and, at times, the limits on his exercise of power. The chapters on reception reassess the good/bad dichotomy of Sulla as tyrant and reformer, focusing on Cicero, while also examining his importance for Sallust, and his characterisation as the antithesis of philhellenism in Greek writers of the Imperial period. Sulla was not straightforward, either as a historical figure or exemplum, and the case studies in this book use the twin approach of politics and reception to offer new readings of Sulla's aims and impact, both at home and abroad, and why he remained of interest to authors from Sallust to Plutarch and Aelian.

..". qualities of careful scholarship, lucidity, and vision make this collection eminently accessible to the intelligent general reader and an extremely useful teaching text." . The Historian

"The essays collected in this volume ... have been lovingly compiled by Herlihy's colleague ... Molho, whose introduction links the adventurous curiosity of the historian to the generosity of the man ... pleasant as well as instructive ... Students in particular will profit from accompanying an accomplished master through his restless search for new techniques and new questions to address ... a typological guide through the great document collections of late medieval Italy." . Labor History

Until his untimely death in 1991, David Herlihy, Professor of History at Brown University, was one of the most prolific and best-known American historians of the European Middle Ages. Author of books on the history of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Italy, Herlihy published, in 1978, his best-known work in collaboration with Christine Klapisch-Zuber, Les Toscans et leurs familles (Translated into English in 1985, and Italian in 1988). For the last dozen or so years of his life, Herlihy launched a series of ambitious projects, on the history ofwomen and the family, and on the collective behavior of social groups in medieval Europe. While he completed two important books - on the family (1985) and on women's work (1991) - he did not find the time to bring these other major projects to a conclusion.

This volume contains essays he wrote after 1978. They convey a sense of the enormous intellectual energy and great erudition that characterized David Herlihy's scholarly career. They also chart a remarkable historian's intellectual trajectory, as he searched for new and better ways of asking a set of simple and basic questions about the history of the family, the institution within which the vast majority of Europeans spent so much of their lives. Because of his qualities as a scholar and a teacher, during his relatively brief career Herlihy was honored with Presidencies of the four major scholarly associations with which he was affiliated: the Catholic Historical Association, the Medieval Academy of America, the Renaissance Society of America, and the American Historical Association.

Anthony Molho is Munro Goodwin Wilkinson Professor of European History at Brown University, and has written several works on the social, political, and economic history of late medieval and early modern Italy.

This work explores the role of canon law in the ecclesiastical reform movement of the eleventh century, commonly known as the Gregorian Reform. Focusing on the Collectio canonum of Bishop Anselm of Lucca, it explores how the reformers came to value and employ law as as means of achieving desired ends in a time of social upheaval and revolution.

Until his untimely death in 1991, David Herlihy, Professor of History at Brown University, was one of the most prolific and best-known American historians of the European Middle Ages. Author of books on the history of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Italy, Herlihy published, in 1978, his best-known work in collaboration with Christine Klapisch-Zuber, Les Toscans et leurs familles (Translated into English in 1985, and Italian in 1988). For the last dozen or so years of his life, Herlihy launched a series of ambitious projects, on the history ofwomen and the family, and on the collective behavior of social groups in medieval Europe. While he completed two important books - on the family (1985) and on women's work (1991) - he did not find the time to bring these other major projects to a conclusion. This volume contains essays he wrote after 1978. They convey a sense of the enormous intellectual energy and great erudition that characterized David Herlihy's scholarly career. They also chart a remarkable historian's intellectual trajectory, as he searched for new and better ways of asking a set of simple and basic questions about the history of the family, the institution within which the vast majority of Europeans spent so much of their lives. Because of his qualities as a scholar and a teacher, during his relatively brief career Herlihy was honored with Presidencies of the four major scholarly associations with which he was affiliated: the Catholic Historical Association, the Medieval Academy of America, the Renaissance Society of America,and the American Historical Association.

In Power and Property in Medieval Germany Professor Arnold takes a fresh look at the problems posed by power and property in a medieval society, in this case the German kingdom. In a series of interrelated studies covering the period 700-1500, but concentrating on the tenth to thirteenth centuries, Arnold explores the social and economic changes that influenced the real lives of people living in Germany. A number of themes are examined, including the kind of society that emerged along the Rhine and to the east of it in a period when it is hard to identify a Germany; the complex relationship between peasant and lord; the finances and resources of the German crown, the largest single landowner; the social and economic impact of the urban milieu with its towns large and small; and the entanglement of Church and aristocracy. Whilst medieval people did not share mercantilist or post-Adam Smith concepts of economic forces at work in society, Arnold fruitfully applies the ideas and rationalizations of modern economics to medieval evidence, leading, at times, to unexpected conclusions.

This pioneering volume illuminates the practice of giving, endowing and exchanging gifts in the early Middle Ages, from Anglo-Saxon England to the Islamic world. Focusing especially on the language associated with medieval gift giving, this important new work examines how people visualized and thought about gift giving and, importantly, how they distinguished between the giving of gifts and other social, economic, political and religious exchanges. The authors demonstrate that gift giving was already complex, distinctive and sometimes contentious before the twelfth century and operated within a broad international context. They draw from the sources a deeper understanding of the early Middle Ages by looking at real cases and real people: peasants, the elderly and women, as well as elites. The culture of medieval gift has often been treated as archaic and exotic; this book, by contrast, reveals people going about their lives as individuals in down-to-earth and sometimes familiar ways.

Dreams and visions played important roles in the Christian cultures of the early Middle Ages. But not only did tradition and authoritative texts teach that some dreams were divine: some also pointed out that this was not always the case. Exploring a broad range of narrative sources and manuscripts, Jesse Keskiaho investigates how the teachings of Augustine of Hippo and Pope Gregory the Great on dreams and visions were read and used in different contexts. Keskiaho argues that the early medieval processes of reception in a sense created patristic opinion about dreams and visions, resulting in a set of authoritative ideas that could be used both to defend and to question reports of individual visionary experiences. This book is a major contribution to discussions about the intellectual place of dreams and visions in the early Middle Ages, and underlines the creative nature of early medieval engagement with authoritative texts.

The theme of warfare as a collective enterprise investigated in the theatres of both land and sea. From warhorses to the men-at-arms who rode them; armies that were raised to the lords who recruited, led, administered, and financed them; and ships to the mariners who crewed them; few aspects of the organisation and logistics ofwar in late medieval England have escaped the scholarly attention, or failed to benefit from the insights, of Dr Andrew Ayton. The concept of the military community, with its emphasis on warfare as a collective social enterprise, has always lain at the heart of his work; he has shown in particular how this age of warfare is characterised by related but intersecting military communities, marked not only by the social and political relationships within armies and navies, but by communities of mind, experience, and enterprise. The essays in this volume, ranging from the late thirteenth to the early fifteenth century, address various aspects of this idea. They offer investigations of soldiers' and mariners' equipment; their obligations, functions, status, and recruitment; and the range and duration of their service. Gary P. Baker is a Research Associate at the University of East Angliaand a Researcher in History at the University of Groningen; Craig L. Lambert is Lecturer in Maritime History at the University of Southampton; David Simpkin teaches history at Birkenhead Sixth-Form College. Contributors: Gary P. Baker, Adrian R. Bell, Peter Coss, Anne Curry, Robert W. Jones, Andy King, Craig L. Lambert, Tony K. Moore, J.J.N. Palmer, Philip Preston, Michael Prestwich, Matthew Raven, Clifford J. Rogers, Nigel Saul, David Simpkin.

Focusing on examples from medieval theatre, women's suffrage campaigns, and the 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony, this is the first book to offer a critical overview of pageant as a dramatic form. By enacting highly selective historical episodes, pageants manipulate audiences' sense of the past. Through iconic music, affecting images, and vernacular forms, pageants express and, in turn, shape religious, civic, or political allegiances. Freely appropriating elements of history plays, patriotic celebrations, opera, and film, pageants create spectacles of sensory overload. Impressive recent scholarship recognizes pageants as public history, but this is the first authoritative account of the origins, characteristics, and techniques of pageants as a theatrical idiom. Performed in sporting arenas, the open air, or purpose-built theatres, these paratheatrical events express identity through what Erika Fischer-Lichte calls "the re-theatricalization of theatre." Pageants are intimately connected with power-they either assert and celebrate it or seek and demand it. Medieval religious pageants were so popular and powerful that they were suppressed and extinguished. The vogue for pageantry that swept through the English-speaking world in the decade before WWI was closely tied to the expansion of the franchise. Many early twentieth century pageants celebrated localities; others subversively advocated for women's suffrage. First performed in 1909, Cicely Hamilton's A Pageant of Great Women depicted historical personages from the near and distant past as well as allegorical figures such as Justice and Prejudice. Today, the Olympic Games mandate an opening ceremony that "details the country's history, culture, and overall importance for the global community." London delivered just such a pageant in 2012. This book features a wide-ranging introduction that maps the cultural evolution of this enduring theatrical form and covers popular and readily accessible pageants from medieval England, the early twentieth century, and our own day.

A series which is a model of its kind. Edmund King, History The wide-ranging articles collected here represent the cutting edge of recent Anglo-Norman scholarship. Topics include English kingship, legends of the Battle of Bouvines, ideas of empire, the practicalities of child kingship, and female rulership in Brittany. The volume continues in its proud tradition of source analysis: there are studies of northern French urban franchises, and Norman charters and a logistical take on the making of the Domesday Book, while narrative sources are represented in the vernacular by a study of Herman of Valenciennes' Bible and in Latin by the historiography of Robert of Torigni and Ralph Niger. Further contributions focus on the twelfth-century ecclesiastical officers Abbot Peter the Venerable and Archbishop Thomas Becket, and the volume is completed with an analysis of the concept of economic resources with respect to Normandy. Contributors: Mathieu Arnoux, JamesBarnaby, Dominique Barthelemy, Thomas Bisson, Scott G. Bruce, Francis Gingras, Frederique Lachaud, Anne E. Lester, C.P. Lewis, Amy Livingstone, Fanny Madeline, Nicholas Vincent, Emily Ward

The twelve complete articles in this volume represent some of the best recent scholarship on the crusades. The collection introduces students to fundamental concepts of crusading, including the nature of the movement, the motivation of the participants, and the impact on the East. The focus is not on individual crusades but on the political, economic, spiritual, and demographic factors behind these medieval holy wars and on their consequences.

A strong editorial structure guides students through the competing perspectives that have dominated scholarly discussion. An opening introduction summarizes relevant historical events and provides an overview of the historiography. Each article is then contextualized by the editor with a discussion of its significance to scholarship.

From the Arthurian epic poem Parzival to Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and the Assassin's Creed video game series, the Knights Templar have captivated artists and audiences alike for centuries. In modern times, the Templars have featured in many narrative contexts, evolving in a range of contrasting story roles: the grail guardian, the heroic knight, the villainous knight, and the keeper of conspiracies. This study explores why these gone but not forgotten warrior monks remain prominent in popular culture, how history influenced the myth, and how the myth has influenced literature, film and video games.

This book makes use of extensive primary source material such as chronicles, legal records, and medical treatises as well as appropriate secondary works drawn from historical and scientific scholarship, providing students with a comprehensive overview of disease in England. It examines how infectious diseases such as plague, syphilis, or the English Sweat and everyday medical issues, such as dysentery, affected people and how/why they spread. Enabling students to see the link between disease and society. This book examines how people tried to cope with disease in a variety of ways, such as improvements in hygiene and provides comparisons with present issues. Allowing students to see the differences and similarities with the social reaction to and ways people dealt with disease in the past and now.

The essays in this volume deal with the history of the Middle East from c.550 to 1000 AD. There are three main themes: Syria in Late Antiquity and the changes and continuities with the early Islamic period; relations between Muslims and the Byzantine Empire from the 8th to the 11th centuries; and the development of government and the economy in the early caliphate. Throughout there is an emphasis on social and economic trends and the integration of written and archaeological evidence to elucidate the complex developments in this pivotal part of the world. In different ways all the papers discuss the formation of the Islamic world and the way in which the legacy of Antiquity, economic, social and cultural, affected the emergence of what we think of as this "Islamic World". These papers will be of interest to historians of Islam and Byzantium but also western mediaevalists interested in comparing processes of change at opposite ends of the Mediterranean.

The first modern edition of a text which shows the suspicion with which Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain was received two decades after it first appeared. The history of the Yorkshire secular clerk, Alfred of Beverley (c.1148 x c.1151), an important primary source in Anglo-Norman historiography, supplies a history of Britain from its supposed foundation by Brutus down to the death of Henry I in 1135. Alfred's history is of particular interest in that it is the first Insular Latin chronicle to incorporate the legendary British history of Geoffrey of Monmouth (published c.mid 1130s) within a continuous account of the island's past. In attempting to fuse the radically new Galfridian account of the past with that of the conventional twelfth-century (Bedan) view, Alfred's use and manipulation of his sources is highly revealing and suggests a quite critical reception of Geoffrey's history, a mindset which by the end of the twelfth century appears almost entirely to have disappeared amongst chroniclers. Alfred's history is also an important, and presently undervalued, witness to the reception and dissemination of three of the most important Anglo-Norman histories: Symeon of Durham Historia Regum, The Chronicle of John of Worcester and Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, from which works it borrows extensively. In the manner of use of these sources, the author tells us much about the ecclesiastical and intellectual interests and outlook of the period.

These essays take advantage of a new, exciting trend towards interdisciplinary research on the Charlemagne legend. Written by historians, art historians, and literary scholars, these essays focus on the multifaceted ways the Charlemagne legend functioned in the Middle Ages and how central the shared (if nonetheless fictional) memory of the great Frankish ruler was to the medieval West. A gateway to new research on memory, crusading, apocalyptic expectation, Carolingian historiography, and medieval kingship, the contributors demonstrate the fuzzy line separating "fact" and "fiction" in the Middle Ages.