This is the first scholarly study of the political role of the Order of the Garter during the late middle ages. It evaluates the relationship between the practical objectives served by the institution and its status as a chivalric elite. Focusing on the years between the Garter's inception in 1348 and the deposition of Henry VI in 1461, the study considers the Order's conception, companionship and collective activities, and places them against the political backdrop of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Hugh Collins highlights the potential of the fraternity as an instrument of political patronage, and attributes its success in this area to the important balance achieved in the Garter's constitution and fellowship between pragmatic considerations and knightly ideas. His examination of the interdependence of these two facets thus reveals the extent to which political society in the late middle ages founded its ambitions and aspirations on the cult of chivalry.

This book is an examination of why and how the elective principle, already established in Transylvanian and Polish political culture in the late medieval period, was transformed in the early elections of the 1570s. In this period, the two polities adopted constitutional arrangements different in depth and scope but based on the same fundamental principles: elective thrones, state-sanctioned religious pluralism, and constitutional guarantees for the right of disobedience. There were important variations in their regulation and application, but Transylvania and the newly created Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth had one essential thing in common: they were the only two polities in early modern Europe whose political systems secured the succession of their rulers through large-scale elections in which the dynastic principle, although still important, was not binding.

A landmark of scholarship on medieval Scotland. Professor Dauvit Broun, University of Glasgow. Personal names can provide a rich and often overlooked window into medieval society, and Scotland's diversity of languages over the course of the Middle Ages makes it an ideal case study. This book offers a range of new methodological approaches to anthroponymy, covering Gaelic, Scandinavian and other Germanic names, as well as names drawn from the Bible, the saints, and secular literature. Individual case studies include a comparison of naming in early medieval Scottish and Irish chronicles; an authoritative taxonomy of Gaelic names drawn from twelfth and thirteenth-century charters; a revolutionary new analysis of the emergence of surnames in Ireland, with implications for Scottish history; a complete linguistic discussion of the masculine Germanic names in the 1296 Ragman Roll; a detailed local case study of saints. names in Argyll which bears on place-names as well; and an examination of the adoption of Hebrew Old Testament names in central medieval Scotland. Dr MATTHEW HAMMOND is a Research Associate at Kings College London. Contributors: Rachel Butter, Thomas Owen Clancy, John Reuben Davies, Valeria DiClemente, Nicholas Evans, Matthew Hammond, Roibeard O Maolalaigh, David Sellar, Tom Turpie.

This is the first major study in English of the queens of the Ottonian dynasty (919-1024). The Ottonians were a family from Saxony who are often regarded as the founders of the medieval German kingdom. They were the most successful of all the dynasties to emerge from the wreckage of the pan-European Carolingian Empire after it disintegrated in 888, ruling as kings and emperors in Germany and Italy and exerting indirect hegemony in France and in Eastern Europe. It has long been noted by historians that Ottonian queens were peculiarly powerful - indeed, among the most powerful of the entire Middle Ages. Their reputations, particularly those of the empresses Theophanu (d.991) and Adelheid (d.999) have been commemorated for a thousand years in art, literature, and opera. But while the exceptional status of the Ottonian queens is well appreciated, it has not been fully explained. Ottonian Queenship offers an original interpretation of Ottonian queenship through a study of the sources for the dynasty's six queens, and seeks to explain it as a phenomenon with a beginning, middle, and end. The argument is that Ottonian queenship has to be understood as a feature in a broader historical landscape, and that its history is intimately connected with the unfolding story of the royal dynasty as a whole. Simon MacLean therefore interprets the spectacular status of Ottonian royal women not as a matter of extraordinary individual personalities, but as a distinctive product of the post-Carolingian era in which the certainties of the ninth century were breaking down amidst overlapping struggles for elite family power, royal legitimacy, and territory. Queenship provides a thread which takes us through the complicated story of a crucial century in Europe's creation, and helps explain how new ideas of order were constructed from the debris of the past.

The Genealogy and Family History Collection is a unique set of materials that describes the histories and narratives of particular American families. The Collection brings to life pre-1923 books that contain information such as birth, death, marriage, property and migration records of specific families. Many of these families followed interesting migration and movement patterns from Western Europe and beyond to the United States well over 200 years ago. Included in these volumes is information such as last wills and testaments, period photographs of towns, buildings and landscapes, portraits of family members, and descriptions of business interactions. Encompassing such comprehensive and personal information, this collection will appeal to genealogists, family history researchers, as well as descendants and casual historians.

Gov. Thomas Welles came to New England in 1635, settling in Hartford in 1636 and moving to Wethersfield in 1646. The Welles Family Association presents in Volume 2 the fifth-generation descendants of Gov. Thomas Welles and his first wife, Alice Tomes. The genealogy includes descendants in both the male and female lines. Part A covers those descended from Mary (Welles) Baldwin, Ann (Welles) (Thompson) Hawkins, and John Welles. The fifth generation fought in the French & Indian and Revolutionary Wars. It included farmers, generals, judges, government leaders, college presidents, silversmiths, housewives, poets, ministers, deacons, and medical doctors. Family names include Baldwin, Bostwick, Chester, Curtis(s), Clarke, Hawkins, Judson, Lewis, Nichols, Shelton, Walker, Welles, and Wells. From Hartford, Wethersfield, Milford, Farmington, and Stratford, families spread to new towns in the Connecticut Hills, and to Massachusetts and upstate New York.

Archaeological discoveries have increasingly brought to light evidence of women's involvement in the royal houses of the ancient Near East, yet such evidence has not fundamentally altered the perception of monarchy as an exclusively male-gendered theological, political, and social institution. Solvang's study assembles the evidence in search of an integrated view of royal women's position and power in critical functions of monarchy, challenging customary assumptions about women's place in the royal harem. The historical information serves as a backdrop for a literary reading of biblical texts describing the royal house of Judah. Attention is given to three women representing different royal positions: Michal (daughter), Bathsheba (queen mother), and Athaliah (queen and monarch).

This book began its journey for publication in 2007. It came about as a result of a personal request from one of the author's student and from the suggestion of a septuagenarian, former French linguistic and diction professor, to edit and publish the first draft of the manuscript the author wrote in the late 1980's and had set aside. The purpose of publishing such poetry is to allow it to become lyrics as a dedication to music. The rhythms found in the text speak for themselves, inasmuch as their rimes, and do so in substance and intelligence creating a symphony. The spirit of this voice is revealed in its verses' tones and a melody for every avenues of interpretation for singers and ultimate vocal vibrations. No matter how mathematical these lyrics are spoken, one can see their spontaneity and how ethereal some are, as well as grounded. The author is somewhat connected to a full range of different moulds. Therefore, a variety of mainstream themes, concepts, or close impressions and intimate, sensitive or dry, ideas and feelings confront flexions, and judgements of societies and people from all walks of life and backgrounds. As well, reasoning, positions and perceptions, or encounters are pictured along these lines. Just about anyone can relate to this display of tangents and dimensions exposed in flows and full streams of poetry; somewhat a little "academic" for the amateur of abstract. Verve and zest appear drilled, yet it is a brilliant manoeuvre of the French language one cannot obtain overnight, unless inherited and captured by the spirit of the language's muse. The author's ideas stem from a wide field of comparison in terms of settings she experienced closely, in urban or rural life, and various milieus out of different social classes. She senses and observes problematic situations with a knowledgeable drawback. At times, she is so much in tune, in a timeless fashion, most likely thanks to her whereabouts in space. In this case, the author's wit and insinuations make us wonder about her subtle references to the future.