Bringing together distinguished scholars in honor of Professor Teofilo F. Ruiz, this volume presents original and innovative research on the critical and uneasy relationship between authority and spectacle in the period from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries, focusing on Spain, the Mediterranean and Latin America. Cultural scholars such as Professor Ruiz and his colleagues have challenged the notion that authority is elided with high politics, an approach that tends to be monolithic and disregards the uneven application and experience of power by elite and non-elite groups in society by highlighting the significance of spectacle. Taking such forms as ceremonies, rituals, festivals, and customs, spectacle is a medium to project and render visible power, yet it is also an ambiguous and contested setting, where participants exercise the roles of both actor and audience. Chapters in this collection consider topics such as monarchy, wealth and poverty, medieval cuisine and diet and textual and visual sources. The individual contributions in this volume collectively represent a timely re-examination of authority that brings in the insights of cultural theory, ultimately highlighting the importance of representation and projection, negotiation and ambivalence.

Bringing together distinguished scholars in honor of Professor Teofilo F. Ruiz, this volume presents original and innovative research on the critical and uneasy relationship between authority and spectacle in the period from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries, focusing on Spain, the Mediterranean and Latin America. Cultural scholars such as Professor Ruiz and his colleagues have challenged the notion that authority is elided with high politics, an approach that tends to be monolithic and disregards the uneven application and experience of power by elite and non-elite groups in society by highlighting the significance of spectacle. Taking such forms as ceremonies, rituals, festivals, and customs, spectacle is a medium to project and render visible power, yet it is also an ambiguous and contested setting, where participants exercise the roles of both actor and audience. Chapters in this collection consider topics such as monarchy, wealth and poverty, medieval cuisine and diet and textual and visual sources. The individual contributions in this volume collectively represent a timely re-examination of authority that brings in the insights of cultural theory, ultimately highlighting the importance of representation and projection, negotiation and ambivalence.

To study the interactions between Muslims and Christians in the medieval period is to observe a history of conflict and co-existence encompassing warfare, piracy, and raiding as well as commerce, intellectual exchanges, and personal relationships that transcended religious differences. With particular focus on the Mediterranean world, this collection of more than 80 readings includes sources from Byzantine, Jewish, Muslim, and Latin Christian authors that explore the conflicts and contacts between Muslims and Christians from the seventh to the fifteenth century. Jarbel Rodriguez has selected geographically diverse readings and multiple sources on the same event or topic so that readers gain a better understanding of the relationship that existed between Muslims and Christians in the Middle Ages.

The Middle Ages: A New History, 1000-1400 provides students with an engaging and enlightening journey through the historical events, social and personal dynamics, intellectual developments, and religious beliefs of the Middle Ages. The book begins with an overview of Europe in the Early Middle Ages. Proceeding chapters cover the peasantry and rural society; religious life and the church; political history in Iberia, France, Britain, Scandinavia, Germany, and Italy in the 11th century; and trade, commerce, guilds, and the economy. Students learn about Islamic, Jewish, and Christian intellectual traditions, and the experiences of the disenfranchised-the poor, minorities, women, and "others." They study key political events that shaped Scandinavia, the Holy Roman Empire, Eastern Europe, and Western Europe during the 12th and 13th centuries. Additional chapters address topics related to the church and its institutions-including the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Mendicant Orders, and more-as well as secular administration, finance, and legal systems. Closing chapters discuss medieval popular culture and entertainment, as well as the many calamities that struck Europe between 1300 and 1400, including famine, plague, war, rebellions, and a conflicted and weakened church. Illuminating and well-researched, The Middle Ages is an ideal textbook for courses in world and European history.