Contemporary historians overtly eulogising the Norman achievement are shown to have employed a variety of literary strategies to convey implicitly their treacherous and predatory ways. The first Normans were Rollo and his fellow Vikings, marauders from the north, who fashioned the county [later the Duchy] of Normandy from lands won at the mouth of the Seine in about 911, making Rouen their capital. The heirs ofthese pagan Northmen contrived a brilliant transformation of themselves into Christian warriors, and went on to conquer England, southern Italy and Sicily, and even distant Antioch, in the process carving out a dynamic reputationthroughout Western Europe and the Mediterranean. Norman princes encouraged the celebration of these remarkable achievements in histories written to verify the legitimacy of their claims to settle and dominate their lands. From Dudo of Saint-Quentin [late tenth/early eleventh centuries] to the twelfth-century vernacular histories of Wace and Benoit, the Norman historical tradition largely acceded to these expectations: beneath the surface, however, virtually all the histories told a contrary story, condemning the Normans as treacherous to kin and ally as well as to foe. Emily Albu examines the myths the historians fashioned, and the other literary strategies they employed, to expose and explain the wolfish predation at the core of Normanness. EMILY ALBU is Assistant Professor of Classics, University of California, Davis.

An examination into two of the most important activities undertaken by the Normans. The reputation of the Normans is rooted in warfare, faith and mobility. They were simultaneously famed as warriors, noted for their religious devotion, and celebrated as fearless travellers. In the Middle Ages few activities offered a better conduit to combine warfare, religiosity, and movement than crusading and pilgrimage. However, while scholarship is abundant on many facets of the Norman world, it is a surprise that the Norman relationship with crusading and pilgrimage, so central in many ways to Norman identity, has hitherto not received extensive treatment. The collection here seeks to fill this gap. It aims to identify what was unique or different about the Normans andtheir relationship with crusading and pilgrimage, as well as how and why crusade and pilgrimage were important to the Normans. Particular focus is given to Norman participation in the First Crusade, to Norman interaction in latercrusading initiatives, to the significance of pilgrimage in diverse parts of the Norman world, and finally to the ways in which crusading and pilgrimage were recorded in Norman narrative. Ultimately, this volume aims to assess, insome cases to confirm, and in others to revise the established paradigm of the Normans as crusaders par excellence and as opportunists who used religion to serve other agendas. Dr KATHRYN HURLOCK is Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at Manchester Metropolitan University; Dr PAUL OLDFIELD is Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Manchester. Contributors: Andrew Abram, William M. Aird, Emily Albu, Joanna Drell, Leonie Hicks, Natasha Hodgson, Kathryn Hurlock, Alan V. Murray, Paul Oldfield, David S. Spear, Lucas Villegas-Aristizabal.

An examination into two of the most important activities undertaken by the Normans. The reputation of the Normans is rooted in warfare, faith and mobility. They were simultaneously famed as warriors, noted for their religious devotion, and celebrated as fearless travellers. In the Middle Ages few activities offered a better conduit to combine warfare, religiosity, and movement than crusading and pilgrimage. However, while scholarship is abundant on many facets of the Norman world, it is a surprise that the Norman relationship with crusading and pilgrimage, so central in many ways to Norman identity, has hitherto not received extensive treatment. The collection here seeks to fill this gap. It aims to identify what was unique or different about the Normans andtheir relationship with crusading and pilgrimage, as well as how and why crusade and pilgrimage were important to the Normans. Particular focus is given to Norman participation in the First Crusade, to Norman interaction in latercrusading initiatives, to the significance of pilgrimage in diverse parts of the Norman world, and finally to the ways in which crusading and pilgrimage were recorded in Norman narrative. Ultimately, this volume aims to assess, insome cases to confirm, and in others to revise the established paradigm of the Normans as crusaders par excellence and as opportunists who used religion to serve other agendas. Dr Kathryn Hurlock is Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at Manchester Metropolitan University; Dr Paul Oldfield is Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Manchester. Contributors: Andrew Abram, William M. Aird, Emily Albu, Joanna Drell, Leonie Hicks, Natasha Hodgson, Kathryn Hurlock, Alan V. Murray, Paul Oldfield, David S. Spear, Lucas Villegas-Aristizabal.

This volume contains the usual wide range of topics, and offers some unusual and provocative perspectives, including an examination of what the evidence of zooarchaeology can reveal about the Conquest. The other subjects discussed are the battle of AlenAon; the impact of rebellion on Little Domesday; Lawrence of Durham; Thomas Becket; Peter of Blois; Anglo-French peace conferences; episcopal elections and the loss of Normandy; Norman identity in southern Italian chronicles; and the Normans on crusade. The contributors, from Germany, France and Denmark as well as Britain, and the United States, are RICHARD BARTON, NAOMI SYKES, LUCY MARTEN, MIA MA1/4NSTER-SWENDSEN, JOHN D. COTTS, J.E.M. BENHAM, JARG PELTZER, JULIE BARRAU, EMILY ALBU, EWAN JOHNSON, G. A. LOUD, HANNA VOLLRATH.

The eleventh-century monk Ekkehard IV’s Fortune and Misfortune at Saint Gall, part of the chronicles of the famous Swiss abbey, is a treasure trove of medieval monastic life. Saint Gall’s records span its humble beginnings in the early seventh century to the late Middle Ages, with Ekkehard’s contribution covering the 880s to 972, near the end of the monastery’s two-century-long golden age. Its unforgettable tales, sometimes at odds with the historical record, contain sharp flashes of Ekkehard’s signature humor—when, for instance, a spying abbot from a neighboring monastery is caught hiding in the latrine. Ekkehard also shows how the abbey’s role as a spiritual haven could be compromised by worldly ties, including close associations with the powerful Carolingian and Ottonian courts. He bears witness to the struggles of the tenth-century church reform movement, when Emperor Otto I dispatched investigators to uncover Saint Gall’s deviations from the Rule of Saint Benedict. This volume publishes the Latin text alongside its first complete English translation.

The Peutinger Map remains the sole medieval survivor of an imperial world-mapping tradition. It depicts most of the inhabited world as it was known to the ancients, from Britain's southern coastline to the farthest reaches of Alexander's conquests in India, showing rivers, lakes, islands, and mountains while also naming regions and the peoples who once claimed the landscape. Onto this panorama, the mapmaker has plotted the ancient Roman road network, with hundreds of images along the route and distances marked from point to point. This book challenges the artifact's self-presentation as a Roman map by examining its medieval contexts of crusade, imperial ambitions, and competition between the German-Roman Empire and the papacy.