For decades, medieval scholarship has been dominated by the paradigm that women who wielded power after c. 1100 were exceptions to the "rule" of female exclusion from governance and the public sphere. This collection makes a powerful case for a new paradigm. Building on the premise that elite women in positions of authority were expected, accepted, and routine, these essays traverse the cities and kingdoms of France, England, Germany, Portugal, and the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem in order to illuminate women's roles in medieval power structures. Without losing sight of the predominance of patriarchy and misogyny, contributors lay the groundwork for the acceptance of female public authority as normal in medieval society, fostering a new framework for understanding medieval elite women and power.

The most recent cutting-edge scholarship on the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries. The essays collected here demonstrate the rich vitality of scholarship in this area. This volume has a particular focus on the interrelations between the various parts of north-western Europe. After the opening piece on Lotharingia, there are detailed studies of the relationship between Ponthieu and its Norman neighbours, and between the Norman and Angevin duke-kings and the other French nobility, followed by an investigation of the world of demons and possession in Norman Italy, with additional observations on the subject in twelfth-century England. Meanwhile, the York massacre of the Jews in 1190 is set in a wider context, showing the extent to which crusader enthusiasm led to the pogroms that so marred Anglo-Jewish relations, not just in York but elsewhere in England; and there is an exploration of poverty in London, also during the 1190s, viewed through the prism of the life and execution of William fitz Osbert. Another chapter demonstrates the power of comparative history to illuminate the norms of proprietary queenship, so often overlooked by historians of both kingship and queenship. And two essays focusing on landscape bring the physical into close association with the historical: on the equine landscape of eleventh and twelfth-century England, adding substantially to our understanding of the place of the horse in late Anglo-Saxon and early Anglo-Norman societies, and on the Brut narratives of Geoffrey of Monmouth, Wace, and Lazamon, arguing that they use realistic landscapes in their depiction of the action embedded in their tales, so demonstrating the authors' grasp of the practical realities of contemporary warfare and the role played by landscapes in it.

Aspects of the reign of King Henry re-examined, from royal biography to administrative history. It is a testament to C. Warren Hollister's ongoing influence that the reign of Henry I, until his work on the period relatively neglected, is now a vibrant field of inquiry - to which this collection, a special volume of the Haskins Society Journal dedicated to his memory, makes a significant contribution. Its distinguished contributors, many former Hollister students, cover a wide range of areas: royal biography; political history, including Church-Staterelations and relations with neighbors such as Maine and Ireland as well as the English people Henry ruled; administrative history, including fiscal management; and prosopography, especially of the major developments in the Anglo-Norman aristocracy under Henry's reign. This volume thus continues and extends Hollister's scholarly legacy. Contributors: ROBERT S. BABCOCK, RICHARD E. BARTON, STEPHANIE MOOERS CHRISTELOW, DAVID CROUCH, RAGENA C. DE ARAGON, LOIS L. HUNEYCUTT, DAVID S. SPEAR, HEATHER J. TANNER, KATHLEEN THOMPSON, ANN WILLIAMS, SALLY N. VAUGHN.