The best new research on medieval clothing and textiles, drawing from a variety of angles and approaches. The essays in this volume continue the Journal's tradition of groundbreaking interdisciplinary work. The volume opens with a survey of the discipline of medieval clothing and textiles, written by founding editor Gale R. Owen-Crocker. The range of the other essays extends chronologically from the early Middle Ages through the fifteenth century and covers a variety of disciplines. Topics include the conception of the author as a "wordweaver" in the literatures of Anglo-Saxon England; intertextual literary identities established through clothing in the Nibelungenlied and the Voelsunga Saga; the historical record of clothing and textiles at the court of King John of England; medallion silks, their use in Western Europe, and their representation in art; the vestments of Beguines and other penitential movements in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; and a depiction of heraldic textile weaving inlate-medieval art. Contributors: Tina Anderlini, Joanne W. Anderson, Maren Clegg Hyer, Alejandra Concha Sahli, Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Elizabeth M. Swedo, Hugh Thomas

Exploring the successful Norman invasion of England in 1066, this concise and readable book focuses especially on the often dramatic and enduring changes wrought by William the Conqueror and his followers. From the perspective of a modern social historian, Hugh M. Thomas considers the conquest's wide-ranging impact by taking a fresh look at such traditional themes as the influence of battles and great men on history and assessing how far the shift in ruling dynasty and noble elites affected broader aspects of English history. The author sets the stage by describing English society before the Norman Conquest and recounting the dramatic story of the conquest, including the climactic Battle of Hastings. He then traces the influence of the invasion itself and the Normans' political, military, institutional, and legal transformations. Inevitably following on the heels of institutional reform came economic, social, religious, and cultural changes. The results, Thomas convincingly shows, are both complex and surprising. In some areas where one might expect profound influence, such as government institutions, there was little change. In other respects, such as the indirect transformation of the English language, the conquest had profound and lasting effects. With its combination of exciting narrative and clear analysis, this book will capture students interest in a range of courses on medieval and Western history.

A series which is a model of its kind. Edmund King, History This volume demonstrates the vitality and range of studies in the area. It begins with an appropriately timely chapter on the Magna Carta, the Allen Brown Memorial Lecture, given by John Hudson. Further topics include seals; English towns and urban society after the Norman Conquest; the records of Barking Abbey; the Bayeux Tapestry; monastic writing; and medical practitioners in Normandy. Contributors: Anna Sapir Abulafia, Casey Beaumont, Elma Brenner, Giles Gasper, Kate Hammond, John Hudson, Alan Murray, Jean-Francois Nieus, Jonathan Paletta, Susan Raich, Luigi Rosso, Miri Rubin, Hugh Thomas.

Exploring the successful Norman invasion of England in 1066, this concise and readable book focuses especially on the often dramatic and enduring changes wrought by William the Conqueror and his followers. From the perspective of a modern social historian, Hugh M. Thomas considers the conquest's wide-ranging impact by taking a fresh look at such traditional themes as the influence of battles and great men on history and assessing how far the shift in ruling dynasty and noble elites affected broader aspects of English history. The author sets the stage by describing English society before the Norman Conquest and recounting the dramatic story of the conquest, including the climactic Battle of Hastings. He then traces the influence of the invasion itself and the Normans' political, military, institutional, and legal transformations. Inevitably following on the heels of institutional reform came economic, social, religious, and cultural changes. The results, Thomas convincingly shows, are both complex and surprising. In some areas where one might expect profound influence, such as government institutions, there was little change. In other respects, such as the indirect transformation of the English language, the conquest had profound and lasting effects. With its combination of exciting narrative and clear analysis, this book will capture students interest in a range of courses on medieval and Western history.

In recent decades, works of the gentry have revolutionized out understanding of late medieval and early modern England. In Vassals, Heiresses, Crusaders, and Thugs, Hugh M. Thomas takes the study of the gentry back to the period 1154-1216. His conclusions not only reveal remarkable similarities between the gentry of various periods but also shed light on the massive changes that transformed England in the Angevin Period.

Recent research on the Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, Viking and Angevin worlds of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The latest volume presents recent research on the Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, Viking and Angevin worlds of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Its ten papers includes articles on the origins of the Cistercian order, the coronationof Mathilda of Flanders, the rebel Owain ap Cadwgan, miracle stories and the anarchy of Stephen's reign, miracles at Sempringham, family and inheritance in the twelfth century, and contemporary views of secular clergy. Contributors: CONSTANCE BERMAN, LAURA GATHAGAN, DAVID CROUCH, CLAIRE DE TRAFFORD, K.L. MAUND, EDMUND KING, RICHARD SHERMAN, HUGH THOMAS, MARYLOU RUUD, JOHN COTTS, RALPH TURNER.

The secular clergy - priests and other clerics outside of monastic orders - were among the most influential and powerful groups in European society during the central Middle Ages. The secular clergy got their title from the Latin word for world, saeculum, and secular clerics kept the Church running in the world beyond the cloister wall, with responsibility for the bulk of pastoral care and ecclesiastical administration. This gave them enormous religious influence, although they were considered too worldly by many contemporary moralists - trying, for instance, to oppose the elimination of clerical marriage and concubinage. Although their worldliness created many tensions, it also gave the secular clergy much worldly influence. Contemporaries treated elite secular clerics as equivalent to knights, and some were as wealthy as minor barons. Secular clerics had a huge role in the rise of royal bureaucracy, one of the key historical developments of the period. They were instrumental to the intellectual and cultural flowering of the twelfth century, the rise of the schools, the creation of the book trade, and the invention of universities. They performed music, produced literature in a variety of genres and languages, and patronized art and architecture. Indeed, this volume argues that they contributed more than any other group to the Twelfth-Century Renaissance. Yet the secular clergy as a group have received almost no attention from scholars, unlike monks, nuns, or secular nobles. In The Secular Clergy in England, 1066-1216, Hugh Thomas aims to correct this deficiency through a major study of the secular clergy below the level of bishop in England from 1066 to 1216.

Studies in medieval history including papers on King Stephen, 12c crusaders and a portrait of a medieval anti-semite. The Haskins Society 11th International Conference, University of Houston 1992 produced a varied collection of papers including Domesday Jurors, presenting new evidence on landownership in 1086; an essay reassessing the impact of the early explorers arguing that Columbus and Vasco de Gama were simply a phase in a history of European expansion; and an unusual paper on the twelfth-century biography of William Marshal (d. 1219) asking what it reveals about the context of its composition. Contributors: HUGH THOMAS, C.P. LEWIS, J.R.S.PHILLIPS, GEORGE BEECH, C. WARREN HOLLISTER, ROBERT HELMERICHS, THOMAS KEEFE, DAVID CROUCH.

This is an important new study of the impact of the Norman Conquest. It provides the first full explanation of how the English and the Normans merged to become the same people. The author draws on anthropological theory, the latest scholarship on Anglo-Norman England, and sources ranging from legal documents to romances.

Expert coverage and new assessments of the reign of King Stephen, set in social, political and European context. The turbulent reign of King Stephen is here subjected to a full assessment by leading scholars in the field. All of the most important aspects are fully covered: the impact of developments under Henry I on the origins of civil war; relations with the continent, as they affected Stephen's overall strategy and the foundation of religious houses; the opportunities which lured foreign mercenaries to England; mid-twelfth century legal developments and trends inrevenue-raising; baronial and episcopal allegiances; violent disorder and civil unrest; and the sequence of events which unfolded during the political crisis of July 1141. Taken together, they provide the fruits of the most recent research into and the most up to date interpretations of the intense political and military activity of the reign. CONTRIBUTORS: MARJORIE CHIBNALL, JUDITH GREEN, DAVID CROUCH, JANET BURTON, THOMAS BISSON, BRUCE O'BRIEN, GRAEME WHITE, PAUL DALTON, STEPHEN MARRITT, HUGH THOMAS, EDMUND KING

A series which is a model of its kind EDMUND KING, HISTORY A particular area of interest in this volume is the landscape and economy of late Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman England, with papers on castles, deer parks, marshlands, fisheries, and taxation. Two complementary papers discuss neglected aspects of the Bayeux Tapestry: gesture, and the representation of identity and status. Other papers survey the deaths of kings, the role of the Norman vicomte, the estates of the king's wife in Anglo-Saxon England, and lay piety. John Gillingham's Allen Brown Memorial Lecture considers right conduct in battle. C.P. Lewis is Reader in History at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London. Contributors: JOHNGILLINGHAM, STEPHEN CHURCH, MARK GARDINER, ALBAN GAUTIER, MARK HAGGER, RYAN LAVELLE, MICHAEL LEWIS, ANDREW LOWERRE, GALE OWEN-CROCKER, HUGH THOMAS, HIROKAZU TSURUSHIMA, ANDREW WAREHAM, XIANG DONG WEI.

No single recent enterprise has done more to enlarge and deepen our understanding of one of the most critical periods in English history. ANTIQUARIES JOURNAL Anglo-Norman Studies, published annually and containing the papers presented at the Battle conference, is established as the single most important publication in the field, covering not only matters relating to pre- and post-Conquest England and France, but also the activities and influences of the Normans on the wider European, Mediterranean, and Middle Eastern stage; it celebrates its twenty-first anniversary with this volume. This year there is an emphasis on the examination of sources: translation-narratives, the Life of Hereward, the Book of Llandaf, a Mont Saint Michel cartulary, Benoit de Sainte-Maure and Roger of Howden. Secular topics include Anglo-Flemish relations and the origins of an important family; ecclesiastical matters considered are the Breton church in the late eleventh century, William Rufus's monastic policy, the patrons of the great abbey of Bec, and, for the first time in this series, the life of St Thomas of Canterbury.

Since the Anglo-Norman period itself, the relations beween the English and the Normans have formed a subject of lively debate. For most of that time, however, complacency about the inevitability of assimilation and of the Anglicization of Normans after 1066 has ruled. This book first challenges that complacency, then goes on to provide the fullest explanation yet for why the two peoples merged and the Normans became English. Drawing on anthropological theory, the latest scholarship on Anglo-Norman England, and sources ranging from charters and legal documents to saints' lives and romances, it provides a complex exploration of ethnic relations on the levels of personal interaction, cultural assimilation, and the construction of identity. As a result, the work provides an important case study in pre-modern ethnic relations that combines both old and new approaches, and sheds new light on some of the most important developments in English history.

Although King John is remembered for his political and military failures, he also resided over a magnificent court. Power and Pleasure reconstructs life at the court of King John and explores how his court produced both pleasure and soft power. Much work exists on courts of the late medieval and early modern periods, but the jump in record keeping under John allows a detailed reconstruction of court life for an earlier period. Power and Pleasure: Court Life under King John, 1199-1216 examines the many facets of John's court, exploring hunting, feasting, castles, landscapes, material luxury, chivalry, sexual coercion, and religious activities. It explains how John mishandled his use of soft power, just as he failed to exploit his financial and military advantages, and why he received so little political benefit from his magnificent court. John's court is viewed in comparison to other courts of the time, and in previous and subsequent centuries.