Holy Monsters, Sacred Grotesques examines the intersection of religion and monstrosity in a variety of different time periods in the hopes of addressing two gaps in scholarship within the field of monster studies. The first part of the volume-running from the medieval to the Early Modern period-focuses upon the view of the monster through non-majority voices and accounts from those who were themselves branded as monsters. Overlapping partially with the Early Modern and proceeding to the present day, the contributions of the second part of the volume attempt to problematize the dichotomy of secular/religious through a close look at the monsters this period has wrought.

First published in 2000, Trade, Travel, and Exploration: An Encyclopedia covers the people, places, technologies, and intellectual concepts that contributed to trade, travel and exploration during the Middle Ages, from the years C.E. 525 to 1492. This comprehensive reference work contains entries on a large number of subjects, including familiar topics such as the voyages of Columbus and Marco Polo, and also information that is more difficult to find, for example, the traditions of travel among Muslim women and the influence of Viking travel on navigation and geographical knowledge. Bringing together more than 175 scholars from a variety of disciplines, it minimizes Eurocentric bias and offers extensive coverage of such topics as travel within Inner Asia, Mongol society, and the spread of Buddhism. Including an extensive map program and more than 125 illustrations, as well as bibliographies, a comprehensive index and "see also" references, Medieval Trade, Travel, and Exploration is a valuable reference guide for undergraduate and graduate students, scholars and also the general reader.

The best new research on medieval clothing and textiles, drawing from a range of disciplines. Topics in this volume range widely throughout the European middle ages. Three contributions concern terminology for dress. Two deal with multicultural medieval Apulia: an examination of clothing terms in surviving marriage contracts from the tenth to the fourteenth century, and a close focus on an illuminated document made for a prestigious wedding. Turning to Scandinavia, there is an analysis of clothing materials from Norway and Sweden according to gender and social distribution. Further papers consider the economic uses of cloth and clothing: wool production and the dress of the Cistercian community at Beaulieu Abbey based on its 1269-1270 account book, and the use of clothing as pledge or payment in medieval Ireland. In addition, there is a consideration of the history of dagged clothing and its negative significance to moralists, and of the painted hangings that were common in homes of all classes in the sixteenth century. ROBIN NETHERTON is a professional editor and a researcher/lecturer on the interpretation of medieval European dress; GALE R. OWEN-CROCKER is Emerita Professor of Anglo-Saxon Culture at the University of Manchester. Contributors: Antonietta Amati, Eva I. Andersson, John Block Friedman, Susan James, John Oldland, Lucia Sinisi, Mark Zumbuhl

The best new research on medieval clothing and textiles, drawing from a range of disciplines. The studies collected here range through art, artifacts, documentary text, and poetry, addressing both real and symbolic functions of dress and textiles. John Block Friedman breaks new ground with his article on clothing for pets and other animals, while Grzegorz Pac compares depictions of sacred and royal female dress and evaluates attempts to link them together. Jonathan C. Cooper describes the clothing of scholars in Scotland's three pre-Reformation universities and the effects of the Reformation upon it. Camilla Luise Dahl examines references to women's garments in probates and what they reveal about early modern fashions. Megan Cavell focuses on the treatment of textiles associated with the Holy of Holies in Old English biblical poetry. Frances Pritchard examines the iconography, heraldry, and inscriptions on a worn and repaired set of embroidered fifteenth-century orphreys to determine their origin.Finally, Thomas M. Izbicki summarizes evidence for the choice of white linen for the altar and the responsibilities of priests for keeping it clean and in good repair.

The best new research on medieval clothing and textiles, drawing from a range of disciplines. Following the Journal's tradition of drawing on a range of disciplines, the essays here also extend chronologically from the tenth through the sixteenth century and cover a wide geography: from Scandinavia to Spain, with stops in England and the Low Countries. They include an examination of the lexical items for banners in Beowulf, evidence of the use of curved template for the composition in the Bayeux Tapestry, a discussion of medieval cultivation of hemp for use in textiles in Sweden, a reading of the character of Lady Mede (Piers Plowman) in the context of costume history, the historical context of the Spanish verdugados (in English, the farthingale)and its use as political propaganda, an analysis of the sartorial imagery on a tabletop painting (attributed to Bosch) depicting the Seven Deadly Sins, and the reconstruction of one of the sixteenth-century London Livery companies' crowns.

Essays on costume, fabric and clothing in the Middle Ages and beyond. All those who work with historical dress and textiles must in some way re-fashion them. This fundamental concept is developed and addressed by the articles collected here, ranging over issues of gender, status and power. Topics include: the repurposing and transformation of material items for purposes of religion, memorialisation, restoration and display; attempts to regulate dress, both ecclesiastical and secular, the reasons for it and the refashioning which was both a result and a reaction; conventional ways in which dress was used to characterise children, and their transition into young men; how symbolism-laded dress items could indicate political/religious affiliations; waysin which allegorical, biblical and historical figures were depicted in art in dress familiar to the viewers of their own era, and the emotive and intellectual responses to these costumes the artists sought to elicit; and the use of clothing in medieval literature (often rich, exotic or unique) as narrative, structuring and rhetorical devices. Taken together, they honour the costume historian and editor Robin Netherton, who has been hugely influentialin the development of medieval and Renaissance dress and textile studies. GALE R. OWEN-CROCKER is Professor Emerita at the University of Manchester; MAREN CLEGG HYER is Professor of English at Valdosta State University. Contributors: Melanie Schuessler Bond, Elizabeth Coatsworth, Lisa Evans, Gina Frasson-Hudson, Charney Goldman, Sarah-Grace Heller, Maren Clegg Hyer, John Friedman, Thomas Izbicki, Drea Leed, Christine Meek, M.A. Nordtorp-Madson, Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Lucia Sinisi, Monica L. Wright.

The best new research on medieval clothing and textiles, drawing from a range of disciplines. The essays here continue in the Journal's tradition of drawing on a range of disciplines. Topics include evidence for dress in multicultural sixth-century Ravenna; the incidence of Byzantine and Oriental silks in ninth- tothirteenth-century Denmark; a new analysis of the chronology of and contexts for the French hood; an examination of the mysterious garment called a bliaut in French literature; a discussion of the vocabulary and loan wordsin Italian/Anglo-Norman mercantile transactions; and revelations that fashions in body hair were an important feature of women's appearance. Contributors: John Block Friedman, Anne Hedeager Krag, Karen Margrethe Høskuldsson, Olga Magoula, Megan Tiddeman, Monica L. Wright