Study of the Norman World's borders, frontiers, and boundaries in Europe, shedding fresh light on their nature and extent. The Normans exerted great influence across Christendom and beyond in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Figures like William the Conqueror and Robert Guiscard subdued vast territories, their feats recorded for posterity by chroniclers such as Orderic Vitalis and Geoffrey Malaterra. Through travel and conquest, the Normans encountered, created, and conceptualised many borders, with the areas of Europe that they ruled and most affected often being grouped together as the "Norman World". This volume examines the nature, forms, and function of borders in and around this "Norman World", looking at Normandy, the British-Irish Isles, and Southern Italy. Three sections frame the collection. The first concerns physical features, from broad frontier expanses, to rivers and walls that were both literally and metaphorically lines of division. The second shows how borders were established, contested, and negotiated between the papacy and lay rulers and senior churchmen. Finally, the third highlights the utility of conceptual frontiers for both medieval authors and modern historians. Among the subjects covered are Archbishop Anselm's travels across Christendom; the portrayal of borders in the writings of William of Jumièges, Orderic Vitalis, and Gerald of Wales; and the limits of Norman seigneurial and papal power at the edges of Europe. Overall, the essays demonstrate the role that the manipulation of borders played in the creation of the "Norman World", and address what these borders did and whom they benefited.

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.

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.

`A vivid and absorbing picture both of the internal workings of religious houses in Normandy and their interactions with a wider society.' Professor ANN WILLIAMS The religious life was central to Norman society in the middle ages. Professed religious and the clergy did not and could not live in isolation; the support of the laity was vital to their existence. How these different groups used sacred space was central to this relationship. Here, fascinating new light is shed on the reality of religious life in Normandy. The author uses ideas about space and gender to examine the social pressures arising from such interaction around four main themes: display, reception and intrusion, enclosure and the family. The study is grounded in the discussion of a wide range of sources, including architecture, chronicles and visitation records,from communities of monks and nuns, hospitals and the parish, allowing the people, rather than the institutions, to come to the fore. Dr LEONIE V. HICKS teaches at the University of Southampton

A series which is a model of its kind EDMUND KING, HISTORY This latest collection reflects the full range and vitality of the current work on the Anglo-Norman period. It opens with the R. Allen Brown Memorial Lecture for 2009, a wide-ranging reflection by the distinguished French historian Dominique Barthelemy on the Peace of God and the role of bishops in the long eleventh century. Economic history is prominent in papers on the urban transformation in England between 900 and 1100, on the roots of the royal forestin England, and on trade links between England and Lower Normandy. A close study of the Surrey manor of Mortlake brings in topography, another aspect of which appears in an article on the representation of outdoor space by Normanand Anglo-Norman chroniclers. Social history is treated in papers dealing with the upbringing of the children of the Angevin counts and with the developing ideas of knighthood and chivalry in the works of Dudo of Saint-Quentin and Benoit of Sainte-Maure. Finally, political ideas are examined through careful reading of texts in papers on writing the rebellion of Earl Waltheof in the twelfth century and on the use of royal titles and prayers for the king inAnglo-Norman charters. Contributors: Dominique Barthelemy, Kathryn Dutton, Leonie Hicks, Richard Holt, Joanna Huntington, Laurence Jean-Marie, Dolly Jorgensen, Max Lieberman, Stephen Marritt, Pamela Taylor