New insights into key texts and interpretive problems in the history of England and Europe between the eighth and thirteenth centuries. This volume of the Haskins Society Journal demonstrates the Society's continued interest in a broad range of geographical contexts and methodological approaches to medieval history. Chapters include a much-needed reassessment of AElfthryth and her place in the society and governance of tenth-century England, as well as a comprehensive survey of the conceptualization of excommunication in post-Carolingian Europe to c.1200. Further essays explore aspects of the Norman world of southern Italy, including the dynamics of political coalitions and kinship networks, ethnic identity, and material culture. The Journal continues to highlight close analyses of key primary sources,with a study of Angevin kingship in the writings of Hugh of Lincoln and Adam of Eynsham, and an examination of Ralph of Niger's Old Testament exegesis and criticism of crusading in the late twelfth century. A ground-breaking newstudy assesses the utility of colonialism as a valid model for understanding the extraction of sacred resources and relics from the crusader lands. The volume closes with a crucial reconsideration of the agency and power of medieval French peasants as attested in medieval cartularies, opening new approaches for further research into this critical and complex social group.

The Cathars: not the largest heretical movement of the Middle Ages, but a modern invention? Richly illustrated and supplemented by the translations of central sources, the book introduces into their complex history the idea that these famous heretics were constructed as an enemy image in the High Middle Ages and then became a myth in modern times. The Cathars are considered the largest heretical movement of the Middle Ages, a kind of counter-church, ultimately destroyed by crusaders and inquisitors. This traditional image of the famous heretics has been fundamentally questioned by international research over the past quarter of a century. Instead of a historical mass phenomenon, the Cathars seem to be a modern myth, essentially based on an enemy image created in the High Middle Ages for the struggle for heresy, developed by historians in the 19th century and now closely linked to the regional identity of today's southern France, which is also marketed as "Cathar country" for tourism. Richly illustrated and supplemented by the translations of central sources, the volume introduces the complex history of this "invention" for the first time. Language of text: German