This book of eleven essays by an international group of scholars in medieval studies honors the work of Barbara H. Rosenwein, Professor emerita of History at Loyola University Chicago. Part I, "Emotions and Communities," comprises six essays that make use of Rosenwein's well-known and widely influential work on the history of emotions and what Rosenwein has called "emotional communities." These essays employ a wide variety of source material such as chronicles, monastic records, painting, music theory, and religious practice to elucidate emotional commonalities among the medieval people who experienced them. The five essays in Part II, "Communities and Difference," explore different kinds of communities and have difference as their primary theme: difference between the poor and the unfree, between power as wielded by rulers or the clergy, between the western Mediterranean region and the rest of Europe, and between a supposedly great king and lesser ones.

The best new research on medieval clothing and textiles, drawing from a range of disciplines. The usual wide range of approaches to garments and fabrics appears in this tenth volume. Three chapters focus on practical matters: a description of the medieval vestments surviving at Castel Sant'Elia in Italy; a survey of the spread of silk cultivation to Europe before 1300; and a documentation of medieval colour terminology for desirable cloth. Two address social significance: the practice of seizing clothing from debtors in fourteenth-century Lucca, and the transformation of the wardrobe of Margaret Tudor, daughter of King Henry VII, upon her marriage to the king of Scotland. Two delve into artistic symbolism: a consideration of female headdresses carved at St Frideswide's Priory in Oxford, and a discussion of how Anglo-Saxon artists used soft furnishings to echo emotional aspects of narratives. Meanwhile, in an exercise in historiography, there is an examination of the life of Mrs. A.G.I. Christie, author of the landmark Medieval English Embroidery. ROBIN NETHERTON is a professional editor and a researcher/lecturer on the interpretation of medieval European dress; GALE R. OWEN-CROCKER is Professor of Anglo-Saxon Culture at the University of Manchester. Contributors: Michelle L. Beer, Elizabeth Coatsworth, Valija Evalds, Christine Meek, Maureen C. Miller, Christopher J. Monk, Lisa Monnas, Rebecca Woodward Wendelken

This lavishly illustrated book looks at the art and architecture of episcopal palaces as expressions of power and ideology. Tracing the history of the bishop's residence in the urban centers of northern Italy over the Middle Ages, Maureen C. Miller asks why this once rudimentary and highly fortified structure called a domus became a complex and elegant "palace" (palatium) by the late twelfth century. Miller argues that the change reflects both the emergence of a distinct clerical culture and the attempts of bishops to maintain authority in public life. She relates both to the Gregorian reform movement, which set new standards for clerical deportment and at the same time undercut episcopal claims to secular power. As bishops lost temporal authority in their cities to emerging communal governments, they compensated architecturally and competed with the communes for visual and spatial dominance in the urban center. This rivalry left indelible marks on the layout and character of Italian cities.Moreover, Miller contends, this struggle for power had highly significant, but mixed, results for western Christianity. On the one hand, as bishops lost direct governing authority in their cities, they devised ways to retain status, influence, and power through cultural practices. This response to loss was highly creative. On the other hand, their loss of secular control led bishops to emphasize their spiritual powers and to use them to obtain temporal ends. The coercive use of spiritual authority contributed to the emergence of a "persecuting society" in the central Middle Ages.

This lavishly illustrated book looks at the art and architecture of episcopal palaces as expressions of power and ideology. Tracing the history of the bishop's residence in the urban centers of northern Italy over the Middle Ages, Maureen C. Miller asks why this once rudimentary and highly fortified structure called a domus became a complex and elegant "palace" (palatium) by the late twelfth century. Miller argues that the change reflects both the emergence of a distinct clerical culture and the attempts of bishops to maintain authority in public life. She relates both to the Gregorian reform movement, which set new standards for clerical deportment and at the same time undercut episcopal claims to secular power. As bishops lost temporal authority in their cities to emerging communal governments, they compensated architecturally and competed with the communes for visual and spatial dominance in the urban center. This rivalry left indelible marks on the layout and character of Italian cities.Moreover, Miller contends, this struggle for power had highly significant, but mixed, results for western Christianity. On the one hand, as bishops lost direct governing authority in their cities, they devised ways to retain status, influence, and power through cultural practices. This response to loss was highly creative. On the other hand, their loss of secular control led bishops to emphasize their spiritual powers and to use them to obtain temporal ends. The coercive use of spiritual authority contributed to the emergence of a "persecuting society" in the central Middle Ages.

In this provocative account, Maureen Miller challenges traditional explanations of the process that changed the nature of religious institutions and religious life itself in the diocese of Verona during the early and central Middle Ages. Building on substantial archival research, she shows how demographic expansion, economic development, and political change helped transform religious ideals and ecclesiastical institutions into a recognizably "medieval" church."