First full examination of why and how certain locations were chosen for opposition to power, and the meaning they conveyed. The direct contestation of power played a crucial role in early medieval politics. Such actions, often expressed through violence, reveal much about established authorities, power and lordship. Here the hitherto neglected role of place and landscape in acts of opposition and rebellion is explored for its meaning and significance to the protagonists. The book includes consideration of a range of factors relevant to the choice of location for such events, and examines the declarations and motivations of political actors, from disaffected princes to independently minded nobles, as well as those who responded to rebellion, to show how places and landscapes became used in political disputes. These include both "public" and "private", religious, urban and rural space. Covering a long period in England and northern France, from the late Carolingian period through to the emergence of cross-Channel polities in the aftermath of the Norman Conquest, this book casts valuable light on the political relations of the early and central Middle Ages.

Collection of source material and crucial interpretations, offering a comprehensive guide to Anglo-Saxon warfare. Selected by Choice for the 2011 list of Outstanding Academic Titles. The warfare of the late Anglo-Saxon period had momentous consequences for the development of the English state following Alfred the Great's reign. This book provides a comprehensive guide, with extracts in translation from the principal sources for our knowledge, accompanied by the most important interpretations by scholars through the ages, and new introductions by thepresent author. It looks at every aspect of the topic, from land and sea forces to logistics and campaigning, from fortifications and the battlefield to the final peacemaking. In so doing, it highlights the significance of warfareand its organisation for the late Anglo-Saxon state, and the multitude of ways in which it was recorded and remembered. Dr Ryan Lavelle is Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Winchester.

Winchester’s identity as a royal centre became well established between the ninth and twelfth centuries, closely tied to the significance of the religious communities who lived within and without the city walls. The reach of power of Winchester was felt throughout England and into the Continent through the relationships of the bishops, the power fluctuations of the Norman period, the pursuit of arts and history writing, the reach of the city’s saints, and more. The essays contained in this volume present early medieval Winchester not as a city alone, but a city emmeshed in wider political, social, and cultural movements and, in many cases, providing examples of authority and power that are representative of early medieval England as a whole.

The relationship between Anglo-Saxon kingship, law, and the functioning of power is explored via a number of different angles. The essays collected here focus on how Anglo-Saxon royal authority was expressed and disseminated, through laws, delegation, relationships between monarch and Church, and between monarchs at times of multiple kingships and changing power ratios. Specific topics include the importance of kings in consolidating the English "nation"; the development of witnesses as agents of the king's authority; the posthumous power of monarchs; how ceremonial occasions wereused for propaganda reinforcing heirarchic, but mutually beneficial, kingships; the implications of Ine's lawcode; and the language of legislation when English kings were ruling previously independent territories, and the delegation of local rule. The volume also includes a groundbreaking article by Simon Keynes on Anglo-Saxon charters, looking at the origins of written records, the issuing of royal diplomas and the process, circumstances, performance and function of production of records. GALE R. OWEN-CROCKER is Professor of Anglo-Saxon Culture at the University of Manchester. Contributors: Ann Williams, Alexander R. Rumble, Carole Hough, Andrew Rabin, Barbara Yorke, Ryan Lavelle, Alaric Trousdale

Collection of source material and crucial interpretations, offering a comprehensive guide to Anglo-Saxon warfare. Selected by Choice as an Outstanding Academic Title. The warfare of the late Anglo-Saxon period had momentous consequences for the development of the English state following Alfred the Great's reign. This book provides acomprehensive guide, with extracts in translation from the principal sources for our knowledge, accompanied by the most important interpretations by scholars through the ages, and new introductions by the present author. It looksat every aspect of the topic, from land and sea forces to logistics and campaigning, from fortifications and the battlefield to the final peacemaking. In so doing, it highlights the significance of warfare and its organisation for the late Anglo-Saxon state, and the multitude of ways in which it was recorded and remembered. Dr Ryan Lavelle is Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Winchester.

Too often dismissed as the unready king - unprepared, ill-advised, and incapable of dealing with the military and political crises that faced the Anglo-Saxon kingdom, not least of which were a series of Viking onslaughts - King Aethelred has gone down in history as an incompetent failure. This new biography redresses the indictment, placing Aethelred into his proper historical context. Central to the study is the authoritarian manner in which the king ran the English kingdom for much of his reign. King Aethelred is shown to have made effective use of the infamous Danegel and to have demonstrated royal power on a number of occasions with devastating results. While there were mishaps, disasters, and family intrigue, Aethelred managed to come through these crises until the final Danish invasion of 1013. Illustrated and including original reconstruction paintings, this study gives an insight into the turbulent politics of a 38-year reign and addresses the manner in which King Aethelred used his authority as a medieval English monarch.

Recent research on the Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, Viking and Angevin worlds of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The latest volume of the Haskins Society Journal presents recent research on the Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, Viking and Angevin worlds of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and includes topics ranging from emotional communities in the middle ages, English identity, and the artistic construction of sacred space to the organization of royal estates, Jewish credit operations, the English colonization of Wales, and more. This volume of the Haskins Society Journal includes papers read at the 21st Annual Conference of the Charles Homer Haskins Society at Cornell University in October 2002 as well as other submissions. Contributors include Barbara Rosenwein, Kate Rambridge,Nicholas Brooks, Ryan Lavelle, Robin Mundill, Diane Korngiebel, Ryan Crisp, Philadelphia Ricketts, Louis Hamilton, and Brigitte Bedos-Rezak.

The most up-to-date research in the period from the Anglo-Saxons to Angevins. This volume of the Haskins Society Journal furthers the Society's commitment to historical and interdisciplinary research on the early and central Middle Ages, especially in the Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, and Angevin worldsbut also on the continent. The topics of the essays it contains range from the curious place of Francia in the historiography of medieval Europe to strategies of royal land distribution in tenth-century Anglo-Saxon England to the representation of men and masculinity in the works of Anglo-Norman historians. Essays on the place of polemical literature in Frutolf of Michelsberg's Chronicle, exploration of the relationship between chivalryand crusading in Baudry of Bourgeuil's History, and Cosmas of Prague's manipulation of historical memory in the service of ecclesiastical privilege and priority each extend the volume's engagement with medieval historiography, employing rich continental examples to do so. Investigations of comital personnel in Anjou and Henry II's management of royal forests and his foresters shed new light on the evolving nature of secular governance in the twelfth centuries and challenge and refine important aspects of our view of medieval rule in this period. The volume ends with a wide-ranging reflection on the continuing importance of the art object itself in medieval history and visual studies. Contributors: H.F. Doherty, Kathryn Dutton, Kirsten Fenton, Paul Fouracre, Herbert Kessler, Ryan Lavelle, Thomas J.H. McCarthy, Lisa Wolverton, Simon Yarrow.

This study, a revisiting of the author's PhD thesis, looks at Royal landholding in the Wessex shires of Hampshire and Dorset in the later Anglo-Saxon period. It analyses the techniques used for estate management across the different categories of landholding and examines the role of role agents. Of primary importance is evidence from Domesday Book backed up with other charters and wills. Ultimately conclusions are drawn about the nature of Royal power and the development of the Anglo-Saxon state.

'A reputation as a ruthless ruler was sealed that would last beyond his lifetime. In that respect, at least, Cnut had succeeded...' Cnut, or Canute, is one of the great 'what ifs' of English history. The Dane who became King of England after a long period of Viking attacks and settlement, his reign could have permanently shifted eleventh-century England's rule to Scandinavia. Stretching his authority across the North Sea to become king of Denmark and Norway, and with close links to Ireland and an overlordship of Scotland, this formidable figure created a Viking Empire at least as plausible as the Anglo-Norman Empire that would emerge in 1066. Ryan Lavelle's illuminating book cuts through myths and misconceptions to explore this fascinating and powerful man in detail. Cnut is most popularly known now for the story of the king who tried to command the waves, relegated to a bit part in the medieval story, but as this biography shows, he was a conqueror, political player, law maker and empire builder on the grandest scale, one whose reign tells us much about the contingent nature of history.

The defence of the 9th-century kingdom of Wessex under King Alfred the Great against the 'Great Viking Army' is one of the major military achievements of early medieval history. While the guerrilla warfare in the Somerset marshes and the battle of Edington are characteristic of Alfred's military abilities, his definitive physical achievement was a series of some 30 well-structured fortifications across the kingdom. They continued to form a basis of West Saxon rule during the period of the emergence of an English kingdom in the 10th century under Alfred's son, King Edward 'the Elder'. This title traces the development, construction and impact of these fortifications from the 9th to the 11th centuries AD.