Drawing on a range of evidence related to royal authority, political events and literate culture, this study traces how kings and emperors involved themselves in the affairs of the Spanish March, and examines how actively people in Catalonia participated in politics centred on the royal court. Rather than setting the political development of the region in terms of Catalonia's future independence as a medieval principality, Cullen J. Chandler addresses it as part of the Carolingian 'experiment'. In doing so, he incorporates an analysis of political events alongside an examination of such cultural issues as the spread of the Rule of Benedict, the Adoptionist controversy, and the educational programme of the Carolingian reforms. This new history of the region offers a robust and absorbing analysis of the nature of the Carolingian legacy in the March, while also revising traditional interpretations of ethnic motivations for political acts and earlier attempts to pinpoint the
This interdisciplinary study explores how classical ideals of generosity influenced the writing and practice of gift giving in medieval Europe. In assuming that medieval gift giving was shaped by oral 'folk models', historians have traditionally followed in the footsteps of social anthropologists and sociologists such as Marcel Mauss and Pierre Bourdieu. This first in-depth investigation into the influence of the classical ideals of generosity and gift giving in medieval Europe reveals to the contrary how historians have underestimated the impact of classical literature and philosophy on medieval culture and ritual. Focusing on the idea of the gift expounded in the classical texts read most widely in the Middle Ages, including Seneca the Younger's De beneficiis and Cicero's De officiis, Lars Kjær investigates how these ideas were received, adapted and utilised by medieval writers across a range of genres, and how they influenced the practice of generosity.
This important study of episcopal office and clerical identity in a socially and culturally dynamic region of medieval Europe examines the construction and representation of episcopal power and authority in the archdiocese of Reims during the sometimes turbulent century between 1050 and 1150. Drawing on a wide range of diplomatic, hagiographical, epistolary and other narrative sources, John S. Ott considers how bishops conceived of, and projected, their authority collectively and individually. In examining episcopal professional identities and notions of office, he explores how prelates used textual production and their physical landscapes to craft historical narratives and consolidate local and regional memories around ideals that established themselves as not only religious authorities but also cultural arbiters. This study reveals that, far from being reactive and hostile to cultural and religious change, bishops regularly grappled with and sought to affect, positively and to their
This study of illicit sexuality in medieval England explores links between marriage and sex, law and disorder, and property and power. Some medieval Englishwomen endured rape or were kidnapped for forced marriages, yet most ravished women were married and many 'wife-thefts' were not forced kidnappings but cases of adultery fictitiously framed as abduction by abandoned husbands. In pursuing the themes of illicit sexuality and non-normative marital practices, this work analyses the nuances of the key Latin term raptus and the three overlapping offences that it could denote: rape, abduction and adultery. This investigation broadens our understanding of the role of women in the legal system; provides a means for analysing male control over female bodies, sexuality and access to the courts; and reveals ways in which female agency could, on occasion, manoeuvre around such controls.
John Wyclif was the fourteenth-century English thinker responsible for the first English Bible, and for the Lollard movement--persecuted widely for its attempts to reform the church through empowermen
Chrodegang of Metz (c. 712-766) was one of the leading figures of the late Merovingian and early Carolingian Church. As bishop of Metz, Chrodegang became one of the foremost churchmen in Francia and u
The barbarians of the fifth and sixth centuries were long thought to be races, tribes or ethnic groups who toppled the Roman Empire. This book proposes a new view, through a case study of the Goths of
The first systematic attempt to reconstruct from original manuscript sources and early printed books the medieval doctrines relating to the just war, the holy war and the crusade. Despite the frequenc
This volume surveys Iberian international trade from the tenth to the fifteenth century, with particular emphasis on commerce in the Muslim period and on changes brought by Christian conquest of much
The English Franciscan, William of Ockham (c. 1285-1347), was one of the most influential philosophers and theologians in late medieval Europe. Recent scholarship has shown his profound impact on logi
During the later Middle Ages people became increasingly obsessed with vision, visual analogies and the possibility of visual error. In this book Dallas Denery addresses the question of what medieval m
In this powerfully argued, original and well-balanced study, Hans Hummer investigates the operation of political power in early medieval Europe, from 600 to 1000AD. Focusing on the region of Alsace, H
Examining the role of envoys from the establishment of the first "barbarian kingdoms" in the West, to the eve of Justinian's wars of reconquest, this study reveals how Roman imperial administration in
This book offers new perspectives on the legal and intellectual developments of the twelfth century. Gratian's collection of church law, the Decretum, was a key text in these developments and remained
Most studies on medieval courts focus on those of kings. This meticulous study examines instead the small court of the duchy of Guelders in the Low Countries which was overshadowed then, and still is
The reign of Richard II and the circumstances of his deposition have long been subject to intense debate. This new interpretation of the politics of the late-fourteenth century offers an in-depth surv
Did the Crusades trigger significant intellectual activity? To what extent and in what ways did the Latin residents of the Crusader States acquire knowledge from Muslims and Eastern Christians? And how were the Crusader states influenced by the intellectual developments which characterized the West in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries? This book is the first to examine these questions systematically using the complete body of evidence from one major urban centre: Acre. This reveals that Acre contained a significant number of people who engaged in learned activities, as well as the existence of study centres housed within the city. This volume also seeks to reconstruct the discourse that flowed across four major fields of learning: language and translation, jurisprudence, the study of Islam, and theological exchanges with Eastern Christians. The result is an unprecedentedly rich portrait of a hitherto neglected intellectual centre on the Eastern shores of the medieval Mediterranean.
Flodoard of Rheims (893/4–966) is one of the tenth century's most intriguing but neglected historians. His works are essential sources for the emergence of the West Frankish and Ottonian kingdoms in the tumultuous decades following the collapse of the Carolingian empire in 888. Yet although Flodoard is a crucial narrative voice from this period, his works have seldom been considered in the context of the evolving circumstances of his turbulent career or his literary aims. This important new study is the first to analyse and synthesise Flodoard's entire output, suggesting that his writings about Rheims, contemporary politics and the Christian past have until now been taken at face value without regard for his own intentions or priorities, and therefore have been misunderstood. Edward Roberts' re-evaluation of the relationship between political participation, historical understanding and authorial individuality casts important new light on the political and cultural history of tenth
