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Hostages in the Middle Ages
In medieval Europe hostages were given, not taken. They were a means of guarantee used to secure transactions ranging from treaties to wartime commitments to financial transactions. In principle, the force of the guarantee lay in the threat to the life of the hostage if the agreement were broken but, while violation of agreements was common, execution of hostages was a rarity. Medieval hostages are thus best understood not as simple pledges, but as a political institution characteristic of the medieval millennium, embedded in its changing historical contexts. In the Early Middle Ages, hostageship was principally seen in warfare and diplomacy, operating within structures of kinship and practi...
Documentary Culture and the Laity in the Early Middle Ages
This revealing study explores how people at all social levels, whether laity or clergy, needed, used and kept documents.
Hostages in the Middle Ages
Examines the changing situations in which hostages were used in the Europe and the Mediterranean world from the fifth to the fifteenth centuries, touching on a wide range of topics in military, diplomatic, political, social, gender, economic, and legal history.
Making Agreements in Medieval Catalonia
Examines the role of written agreements in eleventh- and twelfth-century Catalonia, and how they determined the social and political order. However, in addressing feudalism, the 'transformation of the year 1000', medieval literacy, and the nature of Mediterranean societies, it has wide implications for the history of medieval Europe.
The Experience of Power in Medieval Europe, 950–1350
Taking their inspiration from the work of Thomas N. Bisson, to whom the book is dedicated, the contributors to this volume explore the experience of power in medieval Europe: the experience of those who held power, those who helped them wield it, and those who felt its effects. The seventeen essays in the collection, which range geographically from England in the north to Castile in the south, and chronologically from the tenth century to the fourteenth, address a series of specific topics in institutional, social, religious, cultural, and intellectual history. Taken together, they present three distinct ways of discussing power in a medieval historical context: uses of power, relations of power, and discourses of power. The collection thus examines not only the operational and social aspects of power, but also power as a contested category within the medieval world. The Experience of Power suggests new and fruitful ways of understanding and studying power in the Middle Ages.
A Common Stage
Introduction : locating a medieval theater -- A history play : the Jeu de saint Nicolas and the world of Arras -- Prodigals and jongleurs : initiative and agency in a theater town -- Access to the media : publicity, participation, and the public sphere -- Relics and rites : "The play of the bower" and other plays -- Lives in the theater -- Conclusion : on looking into a medieval theater.
The Languages of Early Medieval Charters
This is the first major study of the interplay between Latin and Germanic vernaculars in early medieval records, examining the role of language choice in the documentary cultures of the Anglo-Saxon and eastern Frankish worlds.
The Sacred Tree
The fundamental nature of the tree as a symbol for many communities reflects the historical reality that human beings have always interacted with and depended upon trees for their survival. Trees provided one of the earliest forms of shelter, along with caves, and the bounty of trees, nuts, fruits, and berries, gave sustenance to gatherer-hunter populations. This study has concentrated on the tree as sacred and significant for a particular group of societies, living in the ancient and medieval eras in the geographical confines of Europe, and sharing a common Indo-European inheritance, but sacred trees are found throughout the world, in vastly different cultures and historical periods. Sacred...
Writing the Lives of People and Things, AD 500–1700
Historical biography has a mixed reputation: at its best it can reveal much not only about an individual, but the wider context of their life and society; at worst it can result in a narrowly focused work of hagiography or condemnation. Yet in spite of its sometimes inferior status amongst academics, biography has remained a popular genre, and in recent years has developed into new and intriguing areas. As the essays in this volume reveal, scholars from an array of different disciplines have embraced what biography can offer them, expanding the remit of biography from people to things, tracing the 'life' of their chosen object from creation to use to disposal to rediscovery. The increasing c...
Making Agreements in Medieval Catalonia
This book examines the role of written agreements in eleventh- and twelfth-century Catalonia, and how they determined the social and political order. In addition to offering insights into subjects as diverse as the power of counts and bishops and the organization of rural societies, it addresses several current debates in medieval studies: the question of feudalism, the "transformation of the year 1000," medieval literacy, and the nature of Mediterranean societies. It is thus a local study that has wide implications for the history of medieval Europe.
