You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
This volume presents a new picture of marriage in medieval Poland. Based on the analysis of historical documents from the ecclesiastical courts of one of the oldest dioceses in Poland, this book sheds light on the presence and prevalence of a wide range of marital problems in the Diocese of Poznań in the first quarter of the fifteenth century. Through the material presented, the voices of one of the most underrepresented groups in the history of society – namely women from the lower social strata – are amplified.
Teresa Pac provides a much-needed contribution to the discussion on shared culture as foundational to societal survival. Through the examination of common culture as a process in medieval Kraków, Poznań, and Lublin, Pac challenges the ideology of difference—institutional, religious, ethnic, and nationalistic. Similarly, Pac maintains, twenty-first century Polish leaders utilize anachronistic approaches in the invention of Polish Catholic identity to counteract the country’s increasing ethnic and religious diversity. As in the medieval period, contemporary Polish political and social elites subscribe to the European Union’s ideology of difference, legitimized by a European Christian heritage, and its intended basis for discrimination against non-Christians and non-white individuals under the auspices of democratic values and minority rights, among which Muslims are a significant target.
This volume offers the first comprehensive analysis of wills in late medieval Krakow. It presents the origins of testamentary acts in the Kingdom of Poland and its centre, Krakow, and their subsequent transformation from so called ‘canonical wills’ to ‘communal wills’. Wysmułek discusses the socio-cultural role of wills and sets them in their contemporary legal, social, and economic context. In doing so, he uncovers their influence on property ownership and family relations in the city, as well as on the religious practices of the burghers. Ultimately, this work seeks to change the perception of wills by treating the testamentary act itself as an important agent of historical social change – a ‘tool of power’.
A groundbreaking comparative history of the formation of Bohemia, Hungary and Poland, from their origins in the eleventh century.
Freedom, today perceived simply as a human right, was a continually contested idea in the early modern period. In Freedom and the Construction of Europe an international group of scholars explore the richness, diversity and complexity of thinking about freedom in the shaping of modernity. Volume 1 examines debates about religious and constitutional liberties, as well as exploring the tensions between free will and divine omnipotence across a continent of proliferating religious denominations. Debates about freedom have been fundamental to the construction of modern Europe, but represent a part of our intellectual heritage that is rarely examined in depth. These volumes provide materials for thinking in fresh ways not merely about the concept of freedom, but how it has come to be understood in our own time.
In early Medieval Western Europe intellectuals were used to indicate the external location of Slavic countries, as though outside civilization, with the term ‘the North’. The problem did not only concern nomenclature. The stereotype associated with ‘the North’ pointed at the obvious cold weather, but also the primeval nature of the land and people. This study shows the detailed image of Poland created by German authors in the earliest period of existence of the Piast state (963-1034). An important aim of this work was also to identify the wider context of written opinions. Another purpose was to gather information illustrating actions taken by the Polish rulers aimed at creating an image of themselves as civilized men and true Christians.
Winner of the 2020 Verbruggen prize This book provides a comprehensive synthesis of scholarship on Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages. The goal is to offer an overview of the current state of research and a basic route map for navigating an abundant historiography available in more than 10 different languages. The literature published in English on the medieval history of Eastern Europe—books, chapters, and articles—represents a little more than 11 percent of the historiography. The companion is therefore meant to provide an orientation into the existing literature that may not be available because of linguistic barriers and, in addition, an introductory bibliography in English. Winner of the 2020 Verbruggen prize, awarded annually by the De Re Militari society for the best book on medieval military history. The awarding committee commented that the book ‘has an enormous range, and yet is exceptionally scholarly with a fine grasp of detail. Its title points to a general history of eastern Europe, but it is dominated by military episodes which make it of the highest value to anybody writing about war and warmaking in this very neglected area of Europe.’ See inside the book.
This volume examines mutual ethnic and national perceptions and stereotypes in the Middle Ages by analysing a range of historical sources, with a particular focus on the mutual history of Germany and Poland.
"This volume is the first work to cover post-Communist developments in historical studies in six Eastern European countries (Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria) from a comparative and critical perspective, written by scholars from the region itself. It is a building block for scholars of the history of European and global historical studies, and a useful pedagogical tool for classes on the history of historical studies. Each individual chapter is in itself a guide to further research through a wealth of detailed notes and references."--BOOK JACKET.
New essays examining Bohemia as a key European context for understanding Chaucer's poetry. Chaucer never went to Bohemia but Bohemia came to him when, in 1382, King Richard II of England married Anne, daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles IV. Charles's splendid court in Prague was renowned across Europe for its patronage of literature, art and architecture, and Anne and her entourage brought with them some of its glamour and allure - their fashions, extravagance and behaviour provoking comment from English chroniclers. For Chaucer, a poet and diplomat affiliated to Richard's court, Anne was more muse than patron, her influence embedded in a range of his works, including the Parliament ...