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Chronicle of Hainaut
First full English translation of the 12C Chronicle of Hainaut, offering fascinating insights into European history of the time. The importance of the late twelfth-century Chronicle of Hainaut (Chronicon Hanoniense) as an historical record cannot be overestimated. Gilbert of Mons was an eye-witness to important events affecting Count Baldwin V of Hainaut, and provides much significant information about persons and affairs within France and the Empire, particularly Count Philip of Flanders, King Philip Augustus and Emperor Frederick Barbarossa; he had a keen interest in noble marriages, making his chronicle an unmatched source for genealogical and prosopographical material for this region. Mo...
Peacemaking and the Restraint of Violence in High Medieval Europe
The High Middle Ages have been seen as an important point within the development of governmental and administrative bureaucracy, as well as a time in which there was frequent conflict. This volume addresses the methods by which violence was regulated and mitigated, and peaceful relations were re-established in High Medieval Europe. By studying the restraint of violence and the imposition of peace, the chapters in this volume contribute to interdisciplinary discussions about the effects that violence had on medieval societies. The wide-ranging geographical scope of this volume invites comparisons to be made in relation to how violence was restrained, and peace established, in different settin...
The Sleep of Behemoth
In The Sleep of Behemoth, Jehangir Yezdi Malegam explores the emergence of conflicting concepts of peace in western Europe during the High Middle Ages. Ever since the early Church, Christian thinkers had conceived of their peace separate from the peace of the world, guarded by the sacraments and shared only grudgingly with powers and principalities. To kingdoms and communities they had allowed attenuated versions of this peace, modes of accommodation and domination that had tranquility as the goal. After 1000, reformers in the papal curia and monks and canons in the intellectual circles of northern France began to reimagine the Church as an engine of true peace, whose task it was eventually ...
To Follow in Their Footsteps
When the First Crusade ended with the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, jubilant crusaders returned home to Europe bringing with them stories, sacred relics, and other memorabilia, including banners, jewelry, and weapons. In the ensuing decades, the memory of the crusaders' bravery and pious sacrifice was invoked widely among the noble families of western Christendom. Popes preaching future crusades would count on these very same families for financing, leadership, and for the willing warriors who would lay down their lives on the battlefield. Despite the great risks and financial hardships associated with crusading, descendants of those who suffered and died on crusade would continue to take t...
Reading Cicero’s Final Years
This volume contributes to the ongoing scholarly debate regarding the reception of Cicero. It focuses on one particular moment in Cicero’s life, the period from the death of Caesar up to Cicero’s own death. These final years have shaped Cicero’s reception in an special way, as they have condensed and enlarged themes that his life stands for: on the positive side his fight for freedom and the republic against mighty opponents (for which he would finally be killed); on the other hand his inconsistency in terms of political alliances and tendency to overestimate his own influence. For that reason, many later readers viewed the final months of Cicero's life as his swan song, and as represe...
Orderic Vitalis
First full-length collection on one of the most significant and influential historians of the medieval period.
Knighthood and Society in the High Middle Ages
In popular imagination few phenomena are as strongly associated with medieval society as knighthood and chivalry. At the same time, and due to a long tradition of differing national perspectives and ideological assumptions, few phenomena have continued to be the object of so much academic debate. In this volume leading scholars explore various aspects of knightly identity, taking into account both commonalities and particularities across Western Europe. Knighthood and Society in the High Middle Ages addresses how, between the eleventh and the early thirteenth centuries, knighthood evolved from a set of skills and a lifestyle that was typical of an emerging elite habitus, into the basis of a consciously expressed and idealised chivalric code of conduct. Chivalry, then, appears in this volume as the result of a process of noble identity formation, in which some five key factors are distinguished: knightly practices, lineage, crusading memories, gender roles, and chivalric didactics.
Princely Brothers and Sisters
In Princely Brothers and Sisters, Jonathan R. Lyon takes a fresh look at sibling networks and the role they played in shaping the practice of politics in the Middle Ages. Focusing on nine of the most prominent aristocratic families in the German kingdom during the Staufen period (1138–1250), Lyon finds that noblemen—and to a lesser extent, noblewomen—relied on the cooperation and support of their siblings as they sought to maintain or expand their power and influence within a competitive political environment. Consequently, sibling relationships proved crucial at key moments in shaping the political and territorial interests of many lords of the kingdom. Family historians have largely ...
Brittany and the Angevins
The rule of the Angevins in Brittany is characterized usually as opening an isolated 'Celtic' society to a wider world and imposing new and alien institutions. This study of Brittany under the Angevins, first published in 2000, demonstrates that the opposite is true: that before the advent of Henry II in 1158, the Bretons were already active participants in Anglo-Norman and French society. Indeed those Bretons with landholdings in England, Normandy and Anjou were already accustomed to Angevin rule. The book examines in detail the means by which Henry II gained sovereignty over Brittany and how it was governed subsequently by the Angevin kings of England from 1158 to 1203. In particular, it examines the extent to which the Angevins ruled Brittany directly, or delegated authority either to native dukes or royal ministers and shows that in this respect the nature of Angevin rule changed and evolved over the period.
