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The religious life was central to Norman society in the middle ages. Professed religious and the clergy did not and could not live in isolation; the support of the laity was vital to their existence. How these different groups used sacred space was central to this relationship. Here, fascinating new light is shed on the reality of religious life in Normandy. The author uses ideas about space and gender to examine the social pressures arising from such interaction around four main themes: display, reception and intrusion, enclosure and the family. The study is grounded in the discussion of a wide range of sources, including architecture, chronicles and visitation records, from communities of monks and nuns, hospitals and the parish, allowing the people, rather than the institutions, to come to the fore. Dr LEONIE V. HICKS teaches at the University of Southampton
This volume is an attempt to discuss the ways in which themes of authority and gender can be traced in the writing of chronicles and chronicle-like writings from the early Middle Ages to the Renaissance. With major contributions by fourteen authors, each of them specialists in the field, this study spans full across the compass of medieval and early modern Europe, from England and Scandinavia, to Byzantium and the Crusader Kingdoms; embraces a variety of media and methods; and touches evidence from diverse branches of learning such as language and literature, history and art, to name just a few. This is an important collection which will be of the highest utility for students and scholars of language, literature, and history for many years to come.
A series which is a model of its kind EDMUND KING, HISTORY
Although King John is remembered for his political and military failures, he also resided over a magnificent court. This book uses records of his reign to reconstruct his life at court, and explore how it produced both pleasure and soft power for the king.
An indispensable guide to the earliest contemporary account of the Franciscan Order in England. Known as Friars Minor, Franciscans or Greyfriars, the followers of St Francis of Assisi pioneered a new type of religious life, moving beyond the monastic cloister. Their ministry was to bring the Gospel to life through example, preaching, gesture, drama, music and poetry. Founded in 1209, the movement became rapidly popular and spread widely across Europe. By around 1257 there were 49 communities In England, housing some 1,242 friars. The story of the Franciscans' arrival, and the growth of the Order up until c.1257/1258, is related by the chronicler Thomas of Eccleston In his De Adventu Fratrum ...
In the eleventh and twelfth centuries the Normans had a formative influence on the development of states and societies in the British Isles, southern Italy and the Levant. Their achievements still resonate powerfully today, and represent a vital field of historical study. But how far did colonial elites define themselves as Norman, and to what extent were they categorized as such by others? What were the defining attributes of the supremacies achieved by the Normans, and by other incomers associated with them, and how decisive and diverse was the impact of their influence on local power-structures and native societies? How readily did they reach accommodations with those societies, and how m...
Anglo-Danish Empire is an interdisciplinary handbook for the Danish conquest of England in 1016 and the subsequent reign of King Cnut the Great. Bringing together scholars from the fields of history, literature, archaeology, and manuscript studies, the volume offers comprehensive analysis of England’s shift from Anglo-Saxon to Danish rule. It follows the history of this complicated transition, from the closing years of the reign of King Æthelred II and the Anglo-Danish wars, to Cnut’s accession to the throne of England and his consolidation of power at home and abroad. Ruling from 1016 to 1035, Cnut drew England into a Scandinavian empire that stretched from Ireland to the Baltic. His reign rewrote the place of Denmark and England within Europe, altering the political and cultural landscapes of both countries for decades to come.
In Law | Book | Culture in the Middle Ages fifteen contributions are brought together, each taking a detailed view on the role of manuscripts and the written word in legal cultures and literate representations thereof. Four broad thematic approaches exploring the manuscript contexts and reception, of law and legal thought are considered: Law-Books, Law & Society, Legal Practice, and Text & Edition. The studies span the medieval period and reach across western and central Europe, closely considering facets of manuscript culture and legal literacies and practices from what are now Bulgaria, England, France and Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and Wales. Contributors are Rolf H. Bremmer, Jr., Hannah Burrows, Sonia Colafrancesco, Jan van Doren, Stefan Drechsler, Daniela Fruscione Pistoresi, Thom Gobbitt, Katherine J. Har, Lucy Hennings, Petar Parvanov, Fangzhe Dimurjan Qiu, Ben Reinhard, Sara Elin Roberts, Francesco Sangriso, and Chiara Simbolotti.
The articles brought together here demonstrate the exciting vitality of this field. The volume begins with a keynote chapter on the failure of marriages among Christians and Muslims in crusader diplomacy. Other chapters consider the ceremony of knighting and the coronation ritual of Matilda of Flanders. There are also investigations of hunting landscapes in Cheshire, and Lancashire before Lancashire in the context of the Irish Sea World, while lordship is examined in two contexts, in post-Conquest England and early thirteenth-century Le Mans and Chartres.
Fifteen years in the making, a landmark reinterpretation of the life of a pivotal figure in British and European history In this magisterial addition to the Yale English Monarchs series, David Bates combines biography and a multidisciplinary approach to examine the life of a major figure in British and European history. Using a framework derived from studies of early medieval kingship, he assesses each phase of William’s life to establish why so many trusted William to invade England in 1066 and the consequences of this on the history of the so-called Norman Conquest after the Battle of Hastings and for generations to come. A leading historian of the period, Bates is notable for having worked extensively in the archives of northern France and discovered many eleventh- and twelfth-century charters largely unnoticed by English-language scholars. Taking an innovative approach, he argues for a move away from old perceptions and controversies associated with William’s life and the Norman Conquest. This deeply researched volume is the scholarly biography for our generation.