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This is the first comprehensive study of the role of women in the Polish Piast dynasty from 965 until c.1144, comparing them with female members of other contemporary medieval dynasties.
The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Central Europe summarizes the political, social, and cultural history of medieval Central Europe (c. 800-1600 CE), a region long considered a "forgotten" area of the European past. The 25 cutting-edge chapters present up-to-date research about the region's core medieval kingdoms -- Hungary, Poland, and Bohemia -- and their dynamic interactions with neighboring areas. From the Baltic to the Adriatic, the handbook includes reflections on modern conceptions and uses of the region's shared medieval traditions. The volume's thematic organization reveals rarely compared knowledge about the region's medieval resources: its peoples and structures of power; its social life and economy; its religion and culture; and images of its past.
What did kingship mean to medieval Europeans - especially to those who did not wear a crown? From the training of heirs, to the deathbed of kings and the choosing of their successors, this engaging study explores how a ruler's subjects shaped both the idea and the reality of power.
In Visual Cultures of Death in Central Europe, Aleksandra Koutny-Jones explores the emergence of a remarkable cultural preoccupation with death in Poland-Lithuania (1569-1795). Examining why such interests resonated so strongly in the Baroque art of this Commonwealth, she argues that the printing revolution, the impact of the Counter-Reformation, and multiple afflictions suffered by Poland-Lithuania all contributed to a deep cultural concern with mortality. Introducing readers to a range of art, architecture and material culture, this study considers various visual evocations of death including 'Dance of Death' imagery, funerary decorations, coffin portraiture, tomb chapels and religious landscapes. These, Koutny-Jones argues, engaged with wider European cultures of contemplation and commemoration, while also being critically adapted to the specific context of Poland-Lithuania.
This concise and balanced survey of heresy and inquisition in the Middle Ages examines the dynamic interplay between competing medieval notions of Christian observance, tracing the escalating confrontations between piety, reform, dissent, and Church authority between 1100 and 1500. Jennifer Kolpacoff Deane explores the diverse regional and cultural settings in which key disputes over scripture, sacraments, and spiritual hierarchies erupted, events increasingly shaped by new ecclesiastical ideas and inquisitorial procedures. Incorporating recent research and debates in the field, her analysis brings to life a compelling issue that profoundly influenced the medieval world.
This bilingual volume (Latin text with English translation) is the second in the series presenting hagiographical narratives from medieval Central Europe. It contains the most important hagiographical corpus of medieval Hungarian history: that of Saint Margaret (1242?1270), daughter of King B‚la IV, who lived her life as a Dominican nun. Margaret?s cult started immediately after her death and the demand to examine her sanctity was first formulated in 1272. The canonization process recommenced in 1276, followed by further initiatives across the centuries. Margaret was eventually canonized only in 1943. Besides the full Latin text and the English translation of her oldest legend, written bet...
This book gives a definite contribution to a wide-ranging reflection on the medieval parish and the secular clergy, considered within a long-term chronological framework and a wide geographical scope that allows the analysis and confrontation of case studies from the Iberian kingdoms, Northern France, Italian Piedmont, Lombardy, Flanders, Transylvania, and North of the Holy Roman Empire. The chapters published in this book tells of dynamics of social, religious, and cultural exclusion and inclusion within lay communities, of the constitution of family elites and parish confraternities; it shows the composition and the recruitment rationales of the parish clergy and of some ecclesiastical chapters with a duty of Cura animarum; it examines the relations of the churches and parochial clergy with more prominent – secular and regular – ecclesiastical institutions in the context of the establishment and exercise of the right of patronage; finally, it explores the role of the secular clergy in the application of justice, based on the characterization of their cultural and juridical formation.
Fourteen papers explore a variety of inter-disciplinary approaches to understanding the Viking past, both in Scandinavia and in the Viking diaspora. Contributions employ both traditional inter- or multi-disciplinarian perspectives such as using historical sources, Icelandic sagas and Eddic poetry and also specialised methodologies and/or empirical studies, place-name research, the history of religion and technological advancements, such as isotope analysis. Together these generate new insights into the technology, social organisation and mentality of the worlds of the Vikings. Geographically, contributions range from Iceland through Scandinavia to the Continent. Scandinavian, British and Con...
The vast majority of studies on rulership in medieval Europe focus on one kingdom; one type of rule; or one type of ruler. This volume attempts to break that mold and demonstrate the breadth of medieval Europe and the various kinds of rulership within it. How Medieval Europe was Ruled aims to demonstrate the multiplicity of types of rulers and polities that existed in medieval Europe. The contributors discuss not just kings or queens, but countesses, dukes, and town leadership. We see that rulers worked collaboratively with one another both across political boundaries and within their own borders in ways that are not evident in most current studies of kingship, inhibited by too narrow a focu...
Medieval East Central Europe in a Comparative Perspective draws together the new perspectives concerning the relevance of East Central Europe for current historiography by placing the region in various comparative contexts. The chapters compare conditions within East Central Europe, as well as between East Central Europe, the rest of the continent, and beyond. Including 15 original chapters from an interdisciplinary team of contributors, this collection begins by posing the question: "What is East Central Europe?" with three specialists offering different interpretations and presenting new conclusions. The book is then grouped into five parts which examine political practice, religion, urban...