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This book redresses popular interpretations of concealed objects, enigmatically discovered within the fabric of post-medieval buildings. A wide variety of objects have been found up chimneybreasts, bricked up in walls, and concealed within recesses: old shoes, mummified cats, horse skulls, pierced hearts, to name only some. The most common approach to these finds is to apply a one-size-fits-all analysis and label them survivals and apotropaic (evil-averting) devices. This book reconsiders such interpretations, exploring the invention and reinvention of traditions regarding building magic. The title Building Magic therefore refers to more than practices that alter the fabric of buildings, but also to processes of building magic into our interpretations of the enigmatic material evidence and into our engagements with the buildings we inhabit and frequent.
Medieval towns were vibrant and complex social environments where diverse groups and lifestyles encountered and influenced each other. Surprisingly, in the study of urban archaeology, the aristocracy, one of the leading and most influential groups in medieval society, has so far been neglected. This book puts "aristocracy in towns" on the archaeological research agenda. The interdisciplinary and comparative study explores the significance and representation of aristocrats and their interaction with civic elites in sea-trading towns of the southwestern Baltic from the 12th to the 14th centuries. Essentially, however, the analysis of urban elite culture leads to discussion of a much more fundamental issue: the informative value of material culture for the investigation of social conditions. The book provides new archaeological approaches to the study of social differentiation in towns, and contributes to a deeper understanding of the complexity of urban social structures.
This is a book on the rise and fall of diasporic communities in Early Modern urban centers in Denmark and Sweden. It contains 17 chapters written by archaeologists, historians and scientists, ranging from in-depth studies of artefacts, biofacts and archaeological features to large-scale analyses of community formation among natives and migrants of multiple origins. The plethora of sources and approaches afforded by the numerous disciplines involved enables a significant new insight into the creation and recreation of migrant communities in these Early Modern towns.
This book argues that abbatial authority was fundamental to monastic historical writing in the period c.500-1500. Writing history was a collaborative enterprise integral to the life and identity of medieval monastic communities, but it was not an activity for which time and resources were set aside routinely. Each act of historiographical production constituted an extraordinary event, one for which singular provision had to be made, workers and materials assigned, time carved out from the monastic routine, and licence granted. This allocation of human and material resources was the responsibility and prerogative of the monastic superior. Drawing on a wide and diverse range of primary evidenc...
Sheds light on the skills and techniques of the medieval military engineer, over a thousand year sweep.
Possessors of a widely recognized, positively valued and well-underpinned brand, archaeologists need to take more seriously the appeal of their work and its relationship to society and popular culture.
This book reveals how Gothic choir screens, through both their architecture and sculpture, were vital vehicles of communication and shapers of community within the Christian church.
Examines the performative aspects of prayer and how they were represented in literature in early modern England.
Crusades covers seven hundred years from the First Crusade (1095-1102) to the fall of Malta (1798) drawing together scholars working on war, theology, law, literature, art, numismatics and economic, social, political and military history. It publishes both historical sources of the Crusades - narrative, homiletic and documentary - in European and oriental languages, and interpretative studies. Ashgate publishes this journal for The Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East in both print and online editions, and the subscription price covers both. The print edition also incorporates the Society's Bulletin. The journal is available on-line via IngentaConnect: www.IngentaConnect.com/Crusades. The on-line edition does not include the Society’s Bulletin.
Presenting the history of the Slavs in the Middle Ages in a new light, this study shows how the 'Slavs' were treated as a cultural construct and as such politically instrumentalized, and describes the real structures behind the phenomenon.