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Topics examined include not just the personal eating habits of kings, queens, and nobles but also those of the peasants, monks, and other social groups not generally considered in medieval food studies."--BOOK JACKET.
This book analyses the role of women in the Polish Piast dynasty from c. 965 to c.1144. It discusses gender expectations and the literary topoi employed to describe rulers’ wives and daughters as well as showing their importance in religious donations, the creation of dynastic memory, and naming patterns, as well as examining Piast women’s involvement in female monasticism. Pac takes a comparative approach to these themes, analysing Polish sources alongside sources from other areas of early and high medieval Europe.
This volume examines mutual ethnic and national perceptions and stereotypes in the Middle Ages by analysing a range of narrative historical sources, such as chronicles, hagiography, and literary material, with a particular focus on the mutual history of Germany and Poland. What sorts of stereotypes and prejudices existed in the Middle Ages, and how widespread were they? Or what other types of differentiating features were considered, and why? The majority of the contributions clearly shows that medieval authors in general displayed only limited interest in the activities of neighbouring lands, and only then when it concerned their own interests – such as matters of conflict, diplomacy, or marriage – while criticism usually focused on individuals, rather than being generalised to bordering regions as a whole. Contributors are Isabelle Chwalka, Jarochna Dąbrowska-Burkhardt, Stephan Flemmig, Sławomir Gawlas, Georg Jostkleigrewe, David Kalhous, Norbert Kersken, Paul Martin Langner, Roman Michałowski, Wojciech Mrozowicz, Piotr Okniński, Andrzej Pleszczyński, Volker Scior, Florian M. Schmid, Marcin Starzyński, Adam Szweda, Kristin Skottki, Grischa Vercamer, and Thomas Wünsch.
The history of the Black Sea may be considered as alternating between an “inner lake,” when a single empire establishes control over the sea and its surrounding areas, and that of an open sea, in which various continental or maritime powers compete for the region’s resources. By taking into account the impact both of major powers and minor political actors, this volume proposes a long-term perspective of regional history. It offers a deep understanding of the political and commercial history of the Black Sea between the 14th and the 16th centuries, and provides insights into the political and economic developments of the region.
This book presents a collective portrait of the inhabitants of Árpádian- and Angevin-era Hungary identified by their countrymen as Rutheni. Many members of this group hailed from the lands of Halych, Chernihiv, Kyiv, and Volhynia, and migrated to Hungary under the pressure of circumstances, eventually carving out for themselves a position of prominence in the kingdom's social hierarchy and political affairs. Drawing on a range of sources, this is the first work to make extensive use of Latin-language documents to throw light on the vicissitudes of the life of Rus’ settlers and those bearing Rus’-related names or bynames in medieval Central Europe, revealing their important role in contemporary social and political life.
This book documents developments in the countries of eastern Europe, including the rise of authoritarian tendencies in Russia and Belarus, as well as the victory of the democratic 'Orange Revolution' in Ukraine, and poses important questions about the origins of the East Slavic nations and the essential similarities or differences between their cultures. It traces the origins of the modern Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian nations by focusing on pre-modern forms of group identity among the Eastern Slavs. It also challenges attempts to 'nationalize' the Rus' past on behalf of existing national projects, laying the groundwork for understanding of the pre-modern history of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. The book covers the period from the Christianization of Kyivan Rus' in the tenth century to the reign of Peter I and his eighteenth-century successors, by which time the idea of nationalism had begun to influence the thinking of East Slavic elites.
The book provides an overview of the floods and major hydrological changes that occurred in the medieval Hungarian kingdom (covering the majority of the Carpathian Basin) between 1000 and 1500 AD. The analysis was based on contemporary documentary evidence presented for the first time and the results of archaeological and scientific investigations. Beyond the evidence on individual flood events, the book includes a comprehensive overview of short-, medium-, and long-term changes detected in a hydrologically sensitive environment during the transition period between the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. It also discusses the possible causes (including climate and human intervention) and the consequences for the physical and human environment, namely the related hydro-morphological changes, short- and long-term social response, and human perception issues.
For many centuries Jews and Germans were economically and culturally of significant importance in East-Central and Eastern Europe. Since both groups had a very similar background of origin (Central Europe) and spoke languages which are related to each other (German/Yiddish), the question arises to what extent Jews and Germans in Eastern Europe share common historical developments and experiences. This volume aims to explore not only entanglements and interdependences of Jews and Germans in Eastern Europe from the late middle ages to the 20th century, but also comparative aspects of these two communities. Moreover, the perception of Jews as Germans in this region is also discussed in detail.
19 substantial chapters provide the first overview of research on rulership in theory and practice, with a particular emphasis on monarchies of Bohemia, Hungary and Poland in the High and Late Middle Ages.