History Commons^™

Jewish Daily Life In Medieval Northern Europe, 1080-1350, Tzafrir Barzilay, Eyal Levinson, Elisheva Baumgarten

TEAMS Documents of Practice

Designed to introduce students to the everyday lives of the Jews who lived in the German Empire, northern France, and England from the 11th to the mid-14th centuries, the volume consists of translations of primary sources written by or about medieval Jews. Each source is accompanied by an introduction that provides historical context. Through the sources, students can become familiar with the spaces that Jews frequented, their daily practices and rituals, and their thinking. The subject matter ranges from culinary preferences and even details of sexual lives, to garments, objects, and communal buildings. The documents testify to how Jews enacted …

Anglo-Danish Empire: A Companion To The Reign Of King Cnut The Great, Richard North, Erin Goeres, Alison Finlay

Northern Medieval World

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 …

Negotiating Boundaries In Medieval Literature And Culture: Essays On Marginality, Difference, And Reading Practices In Honor Of Thomas Hahn, Valerie B. Johnson, Kara L. Mcshane

Festschriften, Occasional Papers, and Lectures

Thomas Hahn’s work laid the foundations for medieval romance studies to embrace the study of alterity and hybridity within Middle English literature. His contributions to scholarship brought Robin Hood studies into the critical mainstream, normalized the study of historically marginalized literature and peoples, and encouraged scholars to view medieval readers as actively encountering others and exploring themselves. This volume employs his methodologies – careful attention to texts and their contexts, cross-cultural readings, and theoretically-informed analysis – to highlight the literary culture of late medieval England afresh. Addressing long-established canonical works such as Chaucer, Christine de Pizan, and Malory alongside understudied …

The Gaelic Background Of Old English Poetry Before Bede, Colin A. Ireland

Richard Rawlinson Center Series

Seventh-century Gaelic law-tracts delineate professional poets (filid) who earned high social status through formal training. These poets cooperated with the Church to create an innovative bilingual intellectual culture in Old Gaelic and Latin. Bede described Anglo-Saxon students who availed themselves of free education in Ireland at this culturally dynamic time. Gaelic scholars called sapientes (“wise ones”) produced texts in Old Gaelic and Latin that demonstrate how Anglo-Saxon students were influenced by contact with Gaelic ecclesiastical and secular scholarship. Seventh-century Northumbria was ruled for over 50 years by Gaelic-speaking kings who could access Gaelic traditions. Gaelic literary traditions provide …

Nineteenth- And Twentieth-Century Readings Of The Medieval Orient: Other Encounters, Liliana Sikorska

Research in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

Travel narratives and historical works shaped the perception of Muslims and the East in the Victorian and post-Victorian periods. Analyzing the discourses on Muslims which originated in the European Middle Ages, the first part of this book discusses the troubled legacy of the encounters between the East and the West and locates the nineteenth-century texts concerning the Saracens and their lands in the liminal space between history and fiction.

Drawing on the nineteenth-century models, the second part of the book looks at fictional and non-fictional works of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century which re-established the “Oriental obsession,” stimulating …

Nineteenth- And Twentieth-Century Readings Of The Medieval Orient: Other Encounters, Liliana Sikorska

Research in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

Travel narratives and historical works shaped the perception of Muslims and the East in the Victorian and post-Victorian periods. The book discusses that troubled legacy drawing on the discourses on Muslims originating in the European Middle Ages, and locates the nineteenth-century texts concerning the Saracens and their lands in the liminal space between history and travel accounts.

Space, Image, And Reform In Early Modern Art: The Influence Of Marcia Hall, Arthur J. Difuria, Ian Verstegen

Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

The essays in Space, Image and Reform in Early Modern Art build on Marcia Hall's seminal contributions in several categories crucial for Renaissance studies, especially the spatiality of the church interior, the altarpiece's facture and affectivity, the notion of artistic style, and the controversy over images in the era of Counter Reform. Accruing the advantage of critical engagement with a single paradigm, this volume better assesses its applicability and range. The book works cumulatively to provide blocks of theoretical and empirical research on issues spanning the function and role of images in their contexts over two centuries. Relating Hall's investigations …

Thinking Queerly: Medievalism, Wizardry, And Neurodiversity In Young Adult Texts, Jes Battis

Premodern Transgressive Literatures

Why do we love wizards? Where do these magical figures come from? Thinking Queerly traces the wizard from medieval Arthurian literature to contemporary YA adaptations. By exploring the link between Merlin and Harry Potter, or Morgan la Fey and Sabrina, readers will see how the wizard offers spaces of hope and transformation for young readers. In particular, this book examines how wizards think differently, and how this difference can resonate with both LGBTQ and neurodivergent readers, who’ve been told they don’t fit in.

Medieval Futurity: Essays For The Future Of A Queer Medieval Studies, Will Rogers, Christopher Michael Roman

New Queer Medievalisms

This collection of essays asks contributors to take the capaciousness of the word "queer" to heart in order to think about what medieval queers would have looked like and how they may have existed on the margins and borders of dominant, normative sexuality and desire. The contributors work with recent trends in queer medieval studies, blending together modern concepts of sexuality and desire with the queer configurations of eroticism, desire, and materiality as they might have existed for medieval audiences.

The Wisdom Of Exeter: Anglo-Saxon Studies In Honor Of Patrick W. Conner, Edward J. Christie

Richard Rawlinson Center Series

This interdisciplinary volume collects original essays in literary criticism and literary theory, philology, codicology, metrics, and art history. Composed by prominent scholars in Anglo-Saxon studies, these essays honor the depth and breadth of Patrick W. Conner’s influence in our discipline. As a scholar, teacher, editor, administrator and innovator, Pat has contributed to Anglo-Saxon studies for four decades. It is hard to say which of his legacies is most profound.

The World Chronicle Of Guillaume De Nangis: A Manuscript's Journey From Saint-Denis To St. Pancras, Daniel Williman, Karen Ann Corsano

Research in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

The heart of this book is the biography of a manuscript codex, British Library Royal MS 13 E IV: the Latin Chronicle (Creation to 1300) of Guillaume de Nangis, copied in the abbey library of St-Denis-en-France. This volume was used as evidence in the legal and political battles of the French royal family until it came into the treasure of Jean, duc de Berry. In 1416 it vanished from Paris and France. Modern British scholarship has placed it in the library of King Henry VIII, whose autograph notes appear in its margins. The authors show how it traveled from one …

Carolingian Commentaries On The Apocalypse By Theodulf And Smaragdus, Francis X. Gumerlock

TEAMS Commentary Series

In the early ninth-century Theodulf of Orleans and Smaragdus of Saint Mihiel served as advisers to Charlemagne. This book provides English translations of a Latin commentary on the Apocalypse written by Theodulf and three homilies on the Apocalypse by Smaragdus. A comprehensive essay introduces these texts, their authors, sources, and place in ninth-century biblical exegesis.

Henry Vii's London In The Great Chronicle, Julia Boffey

TEAMS Documents of Practice

This modernized extract from The Great Chronicle of London covers the reign of England’s first Tudor king, Henry VII (1485-1509). It gives an eye-witness account of events in London, and of news from elsewhere, from the viewpoint of a well-to- do citizen who was closely involved in civic administration. It describes many notable public events: riots and uprisings, executions, coronations, royal marriages and funerals, and ceremonial activities involving the mayor and aldermen. Its year by year entries also cover matters like the weather, the cost of living, taxes, and the effects of building work undertaken in the city. Although its …

Memorializing The Middle Classes In Medieval And Renaissance Europe, Anne C. Leader

Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

Memorializing the Middle Classes in Medieval and Renaissance Europe investigates commemorative practices in Cyprus, Flanders, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and Spain between the twelfth and seventeenth centuries. Offering a broad overview of memorialization practices across Europe and the Mediterranean, individual chapters examine local customs through particular case studies. These essays explore complementary themes through the lens of commemorative art, including social status; personal and corporate identities; the intersections of mercantile, intellectual, and religious attitudes; upward (and downward) mobility; and the cross-cultural exchange of memorialization strategies.

The Impact Of Latin Culture On Medieval And Early Modern Scottish Writing, Alessandra F. Petrina, Ian M. Johnson

Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

In the late medieval and early modern periods, native tongues and traditions, including those of Scotland, cohabited and competed with latinitas in fascinating and inventive ways. Scottish latinity had its distinctive stamp, most intriguingly so in its effects upon the literary vernacular and on themes of national identity. The present book shows how, when viewed through the prism of its latinity, Scottish textuality was distinctive and fecund. The flowering of Scottish writing owed itself to a subtle combination of literary praxis, the ideal of eloquentia, and ideological deftness. This combination enabled writers to service a burgeoning national literary tradition, and …

Saints And Sainthood Around The Baltic Sea: Identity, Literacy, And Communication In The Middle Ages, Carsten Selch Jensen

Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

This volume addresses the history of saints and sainthood in the Middle Ages in the Baltic Region with a special focus on the cult of saints in Russia, Prussia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, and Latvia (more commonly referred to in the Middle Ages as Livonia). The articles cover a wide range of topics, for example the introduction of foreign (and "old") saints into new regions, the creation of new local cults of saints in newly Christianized regions, the role of the cult of saints in the creation of political and lay identities, the adaption of the cult of saints in …

The Third Gender And Ælfric's Lives Of Saints, Rhonda L. Mcdaniel

Richard Rawlinson Center Series

In The Third Gender, McDaniel addresses the idea of the "third gender" in early hagiography and Latin treatises on virginity and then examines Ælfric's treatment of gender in his translations of Latin monastic Lives for his non-monastic audiences. She first investigates patristic ideas about a "third gender" by describing this concept within the theoretical frameworks of monasticism provided by the four Latin Doctors and illustrated in the early Latin Lives of Roman martyrs, revealing the importance of memory in the construction of the monastic "third gender." In the second section McDaniel turns to creating a historical and theological cultural …

Tmg 4 (2018): Seals--Making And Marking Connections Across The Medieval World, Brigitte Miriam Bedos-Rezak

The Medieval Globe Books

This book is a publication of Arc Humanities Press and is available on ProjectMUSE. After March 31, 2022, this title will no longer be available on ScholarWorks at WMU.

Extensive geographic coverage, including China, South East Asia, Arabia, Sasanian Persia, the Muslim Empire, the Byzantine empire, and Western Europe allows the essays gathered in this volume to offer a well differentiated examination of seals and sealing practices between 400 and 1500 CE. Contributors expose rather than assume the inter-subjective, transnational, and transcultural connectivity at work within the varied processes mediated by seals and sealing – representation, authorization, identification, and …

Legal Encounters On The Medieval Globe, Elizabeth Lambourn

The Medieval Globe Books

This book is a publication of Arc Humanities Press and is available on ProjectMUSE. After March 31, 2022, this title will no longer be available on ScholarWorks at WMU.

Law has been a primary locus and vehicle of contact across human history—as a system of ideas embodied in people and enacted on bodies; and also as a material, textual, and sensory "thing." The seven essays gathered here analyze a variety of legal encounters on the medieval globe, ranging from South Asia to South and Central America, Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. Contributors uncover the people behind and within …

Neidhart: Selected Songs From The Riedegg Manuscript: Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Mgf 1062, Kathryn Starkey, Edith Wenzel

TEAMS Medieval German Texts in Bilingual Editions

The medieval German poet called Neidhart is one of the most important poets of his time. Set in the village among peasant maidens and their boorish male counterparts, Neidhart's satirical songs stand in marked contrast to courtly love song and enrich our understanding of medieval literary culture. This book presents for the first time annotated English translations of a substantial collection of songs attributed to this prolific poet. Its source is the thirteenth-century Riedegg manuscript, the oldest extensive collection of songs attributed to Neidhart. This book presents a representative survey of the songs in order to make this material accessible …

Authority Of Images / Images Of Authority: Shaping Political And Cultural Identities In The Pre-Modern World, Karen Fresco

Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

Focusing on language's political power, these essays discuss how representation, through language norms, plays and court spectacles, manipulations and adaptations of texts and images, both constitutes and reflects a cultural milieu. The volume brings together various disciplinary approaches, offering a complex appreciation of these questions. While a core of the essays focuses on France, the contributions engage a broad range of geographical contexts, from Byzantium to eastern Germany and England from the early centuries of the Common Era to the seventeenth century, revealing the prevalence and persistence of the key interconnected issues of images and authority. Contributors: Carla Bozzolo; Philippe …

The Vulgate Commentary On Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book 1, Frank T. Coulson

TEAMS Secular Commentary Series

Composed around 1250 by an unknown author in the region of Orléans, the Vulgate Commentary on Ovid's Metamorphoses is the most widely disseminated and reproduced medieval work on Ovid's epic compendium of classical mythology and materialist philosophy. This commentary both preserves the rich store of twelfth-century glossing on the Metamorphoses and incorporates new material of literary interest, while the marginal glosses in many respects reflect the scholar interests of an early thirteenth-century schoolmaster. The Vulgate Commentary is always transmitted as a series of interlinear and marginal glosses surrounding the text manuscript, whereas other earlier commentaries were independent of a full …

A Bibliographical Guide To The Study Of The Troubadours And Old Occitan Literature, Robert A. Taylor

Research in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

Although it seemed in the mid-1970s that the study of the troubadours and of Occitan literature had reached a sort of zenith, it has since become apparent that this moment was merely a plateau from which an intensive renewal was being launched. In this new bibliographic guide to Occitan and troubadour literature, Robert Taylor provides a definitive survey of the field of Occitan literary studies - from the earliest enigmatic texts to the fifteenth-century works of Occitano-Catalan poet Jordi de Sant Jordi - and treats over two thousand recent books and articles with full annotations. Taylor includes articles on related …

Aribo, De Musica And Sententiae, T. J. H. Mccarthy

TEAMS Varia

Music was central to the medieval church's public worship: it was the essential medium of the Mass and the Divine Office. In this new critical edition, T. J. H. McCarthy presents the Latin text and the first English translation of Aribo's musical treatise, De musica and Sententiae. Written between 1070 and 1078, it is concerned with the workings of the liturgical music that Aribo and his contemporaries called Gregorian chant, and builds off of and responds to several contemporary treatises by Abbot Bern of Reichenau and his pupil Herman, Abbot William of Hirsau, Frutolf of Michelsberg, and Theoger of Metz. …

Demon Possession In Anglo-Saxon England, Peter Dendle

Research in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

Anglo-Saxon England was a society governed by the competing discourses of illness, spirituality, power, and community. The concepts of demon possession and exorcism, introduced by Christian missionaries, provided a potential outlet for expressing the psychological, biological, and sociopolitical dysfunctions of a society that was at the center of multiple conflicting cultural dimensions.

Demon Possession in Anglo-Saxon England is a reexamination of the available sources describing the possessed and a study of the currently recognized medical and psychiatric conditions that may be relevant to and resemble medieval possession.

Tmg 1 (2014): Pandemic Disease In The Medieval World: Rethinking The Black Death, Ed. Monica Green, Monica H. Green, Carol Symes, Anna Colet, Josep Xavier Muntané I Santiveri, Jordi Ruíz, Oriol Saula, M. Eulàlia Subirà De Galdàcano, Clara Jáuregui, Sharon N. Dewitte, Stuart Borsch, Ann G. Carmichael, Nükhet Varlık, Fabian Crespo, Matt B. Lawrenz, Michelle Ziegler, Robert Hymes, Kathleen Walker-Meikle, Wolfgang P. Müller

The Medieval Globe Books

The plague organism (Yersinia pestis) killed an estimated 40% to 60% of all people when it spread rapidly through the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe in the fourteenth century: an event known as the Black Death. Previous research has shown, especially for Western Europe, how population losses then led to structural economic, political, and social changes. But why and how did the pandemic happen in the first place? When and where did it begin? How was it sustained? What was its full geographic extent? And when did it really end?

Pandemic Disease in the Medieval World is …

Renaissance Retrospections: Tudor Views Of The Middle Ages, Sarah A. Kelen

Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

The Middle Ages provided an important, if complex, set of literary and historiographic models for early modern authors, although the early modern authors responded to the alien political, religious, and cultural landscape of medieval England through their more present ideological concerns. From Shakespeare's manipulation of his medieval source material to Protestant responses to medieval Catholicism, this collection of essays explores the ways that early modern English writers responded to the medieval English literary and historical record, dealing with topics such as historiographic bias, print history, intertextuality, and cultural history.

Comparative Perspectives On History And Historians: Essays In Memory Of Bryce Lyon (1920-2007), David Nicholas, James M. Murray, Bernard S. Bachrach

Festschriften, Occasional Papers, and Lectures

Comparative Perspectives on History and Historians: Essays in Memory of Bryce Lyon (1920-2007) features a section of appreciations of Bryce Lyon from the three editors, R. C. Van Caenegem, and Walter Prevenier, followed by three sections on the major areas on which Lyon's research concentrated: the legacy of Henri Pirenne, constitutional and legal history of England and the Continent, and the economic history of the Low Countries. Original essays by Bernard S. Bachrach, David S. Bachrach, Jan Dumolyn, Caroline Dunn, Jelle Haemers, John H. A. Munro, James M. Murray, Anthony Musson, David Nicholas, W. Mark Ormrod, Walter Prevenier, Jeff Rider, …

The Glossa Ordinaria On Romans, Michael Scott Woodward

TEAMS Commentary Series

"The Gloss on Romans is a collection of sources from many periods and places, which accounts for its inconsistencies. And this is what gives the Gloss much of its charm. . . . The twelfth century was an age of gathering sources and commentaries, in theology (Lombard's Sentences), canon law (Gratian's Decretum), and biblical studies (the Glossa ordinaria). Education began to flourish into what would become universities, where the master's role was to elucidate traditional, authoritative texts. And chief among these was the Bible, not standing alone but with the accompanying Gloss." - from the introduction

Ladies, Whores, And Holy Women: A Sourcebook In Courtly, Religious, And Urban Cultures Of Late Medieval Germany, Ann Marie Rasmussen, Sarah Westphal-Wihl

TEAMS Medieval German Texts in Bilingual Editions

This sourcebook presents editions and translations of seven fourteenth- and fifteenth-century texts that advance our understanding of gender, sexuality, and class in the late medieval German-speaking world. Three of the translated texts are fiction. Additionally, there is a religious treatise, a religious legend, an inventory of books, and a legal document. While each of these texts is instructive in and of itself, they gain in complexity when brought into dialogue with one another.