Books

Promoted Content

Humanities & Social Sciences

May 2016

Roadworks

Medieval Britain, medieval roads

by Anke Bernau, Valerie Allen, Ruth Evans

Roadworks: Medieval Britain, medieval roads is a groundbreaking interdisciplinary study of roads and wayfinding in medieval England, Wales and Scotland. It looks afresh at the relationship between the road as a material condition of daily life and the formation of local and national communities, arguing that the business of road maintenance, road travel and wayfinding constitutes social bonds. It challenges the long-held picture of a medieval Britain lacking in technological sophistication, passively inheriting Roman roads and never engineering any of its own. Previous studies of medieval infrastructure tend to be discipline-specific and technical. This accessible collection draws out the imaginative, symbolic, and cultural significance of the road. The key audience for this book is scholars of medieval Britain (early and late) in all disciplines. Its theoretical foundations will also ensure an audience among scholars of cultural studies, especially those in urban studies, transport studies, and economic history. ;

More
Promoted Content

Medicine

February 2016

Fools and idiots?

Intellectual disability in the Middle Ages

by Irina Metzler, Julie Anderson, Walton Schalick

More
Trusted Partner

Humanities & Social Sciences

February 2016

Fools and idiots?

Intellectual disability in the Middle Ages

by Irina Metzler, Julie Anderson, Walton Schalick

More
Trusted Partner

Humanities & Social Sciences

August 1994

The Black Death

by Translated and edited by Rosemary Horrox

This series provides texts central to medieval studies courses and focuses upon the diverse cultural, social and political conditions that affected the functioning of all levels of medieval society. Translations are accompanied by introductory and explanatory material and each volume includes a comprehensive guide to the sources' interpretation, including discussion of critical linguistic problems and an assessment of recent research on the topics covered. From 1348 to 1350 Europe was devastated by an epidemic that left between a third and one half of the population dead. This source book traces, through contemporary writings, the calamitous impact of the Black Death in Europe, with a particular emphasis on its spread across England from 1348 to 1349. Rosemary Horrox surveys contemporary attempts to explain the plague, which was universally regarded as an expression of divine vengeance for the sins of humankind. Moralists all had their particular targets for criticism. However, this emphasis on divine chastisement did not preclude attempts to explain the plague in medical or scientific terms. Also, there was a widespread belief that human agencies had been involved, and such scapegoats as foreigners, the poor and Jews were all accused of poisoning wells. The final section of the book charts the social and psychological impact of the plague, and its effect on the late-medieval economy. ;

More
Trusted Partner

Humanities & Social Sciences

November 1991

The annals of St-Bertin

Ninth-century histories, volume I

by Janet Nelson

The Annals of St-Bertin, covering the years 830 to 882, are the main narrative source for the Carolingian world in the ninth century. This richly-annotated translation by a leading British specialist makes these Carolingian histories accessible in English for the first time, encouraging readers to reassess and evaluate a crucially formative period of European history. Produced in the 830s in the imperial palace of Louis the Pious, The Annals of St-Bertin were continued away from the Court, first by Bishop Prudentius of Troyes, then by the great scholar-politician Archbishop Hinemar of Rheims. The authors' distinctive voices and interests give the work a personal tone rarely found in medieval annals. They also contain uniquely detailed information on Carolingian politics, especially the reign of the West Frankish king, Charles the Bald (840-877). No other source offers so much evidence on the Continental activities of the Vikings. Janet L. Nelson offers in this volume both an entrée to a crucial Carolingian source and an introduction to the historical setting of teh Annals and possible ways of reading the evidence. The Annals of St-Bertin will be valuable reading for academics, research students and undergraduates in medieval history, archaeology and medieval languages. It will also fascinate any general reader with an interest in the development of European culture and society. ;

More
Trusted Partner

History

November 2015

Indispensable immigrants

The wine porters of northern Italy and their saint, 1200–1800

by Lester Little

Indispensable immigrants recreates the world of peasants who streamed into the cities of late medieval and early modern northern Italy to carry crushingly heavy containers of wine. Written in an easily accessible and unassuming style, it is solidly grounded in previously untapped archival and visual sources. In this first-ever reconstruction of the forgotten metier of wine porter, topography plays a key role in forming the labour market; in the scramble to distinguish professionals from manual labourers the term artist gets divorced from lowly artisan, and wretched diet is invoked to explain why workers are so unintelligent; the wine porters make one of their own their patron saint in thirteenth-century Cremona and other interest groups scheme successfully to get him canonised in Rome five centuries later; and when enlightened despots abolish the guilds, the wine porters' trade fades away just as the candles on their patron's altars sputter and die out.

More
Trusted Partner

History

November 2015

Indispensable immigrants

The wine porters of northern Italy and their saint, 1200–1800

by Lester Little

Indispensable immigrants recreates the world of peasants who streamed into the cities of late medieval and early modern northern Italy to carry crushingly heavy containers of wine. Written in an easily accessible and unassuming style, it is solidly grounded in previously untapped archival and visual sources. In this first-ever reconstruction of the forgotten metier of wine porter, topography plays a key role in forming the labour market; in the scramble to distinguish professionals from manual labourers the term artist gets divorced from lowly artisan, and wretched diet is invoked to explain why workers are so unintelligent; the wine porters make one of their own their patron saint in thirteenth-century Cremona and other interest groups scheme successfully to get him canonised in Rome five centuries later; and when enlightened despots abolish the guilds, the wine porters' trade fades away just as the candles on their patron's altars sputter and die out.

More
Trusted Partner

Medieval history

November 2015

Lordship in four realms

The Lacy family, 1166–1241

by Colin Veach

This book examines the rise and fall of the aristocratic Lacy family in England, Ireland, Wales and Normandy. This involves a unique analysis of medieval lordship in action, as well as a re-imagining of the role of English kingship in the western British Isles and a rewriting of seventy-five years of Anglo-Irish history. By viewing the political landscape of Britain and Ireland from the perspective of one aristocratic family, this book produces one of the first truly transnational studies of individual medieval aristocrats. This results in an in-depth investigation of aristocratic and English royal power over five reigns, including during the tumultuous period of King John and Magna Carta. By investigating how the Lacys sought to rule their lands in four distinct realms, this book also makes a major contribution to current debates on lordship and the foundations of medieval European society.

More
Trusted Partner

Medieval history

November 2015

Lordship in four realms

The Lacy family, 1166–1241

by Colin Veach

This book examines the rise and fall of the aristocratic Lacy family in England, Ireland, Wales and Normandy. This involves a unique analysis of medieval lordship in action, as well as a re-imagining of the role of English kingship in the western British Isles and a rewriting of seventy-five years of Anglo-Irish history. By viewing the political landscape of Britain and Ireland from the perspective of one aristocratic family, this book produces one of the first truly transnational studies of individual medieval aristocrats. This results in an in-depth investigation of aristocratic and English royal power over five reigns, including during the tumultuous period of King John and Magna Carta. By investigating how the Lacys sought to rule their lands in four distinct realms, this book also makes a major contribution to current debates on lordship and the foundations of medieval European society.

More
Trusted Partner

Medieval history

October 2015

Lordship in four realms

The Lacy family, 1166–1241

by Colin Veach

This book examines the rise and fall of the aristocratic Lacy family in England, Ireland, Wales and Normandy. This involves a unique analysis of medieval lordship in action, as well as a re-imagining of the role of English kingship in the western British Isles and a rewriting of seventy-five years of Anglo-Irish history. By viewing the political landscape of Britain and Ireland from the perspective of one aristocratic family, this book produces one of the first truly transnational studies of individual medieval aristocrats. This results in an in-depth investigation of aristocratic and English royal power over five reigns, including during the tumultuous period of King John and Magna Carta. By investigating how the Lacys sought to rule their lands in four distinct realms, this book also makes a major contribution to current debates on lordship and the foundations of medieval European society.

More
Trusted Partner

Medieval history

May 2006

The life–cycle in Western Europe, c.1300–c.1500

by Deborah Youngs

This is the first study to examine the entire life cycle in the Middle Ages. Drawing on a wide range of secondary and primary material, the book explores the timing and experiences of infancy, childhood, adolescence and youth, adulthood, old age and, finally, death. It discusses attitudes towards ageing, rites of passage, age stereotypes in operation, and the means by which age was used as a form of social control, compelling individuals to work, govern, marry and pay taxes. The wide scope of the study allows contrasts and comparisons to be made across gender, social status and geographical location. It considers whether men and women experienced the ageing process in the same way, and examines the differences that can be discerned between northern and southern Europe. The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries suffered famine, warfare, plague and population collapse. This fascinating consideration of the life cycle adds a new dimension to the debate over continuity and change in a period of social and demographic upheaval.

More
Trusted Partner

Medieval history

January 2015

The political writings of Archbishop Wulfstan of York

by Andrew Rabin

Archbishop Wulfstan of York (d. 1023) is among the most important legal and political thinkers of the early Middle Ages. A leading ecclesiastic, innovative legislator, and influential royal councilor, Wulfstan witnessed firsthand the violence and social unrest that culminated in the fall of the English monarchy before the invading armies of Cnut in 1016. In his homilies and legal tracts, Wulfstan offered a searing indictment of the moral failings that led to England's collapse and formulated a vision of an ideal Christian community that would influence English political thought long after the Anglo-Saxon period had ended. These works, many of which have never before been available in modern English, are collected here for the first time in new, extensively annotated translations that will help readers reassess one of the most turbulent periods in English history and re-evaluate the career of Anglo-Saxon England's most important political visionary.

More
Trusted Partner

Medieval history

January 2015

The political writings of Archbishop Wulfstan of York

by Andrew Rabin

More
Trusted Partner

Early history: c 500 to c 1450/1500

November 2010

Peacemaking in the Middle Ages

Principles and practice

by Series edited by Steve Rigby, J. E. M. Benham

Peacemaking in the Middle Ages explores the making of peace in the late-twelfth and early thirteenth centuries based on the experiences of the kings of England and the kings of Denmark. From dealing with owing allegiance to powerful neighbours to conquering the 'barbarians', this book offers a vision of how relationships between rulers were regulated and maintained, and how rulers negotiated, resolved, avoided and enforced matters in dispute in a period before nation states and international law. This is the first full-length study in English of the principles and practice of peacemaking in the medieval period. Its findings have wider significance and applications, and numerous comparisons are drawn with the peacemaking activities of other western European rulers, in the medieval period and beyond. This book will appeal to scholars and students of medieval Europe, but also those with a more general interest in kingship, warfare, diplomacy and international relations.

More
Trusted Partner

Medieval history

April 2009

Music, scholasticism and reform

Salian Germany 1024–1125

by T. J. H. McCarthy

This fascinating study looks at music and its intellectual context in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Drawing on a rich body of theoretical literature and manuscript sources, this book paints a detailed picture of the study of music in eleventh-and early twelfth-century Germany. It focuses on the activity of a group of prominent intellectuals based in the monastic and cathedral schools of the German Kingdom, charting their sources and shared concerns, while subtly examining their reception and modification of each others' ideas. Distilling a considerable amount of German scholarship, it situates music in its proper place among other intellectual developments that took place in eleventh-century Germany. This book is above all a study of motivations and thought processes of a group of medieval thinkers: it and will appeal to specialist and non-specialist ecclesiastical, intellectual and cultural historians, as well as to historians of music and of medieval culture.

More
Trusted Partner

Medieval history

July 2013

Noblewomen, aristocracy and power in the twelfth-century Anglo-Norman realm

by Susan M. Johns

The first major work on noblewomen in the twelfth century and Normandy, and of the ways in which they exercised power. Offers an important reconceptualisation of women's role in aristocratic society and suggests new ways of looking at lordship and the ruling elite in the high middle ages. Considers a wide range of literary sources such as chronicles, charters, seals and governmental records to draw out a detailed picture of noblewomen in the twelfth-century Anglo-Norman realm. Asserts the importance of the life-cycle in determining the power of aristocratic women. Demonstrates that the influence of gender on lordship was profound, complex and varied.

More
Trusted Partner

Medieval history

July 2013

Noblewomen, aristocracy and power in the twelfth-century Anglo-Norman realm

by Susan M. Johns

The first major work on noblewomen in the twelfth century and Normandy, and of the ways in which they exercised power. Offers an important reconceptualisation of women's role in aristocratic society and suggests new ways of looking at lordship and the ruling elite in the high middle ages. Considers a wide range of literary sources such as chronicles, charters, seals and governmental records to draw out a detailed picture of noblewomen in the twelfth-century Anglo-Norman realm. Asserts the importance of the life-cycle in determining the power of aristocratic women. Demonstrates that the influence of gender on lordship was profound, complex and varied.

More
Trusted Partner

Medieval history

July 2012

Noblewomen, aristocracy and power in the twelfth-century Anglo-Norman realm

by Susan M. Johns

More
Trusted Partner

Medieval history

May 2001

Medieval law in context

The growth of legal consciousness from Magna Carta to the Peasants' Revolt

by Anthony Musson

Examines how medieval people at all social levels thought about law, justice and politics, as well as their role in society. Provides a clear, structured view of judicial developments and experience of litigation in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Offers a new perspective on both law and politics by focusing on the medium of legal consciousness and legal culture.. Makes the specialised area of law accessible for the general reader interested in the medieval period.

More
Trusted Partner

Medieval history

March 2003

Medieval maidens

Young women and gender in England, 1270–1540

by Kim M. Phillips

The first study on medieval women to treat young women or 'maidens' separately and at length. The book makes a contribution to gender studies through its study of medieval girls' acquisition of appropriate roles and identities, and their own attitudes towards these roles. Examines the experiences and voices of young womanhood. Provides insights into ideals of feminine gender roles and identities at different social levels.

More

Your Search Results

Search Term Options

Filter your results

Medieval Britain, medieval roads

by Anke Bernau, Valerie Allen, Ruth Evans

Intellectual disability in the Middle Ages

by Irina Metzler, Julie Anderson, Walton Schalick

Intellectual disability in the Middle Ages

by Irina Metzler, Julie Anderson, Walton Schalick

by Translated and edited by Rosemary Horrox

Ninth-century histories, volume I

by Janet Nelson

The wine porters of northern Italy and their saint, 1200–1800

by Lester Little

The wine porters of northern Italy and their saint, 1200–1800

by Lester Little

The Lacy family, 1166–1241

by Colin Veach

The Lacy family, 1166–1241

by Colin Veach

The Lacy family, 1166–1241

by Colin Veach

by Deborah Youngs

by Andrew Rabin

by Andrew Rabin

Principles and practice

by Series edited by Steve Rigby, J. E. M. Benham

Salian Germany 1024–1125

by T. J. H. McCarthy

by Susan M. Johns

by Susan M. Johns

by Susan M. Johns

The growth of legal consciousness from Magna Carta to the Peasants' Revolt

by Anthony Musson

Young women and gender in England, 1270–1540

by Kim M. Phillips

Subscribe to our

newsletter

Oops, payment failed.