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      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        May 2000

        The towns of Italy in the later Middle Ages

        by Rosemary Horrox, Trevor Dean, Simon Maclean

        The towns of Italy in the later middle ages presents over one hundred fascinating documents, carefully selected and coordinated from the richest, most innovative and most documented society of the European Middle Ages. No other English language sourcebook has the same geographical or chronological range. This collection is carefully structured around the crisis of the fourteenth century and arranged in contrasting groups of texts. By connecting documents in translation to recent scholarship and debates, it addresses five key areas of medieval urban history: the physical environment, civic religion, economy, society and politics. Offers students well-translated and effectively contextualised documents along with some guidance to the secondary work of Italian scholars which is largely inaccessible to undergraduate students. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        2024

        My Italy with Berlusconi

        And what has become of it. Essays, conversations, reports

        by Michaela Namuth

        The political era of media entrepreneur and multi-billionaire Silvio Berlusconi began in 1994. German journalist Michaela Namuth also arrived in Rome at that time. He became prime minister, she became a freelance correspondent for various newspapers. She spent the long period of his government with him. During this time, the populist Berlusconi not only paved the way for a far-right government, he was also an ice-breaker for other right-wing populists in Europe and elsewhere. What else happened during and after Berlusconi's time in power is told in 20 chapters of articles, reports and interviews. The result is a colourful mosaic of contemporary Italy. It is about publishing, design, crime fiction, the mafia, a women's factory, the south and Nutella. Under Berlusconi, the country has changed. Many speak of “Berlusconisation”, by which they mean the gradual weakening of democracy. It is a critical book, but also a declaration of love to a contradictory country whose name still has a special ring to many ears.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        January 2013

        Popular protest in late-medieval Europe

        Italy, France and Flanders

        by Samuel Kline Cohn

        The documents in this stimulating volume span from 1245 to 1424 but focus on the 'contagion of rebellion' from 1355 to 1382 that followed in the wake of the plague. They comprise a diversity of sources and cover a variety of forms of popular protest in different social, political and economic settings. Their authors range across a wide political and intellectual horizon and include revolutionaries, the artistocracy, merchants and representatives from the church. They tell gripping and often gruesome stories of personal and collective violence, anguish, anger, terror, bravery, and foolishness. Of over 200 documents presented here, most have been translated into English for the first time, providing students and scholars with a new opportunity to compare social movements across Europe over two centuries, allowing a re-evaluation of pre-industrial revolts, the Black Death and its consequences for political culture and action. This book will be essential reading for those seeking to better understand popular attitudes and protest in medieval Europe.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        February 2010

        Essays in later medieval French literature

        The legacy of Jane H. M. Taylor

        by Mike Thompson, Rebecca Dixon

        Over the course of a career spanning five decades, Jane Taylor has shown a commitment to the rehabilitation of the more neglected aspects of later medieval French literature. This volume brings together original contributions from scholars who have worked alongside Taylor and directly or indirectly benefitted from her example. The chapters demonstrate their authors' link to this legacy, and concomitantly underline the vibrancy and breadth of approach which is the hallmark of current later medieval studies. The essays in the collection centre on a number of key issues in the field: notions of literary self-consciousness and what it means to come after an avatar; issues of intertextuality and the appeal to past models in the creation of a new literary aesthetic (or a new literary criticism); and interdisciplinary questions of translation, reworking, and continuation. Essays in later medieval French literature seeks not only to illustrate the buoyant state of later medieval French literary studies but also, in so doing, to show how in broader terms responding to the legacy of an illustrious predecessor has not pejorative but positive consequences. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        January 2013

        Crime, Law and Society in the Later Middle Ages

        by Anthony Musson, Edward Powell

        This book provides an accessible collection of translated legal sources through which the exploits of criminals and developments in the English criminal justice system (c.1215-1485) can be studied. Drawing on the wealth of archival material and an array of contemporary literary texts, it guides readers towards an understanding of prevailing notions of law and justice and expectations of the law and legal institutions. Tensions are shown emerging between theoretical ideals of justice and the practical realities of administering the law during an era profoundly affected by periodic bouts of war, political in-fighting, social dislocation and economic disaster. Introductions and notes provide both the specific and wider legal, social and political contexts in addition to offering an overview of the existing secondary literature and historiographical trends. This collection affords a valuable insight into the character of medieval governance as well as revealing the complex nexus of interests, attitudes and relationships prevailing in society during the later Middle Ages.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        August 2006

        Political culture in later medieval England

        Essays by Simon Walker

        by Mike Braddick

        This is an important collection of pioneering essays penned by the late Simon Walker, a highly respected historian of late medieval England. One of the finest scholars of his generation, Walker's writing is lucid, inspirational, and has permanently enriched our understanding of the period. The eleven essays featured here examine themes such as kingship, lordship, warfare and sanctity. There are specific studies on subjects such as the changing fortunes of the family of Sir Richard Abberbury; Yorkshire's Justices of the Peace; the service of medieval man-at-arms, Janico Dartasso; Richard II's views on kingship, political saints, and an investigation of rumour, sedition and popular protest in the reign of Henry IV. An introduction by G.L. Harriss looks back across Walker's career, and discusses the historiographical context of his work. Both the new and previously published pieces here will be essential reading for those working on the late medieval period. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        January 2020

        Political culture in later medieval England

        Essays by Simon Walker

        by Michael J. Braddick

        This is an important collection of pioneering essays penned by the late Simon Walker, a highly respected historian of late medieval England. One of the finest scholars of his generation, Walker's writing is lucid, inspirational, and has permanently enriched our understanding of the period. The eleven essays featured here examine themes such as kingship, lordship, warfare and sanctity. There are specific studies on subjects such as the changing fortunes of the family of Sir Richard Abberbury; Yorkshire's Justices of the Peace; the service of medieval man-at-arms, Janico Dartasso; Richard II's views on kingship, political saints, and an investigation of rumour, sedition and popular protest in the reign of Henry IV. An introduction by G.L. Harriss looks back across Walker's career, and discusses the historiographical context of his work. Both the new and previously published pieces here will be essential reading for those working on the late medieval period.

      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        January 2019

        Cinema - Italy

        by Stefania Parigi, Des O'Rawe

        A journey to the Italian cinema that overturns established views and opens up new perspectives and interpretations. Its itinerary is organized in four stages. The first is an analysis of the theories of Cesare Zavattini on neorealism which overturns widely accepted positions both on Zavattini and on neorealism. The second confronts a key film of the post-war Italian cinema, Roberto Rossellini's Paisà, by examining the nature of its realism. The third is dedicated to Luchino Visconti: to questions of the use of language exemplified in his La terra trema, the use of settings, costume and light as agents of meaning in his Il Gattopardo and Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa. The final voyage of the film is to the physical and symbolic construction of heaven and earth in the work of Pasolini. Particular attention is given to the representation of the body in his last four films: the grotesque and mythical bodies in popular tradition in his Trilogia di vita and the tortured bodies destroyed by the mass media in Salò.

      • Trusted Partner
      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        October 2010

        Sanctity and pornography in medieval culture

        On the verge

        by Bill Burgwinkle, Cary Howie, Anke Bernau

        Sanctity and pornography in medieval culture exposes the complexity of bodily exposure in medieval devotion and contemporary pornographic cultures. Through readings of texts and images, sacred and profane, from preimodern France and Italy as well as Anglo-American modernity, the book makes a case for paying closer attention to the surfaces of our bodies and the desires that those surfaces can articulate and arouse. From the Old French life of Saint Alexis to the work of writer-filmmaker Miranda July, from Wakefield Poole to Pietro Aretino, these are texts and images that diminish the distance between premodern Europe and contemporary California, between the sacred and the profane, as they demonstrate how, in the end as in the beginning, the surface of things is never simple. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        June 2021

        Medieval film

        by Anke Bernau, Bettina Bildhauer

        Medieval film explores theoretical questions about the ideological, artistic, emotional and financial investments inhering in cinematic renditions of the medieval period. What does it mean to create and watch a 'medieval film'? What is a medieval film and why are they successful? This is the first work that attempts to answer these questions, drawing, for instance, on film theory, postcolonial theory, cultural studies and the growing body of work on medievalism. Contributors investigate British, German, Italian, Australian, French, Swedish and American film, exploring topics such translation, temporality, film noir, framing and period film - and find the medieval lurking in inexpected corners. In addition it provides in-depth studies of individual films from different countries including The Birth of a Nation to Nosferatu, and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Medieval Film will be of interest to medievalists working in disciplines including literature, history, to scholars working on film and in cultural studies. It will also be of interest to undergraduates, postgraduates and to an informed enthusiast in film or/and medieval culture.

      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        January 2019

        Medieval film

        by Anke Bernau, Bettina Bildhauer

        Medieval film explores theoretical questions about the ideological, artistic, emotional and financial investments inhering in cinematic renditions of the medieval period. What does it mean to create and watch a 'medieval film'? What is a medieval film and why are they successful? This is the first work that attempts to answer these questions, drawing, for instance, on film theory, postcolonial theory, cultural studies and the growing body of work on medievalism. Contributors investigate British, German, Italian, Australian, French, Swedish and American film, exploring topics such translation, temporality, film noir, framing and period film - and find the medieval lurking in unexpected corners. In addition it provides in-depth studies of individual films from different countries including The Birth of a Nation to Nosferatu, and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Medieval film will be of interest to medievalists working in disciplines including literature, history, art history, to scholars working on film and in cultural studies. It will also be of interest to undergraduates, postgraduates and to an informed enthusiast in film or/and medieval culture.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        January 2013

        Saints and cities in medieval Italy

        by Diana Webb

      • Trusted Partner
      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        May 2023

        Medieval women and urban justice

        Commerce, crime and community in England, 1300–1500

        by Teresa Phipps

        This book provides a detailed analysis of women's involvement in litigation and other legal actions within their local communities in late-medieval England. It draws upon the rich records of three English towns - Nottingham, Chester and Winchester - and their courts to bring to life the experiences of hundreds of women within the systems of local justice. Through comparison of the records of three towns, and of women's roles in different types of legal action, the book reveals the complex ways in which individual women's legal status could vary according to their marital status, different types of plea and the town that they lived in. At this lowest level of medieval law, women's status was malleable, making each woman's experience of justice unique.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        July 1995

        Fascist Italy

        by John Whittam

        Fascist Italy is a concise introduction to the phenomenon of Italian fascism and its impact. The author balances an up-to-date re-evaluation of political, diplomatic and military developments with a full assessment of the more neglected domestic and cultural dimensions of the subject. With the aid of documents and recent research on the subject, this book presents an analysis of the origins of the movement, the reasons behind its political success and the methods used to construct and consolidate a regime capable of resolving the problems of mass society in the 20th century. Within his broad-ranging analysis, Whittam places particular emphasis on the attempts to exert social control, the interaction of party and state, the tension between revolutionary and conservative tendencies and on the role of Il Duce. Mussolini's triumphs and failures in peace and war and his ultimate responsibility for the disintegration of the regime are discussed objectively. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        January 2006

        Gentry culture in late-medieval England

        by Raluca Radulescu, Steve Rigby, Alison Truelove

        Essays in this fascinating and important collection examine the lifestyles and attitudes of the gentry in late medieval England. They consider the emergence of the gentry as a group distinct from the nobility, and explore the various available routes to gentility. Through surveys of the gentry's military background, administrative and political roles, social behaviour, and education, the reader is provided with an overview of how the group's culture evolved, and how it was disseminated. Studies of the gentry's literacy, creation and use of literature, cultural networks, religious activities and their experiences of music and the visual arts more directly address the practice and expression of this culture, exploring the extent to which the gentry's activities were different from those of the wider population. Joining the editors in contributing essays to this collection is an impressive array of eminent scholars, all specialists in their respective fields: Christine Carpenter, Peter Fleming, Maurice Keen, Philippa Maddern, Nicholas Orme, Tim Shaw, Thomas Tolley and Deborah Youngs. As a whole, the book offers a broad view of gentry culture that explores, reassesses, and sometimes even challenges the idea that members of the gentry cultivated their own distinctive cultural identity. It will appeal to students looking for a comprehensive introduction to late medieval gentry culture, as well as to researchers interested in gentry studies more generally. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        April 2021

        The Irish tower house

        Society, economy and environment, c. 1300–1650

        by Victoria L. McAlister

        The Irish tower house examines the social role of castles in late-medieval and early modern Ireland. It uses a multidisciplinary methodology to uncover the lived experience of this historic culture, demonstrating the interconnectedness of society, economics and the environment. Of particular interest is the revelation of how concerned pre-modern people were with participation in the economy and the exploitation of the natural environment for economic gain. Material culture can shed light on how individuals shaped spaces around themselves, and tower houses, thanks to their pervasiveness in medieval and modern landscapes, represent a unique resource. Castles are the definitive building of the European Middle Ages, meaning that this book will be of great interest to scholars of both history and archaeology.

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