The Medieval Python

The Arma Christi, the cluster of objects associated with Christa€?s Passion, was one of the most familiar iconographic devices of European medieval and early modern culture. From the weapons used to t

This book explores the historical and imaginary representation of the Saracen, or Muslim, in French writings from 1100 to 1500.

Volume 24 in Papers in Medieval Studies from the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies is an unusual book. It is the result of a conference on the results of an interdisciplanary project to reconst

As a corpus-based study which aims at profiling the food culture of medieval Cairo, the book is an attempt to reconstruct the menu of Cairenes as well as their various daily practices, customs and hab

Restrain - Torture - ExecuteWhile such practices may seem barbaric in our modern day "civilized" society, in medieval times brutal devices of restraint, cruel tortures, and unimaginable methods of exe

The title indicates that this is the fifth volume in a series of publications devoted to pottery made and used in the London area from the middle of the 12th to the 15th century. There's some confusio

Originally composed in Latin by Gilbertus Anglicus (Gilbert the Englishman), his Compendium of Medicine was a primary text of the medical revolution in thirteenth-century Europe. Composed mainly of m

How can the Body and Blood of Christ, without ever leaving heaven, come to be really present on eucharistic altars where the bread and wine still seem to be? Thirteenth and fourteenth century Christ

The first volume in a new series focusing on Korean culture, history, and society, this book offers a radically different view of the Koryo state from the 10th to 12th centuries. Breuker (Korean Histo

"It's not often that a scholar writes a book that puts her or his literary period on the map of literary studies . . . Particularly valuable because it tells us an immense amount about key texts and m

This book examines some of the salient historiographical and conceptual issues that animate current scholarly debates about the nature of the medieval contribution to modern Western political ideas. O

Those tales of old-King Arthur, Robin Hood, The Crusades, Marco Polo, Joan of Arc-have been told and retold, and the tradition of their telling has been gloriously upheld by filmmaking from its very

This impressive volume presents a thorough examination of all aspects of physical impairment and disability in medieval Europe. Examining a popular era that is of great interest to many historians and

This is the first of three volumes collecting essays by Richard M. Frank (emeritus, Catholic U. of America) on kalam, Islamic theology. The 15 studies here provide both the lexical and intellectual co

Now consigned to museums and plays in which actors tend to "exeunt pursued by bear" a lot, hafted weapons, primarily shafts with axes or other sharp appendages, were the tools of choice in many mediev

The 19 articles of this collection were first published in Dutch beginning in 1978. Van Herwaarden (history, U. of Groningen, the Netherlands) has grouped the translated articles into themes; late-med

This is a companion volume to Horton's (classical Japanese literature, U. of California, Berkeley) work, The Journal of Socho , a translation of the diary of the medieval Japanese linked-verse ( reng

This is a study of the appearances of the Knights Templar, Knights Hospitaller and Teutonic Knights in the French, German and English epic and romance literature of the Middle Ages. It examines their

Examines the Protestant Reformation, its philosophical and theological issues, and the interaction of religious, social, and political changes

This 2003 book offers an interpretation of the transition from Catholicism to Protestantism in the English Reformation, and explores its implications for an understanding of women and gender. Central to this is an appreciation of the significance of medieval Christocentric piety in offering a bridge to the Reformation, and in shaping the nature of Protestantism in the period up to the Civil War. Not only does this explain much of the support for Protestantism, but it also suggests the need to question assumptions that the 'loss' of the Virgin Mary and the saints was detrimental to women. The Reformation undermined the ritual role of the Catholic godly woman but its definition of the representative frail Christian as a woman devoted to Christ meant that it was not an alien environment for the weaker sex. The Christocentric piety of the late medieval parish shaped the Reformation and paved the way for a more subtle understanding of gender.

This 2003 book offers an interpretation of the transition from Catholicism to Protestantism in the English Reformation, and explores its implications for an understanding of women and gender. Central to this is an appreciation of the significance of medieval Christocentric piety in offering a bridge to the Reformation, and in shaping the nature of Protestantism in the period up to the Civil War. Not only does this explain much of the support for Protestantism, but it also suggests the need to question assumptions that the 'loss' of the Virgin Mary and the saints was detrimental to women. The Reformation undermined the ritual role of the Catholic godly woman but its definition of the representative frail Christian as a woman devoted to Christ meant that it was not an alien environment for the weaker sex. The Christocentric piety of the late medieval parish shaped the Reformation and paved the way for a more subtle understanding of gender.

This study investigates how the teachings of religious leaders and the movements they promulgated influenced the plans, arrangements, and iconography of temples built by the Hoysa?as between the twelf

It was once common consensus that there was no significant Jewish community in ancient and medieval Armenia. The discovery and excavation (1997-2002) of a Jewish cemetery of the thirteenth-fourteenth centuries in southern Armenia substantially changed this picture. In this volume, Stone andTopchyan assemble evidence about the Jews of Armenia from earliest times to the fourteenth century. Based on research of the Greco-Roman period, the authors are able to draw new conclusions about the transfer of Jews--including the High Priest Hyrcanus--from the north of Palestine and othercountries to Armenia by King Tigran the Great in the first century BCE. The fact that descendants of King Herod ruled in Armenia in Roman times and that some noble Armenian families may have had Jewish origin is discussed. The much-debated identification of the Mountains of Ararat of Noah's Ark fame as well as ancient biblical and other references to Ararat and theCaucasus are re-assessed, and new evidence is adduc

Why did bishops turn to the papacy for advice in late Antiquity? And what does the reception of these decretals reveal about the legal and religious culture of the mid-thirteenth century? This interpretative volume seeks to explain the first decretal age of late antiquity, placing the increased demand for papal jurisprudence – long before it exerted its influence through religious fear – within its social broad context. D. L. d'Avray then traces the reception of this jurisprudence through to the mid-thirteenth century, and the post-Gratian decretal age. Along the way he explores the role of Charlemagne and 'Pseudo-Isidore', which included many genuine early decretals alongside forged ones. Similarities between the Latin world c. 400 and c. 1200 thus help explain parallels between the two decretal ages. This book also analyses decretals from both ages in chapters on pagan marriages, clerics in minor orders, and episcopal elections. For both ages the relation between canon law and other

Silence and Sign Language in Medieval Monasticism explores the rationales for religious silence in early medieval abbeys and the use of nonverbal forms of communication among monks when rules of silence forbade them from speaking. After examining the spiritual benefits of personal silence as a form of protection against the perils of sinful discourse in early monastic thought, this work shows how the monks of the Abbey of Cluny (founded in 910 in Burgundy) were the first to employ a silent language of meaning-specific hand signs that allowed them to convey precise information without recourse to spoken words. Scott Bruce discusses the linguistic character of the Cluniac sign language, its central role in the training of novices, the precautions taken to prevent its abuse, and the widespread adoption of this custom in other abbeys throughout Europe, which resulted in the creation of regionally specific idioms of this silent language.

Arch-mediator between the divine and the mundane, the angel is an enduring figure in the Western world. It has been interpreted as an externalization of repressed fantasies, a projection of the self

Historians look at the role of the three gentes, or ethnic people, in the transition of Europe from unity under the Roman Empire to multiplicity of the medieval kingdoms. Their topics include Frankish

Steven Vanderputten revisits the history of monastic reform to challenge the widely accepted narrative that foregrounds the role of charismatic leaders by examining the evidence from seven monasteries

In this compelling new study, Whitney Cox presents a fundamental re-imagining of the politics of pre-modern India through the reinterpretation of the contested accession of Kulottunga I (r.1070–1120) as the ruler of the imperial Chola dynasty. By focusing on this complex event and its ramifications over time, Cox traces far-reaching transformations throughout the kingdom and beyond. Through a methodologically innovative combination of history, theory and the close reading of a rich series of Sanskrit and Tamil textual sources, Cox reconstructs the nature of political society in medieval India. A major intervention in the fields of South Asian social, political and cultural history, religion and comparative political thought, this book poses fresh comparative and conceptual questions about politics, history, agency and representation in the pre-modern world.

This series comprises regional studies in the rural history of the European continent during the Middle Ages (concentrating on the period 1000-1500). Integrating written records, archaeology, and rese