The Medieval Python

Byzantium's Balkan Frontier is the first narrative history in English of the northern Balkans in the tenth to twelfth centuries. Where previous histories have been concerned principally with the medieval history of distinct and autonomous Balkan nations, this study regards Byzantine political authority as a unifying factor in the various lands which formed the empire's frontier in the north and west. It takes as its central concern Byzantine relations with all Slavic and non-Slavic peoples - including the Serbs, Croats, Bulgarians and Hungarians - in and beyond the Balkan Peninsula, and explores in detail imperial responses, first to the migrations of nomadic peoples, and subsequently to the expansion of Latin Christendom. It also examines the changing conception of the frontier in Byzantine thought and literature through the middle Byzantine period.

This book studies the development of ideas on freedom, coercion and power in the history of economic thought. It focuses on the exchange of goods and services and on terms of exchange (interest rates, prices and wages) and examines the nature of choice, that is, the state of the will of economic actors making exchange decisions. In a social context, anyone's range of choice is restricted by the choices made by others. The first to raise the question of the will in this economic context were the medieval scholastics, drawing on non-economic analytic models inherited from antiquity and mainly from Aristotle. From these origins, views on economic choice, coercion and power are recorded, as they gradually change over the centuries, until they manifest themselves in more contemporary disputes between different branches of institutional economics.

The mystery plays of medieval England have traditionally been analysed in ways which centre on the texts and their religious significance. Hans-Jurgen Diller's major study, first published in German, seeks to recover their dramatic potential by focusing on the function of language in conventional modes of speech, prayer, address and dialogue. He looks at speech and dramatic form in the plays to reveal new insights concerning spatial and temporal orientation, the expression of emotions, and the relationships between characters on stage, between actor and audience, and between the dramatic world and the ordinary world outside it. His analysis offers new ways of understanding the relationship of vernacular drama to its liturgical antecedents, and new means of distinguishing stylistically between the cycles and between the groups of plays they comprise.

This book studies the development of ideas on freedom, coercion and power in the history of economic thought. It focuses on the exchange of goods and services and on terms of exchange (interest rates, prices and wages) and examines the nature of choice, that is, the state of the will of economic actors making exchange decisions. In a social context, anyone's range of choice is restricted by the choices made by others. The first to raise the question of the will in this economic context were the medieval scholastics, drawing on non-economic analytic models inherited from antiquity and mainly from Aristotle. From these origins, views on economic choice, coercion and power are recorded, as they gradually change over the centuries, until they manifest themselves in more contemporary disputes between different branches of institutional economics.

Fortress-Churches of Languedoc traces the changing relationship between military and religious realms as expressed in architecture across medieval Europe. The scholarship of medieval architecture has traditionally imposed a division between military and ecclesiastical structures. Often, however, medieval churches were provided with fortified enclosures, crenellations, iron-barred doors and other elements of defence, demonstrating the strong link between Church and state, and the military and religious realms. In her study of fortress-churches, Sheila Bonde focuses on three twelfth-century monuments in southern France - Maguelone, Agde and Saint-Pon-de-Thomière, which are among the earliest examples of the type. She analyses her archaeological surveys of these structures, and also re-examines their documentation, which is here presented both in the original Latin and in English translations. The book also explores the larger context of fortification and authority in twelfth-century Lang

An exploration of the health, sanitation, and cleanliness of one of England's most important medieval and early modern cities.

This ambitious book presents the first sustained analysis of the evolving representation of Cuthbert, the premier saint of northern England. The study spans both major and neglected texts across eight centuries, from his earliest depictions in anonymous and Bedan vitae, through twelfth-century ecclesiastical histories and miracle collections produced at Durham, to his late medieval appearances in Latin meditations, legendaries, and vernacular verse. Whitehead reveals the coherence of these texts as one tradition, exploring the way that ideologies and literary strategies persist across generations. An innovative addition to the literature of insular spirituality and hagiography, The Afterlife of St Cuthbert emphasises the related categories of place and asceticism. It charts Cuthbert's conceptual alignment with a range of institutional, masculine, northern, and national spaces, and examines the distinctive characteristics and changing value of his ascetic lifestyle and environment - fre

The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Philosophy offers a uniquely comprehensive and authoritative overview of early-modern philosophy written by an international team of specialists. As with previous Cambridge histories of philosophy the subject is treated by topic and theme, and since history does not come packaged in neat bundles, the subject is also treated with great temporal flexibility, incorporating frequent reference to medieval and Renaissance ideas. The basic structure of the volumes corresponds to the way an educated seventeenth-century European might have organised the domain of philosophy. Thus, the history of science, religious doctrine, and politics feature very prominently. The narrative that unfolds begins with an intellectual world dominated by a synthesis of Aristotelianism and scholastic philosophy, but by the end of the period the mechanistic or 'corpuscularian' philosophy has emerged and exerted its full impact on traditional metaphysics, ethics, theology,

The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Philosophy offers a uniquely comprehensive and authoritative overview of early-modern philosophy written by an international team of specialists. As with previous Cambridge histories of philosophy the subject is treated by topic and theme, and since history does not come packaged in neat bundles, the subject is also treated with great temporal flexibility, incorporating frequent reference to medieval and Renaissance ideas. The basic structure of the volumes corresponds to the way an educated seventeenth-century European might have organised the domain of philosophy. Thus, the history of science, religious doctrine, and politics feature very prominently. The narrative that unfolds begins with an intellectual world dominated by a synthesis of Aristotelianism and scholastic philosophy, but by the end of the period the mechanistic or 'corpuscularian' philosophy has emerged and exerted its full impact on traditional metaphysics, ethics, theology,

This book is a scholarly examination of the political thought of Rabbi Meir (Maharam) of Rothenburg, the most important thirteenth century German Rabbi who was associated with the Pietist movement of the period. From the Maharam's responsa on community matters, a coherent political thought emerges that exercised nearly unprecedented influence on European Jewish communities up to the Jewish Emancipation. Rabbi Meir's extremely sophisticated attempt to balance the demands of the community against those of the individual was facilitated by a characteristic three-tiered structure to his political thought: concrete legal rules supported by value-laden legal principles built upon his general religious ideology. Through a systematic analysis of the Maharam's political thought, Isaac Lifshitz offers an original contribution to Jewish studies, political theory, and the study of legal philosophy. By considering the legal and theological underpinnings of one of Medieval Jewry's most influential f

This book examines the figure of the returning warrior as depicted in the myths of several ancient and medieval Indo-European cultures. In these cultures, the returning warrior was often portrayed as a figure rendered dysfunctionally destructive or isolationist by the horrors of combat. This mythic portrayal of the returned warrior is consistent with modern studies of similar behavior among soldiers returning from war. Roger Woodard's research identifies a common origin of these myths in the ancestral proto-Indo-European culture, in which rites were enacted to enable warriors to reintegrate themselves as functional members of society. He also compares the Italic, Indo-Iranian and Celtic mythic traditions surrounding the warrior, paying particular attention to Roman myth and ritual, notably to the etiologies and rites of the July festivals of the Poplifugia and Nonae Caprotinae and to the October rites of the Sororium Tigillum.

Descended from the ancient French family of Blois, Hugh du Puiset lived in the twelfth century. Charming, distinguished, arrogant, unscrupulous but above all ambitious, du Puiset died a disappointed man. It was to his ambition that he owed both his success and his downfall, the vices of his youth and the follies of his old age. G. V. Scammell here tells the story of his life - of the intrigues which preceded his election to the Bishopric of Durham, the swings of fortune which brought him into royal favour and disfavour, his role in the ecclesiastical politics of medieval England, the splendour of his Diocese, and the extent of his authority. Relevant documents and genealogical details are included in an appendix. This 1956 book, which is developed from the Prince Consort Prize Essay of 1952, should interest historians of the Middle Ages and the Church.

Sir George Francis Hill (1867–1948), was perhaps best known as a numismatist, although his scholarly interests and accomplishments included a range of time periods and subjects. A classicist by training, Hill built his career at the British Museum's department of coins and medals. In his forty-three years there he produced volumes on coins of antiquity; Greek history and art; coins, heraldry, and iconography of medieval and Renaissance Italy; and treasure troves. In 1931 Hill became the Museum's director and principal librarian, the first archaeologist to hold this post. His four-volume History of Cyprus (1940–52) ranged from Cyprus's earliest years to the twentieth century, and became the standard text on the subject. It is a valuable resource for scholars of the country, of antiquity and of the Mediterranean world. Volume 2 commences Hill's investigation of the Frankish period (1192–1432), which he continues in Volume 3.

Sir George Francis Hill (1867–1948), was perhaps best known as a numismatist, although his scholarly interests and accomplishments included a range of time periods and subjects. A classicist by training, Hill built his career at the British Museum's department of coins and medals. In his forty-three years there he produced volumes on coins of antiquity; Greek history and art; coins, heraldry, and iconography of medieval and Renaissance Italy; and treasure troves. In 1931 Hill became the Museum's director and principal librarian, the first archaeologist to hold this post. His four-volume History of Cyprus (1940–52) ranged from Cyprus's earliest years to the twentieth century, and became the standard text on the subject. It is a valuable resource for scholars of the country, of antiquity and of the Mediterranean world. Volume 3, organized largely around monarchical reigns, concludes Hill's analysis of the Frankish period (1432–1571).

Walter Seton's 1915 book focuses on one of the key, understudied figures of the early Franciscan movement. Abbess of the Convent of Prague, Blessed Agnes was central to the establishment of the Order of Saint Clare. She presented persuasive arguments to convince the Holy See to permit female Franciscans to live according to their Rule and practise voluntary poverty. Seton's edition, drawn from manuscripts in German libraries, includes the oldest extant Latin version of Agnes' Life together with a fifteenth-century German version and German copies of four letters she received from Saint Clare. Praised in 1916 for its 'admirable thoroughness', this edition sheds new light on Blessed Agnes, whose importance was long overshadowed by her more prominent contemporaries, Saint Clare and Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, her cousin. This reissue makes this valuable primary material accessible again to scholars working on Franciscan history and medieval women's spirituality.

The Cumans and the Tatars were nomadic warriors of the Eurasian steppe who exerted an enduring impact on the medieval Balkans. With this work, István Vásáry presents an extensive examination of their history from 1185 to 1365. The basic instrument of Cuman and Tatar political success was their military force, over which none of the Balkan warring factions could claim victory. As a consequence, groups of the Cumans and the Tatars settled and mingled with the local population in various regions of the Balkans. The Cumans were the founders of three successive Bulgarian dynasties (Asenids, Terterids and Shishmanids) and the Wallachian dynasty (Basarabids). They also played an active role in Byzantium, Hungary and Serbia, with Cuman immigrants being integrated into each country's elite. This book also demonstrates how the prevailing political anarchy in the Balkans in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries made it ripe for the Ottoman conquest.

This is a fascinating institutional history of the University of Cambridge and its place in the world. Volume I, the first book on the medieval university in over a century, explores the university's intellectual, social, political and religious life and how this changed with the coming of the Renaissance and Reformation. Volume II studies relations between Cambridge and its wider world in the early modern period: the court and church hierarchy; the 'country'; and the wider academic world. Volume III charts the beginnings of its transformation into the University as it exists today: inclusive in its membership, diverse in its curricula, and staffed by committed scholars and teachers. Finally, Volume IV explores the extraordinary growth in size and academic stature of the University between 1870 and 1990. This is a vital contribution to the history not only of one major university, but of the academic societies of Europe in general.

This book examines the fifteenth-century gentry of Leicestershire under five broad headings: as landholders, as members of a social community based on the county, as participants in and leaders of the government of the shire, as members of the wider family unit and, finally, as individuals. Economically assertive, they were also socially cohesive, this cohesion being provided by the shire community. The shire also provided the most important political unit, controlled by an oligarchy of superior gentry families who were relatively independent of outside interference. The basic social unit was the nuclear family, but external influences, provided by concern for the wider kin, the lineage or economic and political advancement, were not major determinants of family strategy. Individualism among the gentry was already established by the fifteenth century, revealing its personnel as a self-assured and confident stratum in late medieval English society.

This unusually accessible account of recent Anglo-American philosophy focuses on how that philosophy has challenged deeply held notions of subjectivity, mind, and language. The book is designed on a broad canvas in which recent arguments are placed in a historical context (in particular they are related to medieval philosophy and German idealism). The author then explores such topics as mental content, moral realism, realism and antirealism, and the character of subjectivity. Much of the book is devoted to an investigation of Donald Davidson's philosophy, and there is also a sustained critique of the position of Richard Rorty. A final chapter defends the realist position against objections from postmodern thought. As a rigorous and historically sensitive account of recent philosophy, this book should enjoy a wide readership among philosophers of many different persuasions, literary theorists, and social scientists who have been influenced by postmodern thought.

This first of a two-volume work provides a new understanding of Western subjectivity as theorized in the Augustinian Rule . A theopolitical synthesis of Antiquity, the Rule is a humble, yet extremely influential example of subjectivity production. In these volumes, Jodra argues that the Classical and Late-Ancient communitarian practices along the Mediterranean provide historical proof of a worldview in which the self and the other are not disjunctive components, but mutually inclusive forces. The Augustinian Rule is a culmination of this process and also the beginning of something new: the paradigm of the monastic self as protagonist of the new, medieval worldview.In this volume, Jodra takes one of the most influential and pervasive commons experiments―Augustine’s Rule ―and gives us its Mediterranean backstory, with an eye to solving at last the riddle of socialism. In volume two, he will present his solution in full, as a kind of Augustinian communitarianism for today.These volu

This first of a two-volume work provides a new understanding of Western subjectivity as theorized in the Augustinian Rule . A theopolitical synthesis of Antiquity, the Rule is a humble, yet extremely influential example of subjectivity production. In these volumes, Jodra argues that the Classical and Late-Ancient communitarian practices along the Mediterranean provide historical proof of a worldview in which the self and the other are not disjunctive components, but mutually inclusive forces. The Augustinian Rule is a culmination of this process and also the beginning of something new: the paradigm of the monastic self as protagonist of the new, medieval worldview.In this volume, Jodra takes one of the most influential and pervasive commons experiments―Augustine’s Rule ―and gives us its Mediterranean backstory, with an eye to solving at last the riddle of socialism. In volume two, he will present his solution in full, as a kind of Augustinian communitarianism for today.These volu

The aesthetics of everyday life, as reflected in art museums and galleries throughout the western world, is the result of a profound shift in aesthetic perception that occurred during the Renaissance and Reformation. In this book, William A. Dyrness examines intellectual developments in late Medieval Europe, which turned attention away from a narrow range liturgical art and practices and towards a celebration of God's presence in creation and in history. Though threatened by the human tendency to self-assertion, he shows how a new focus on God's creative and recreative action in the world gave time and history a new seriousness, and engendered a broad spectrum of aesthetic potential. Focusing in particular on the writings of Luther and Calvin, Dyrness demonstrates how the reformers' conceptual and theological frameworks pertaining to the role of the arts influenced the rise of realistic theater, lyric poetry, landscape painting, and architecture in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuri

In this volume, Hugh Elton offers a detailed and up to date history of the last centuries of the Roman Empire. Beginning with the crisis of the third century, he covers the rise of Christianity, the key Church Councils, the fall of the West to the Barbarians, the Justinianic reconquest, and concludes with the twin wars against Persians and Arabs in the seventh century AD. Elton isolates two major themes that emerge in this period. He notes that a new form of decision-making was created, whereby committees debated civil, military, and religious matters before the emperor, who was the final arbiter. Elton also highlights the evolution of the relationship between aristocrats and the Empire, and provides new insights into the mechanics of administering the Empire, as well as frontier and military policies. Supported by primary documents and anecdotes, The Roman Empire in Late Antiquity is designed for use in undergraduate courses on late antiquity and early medieval history.

As one of the richest and most powerful land-owning families in later medieval England, the Staffords played their leading part in the politics of their time. This book traces the often complex relations between the three Stafford Dukes of Buckingham and the Crown. In doing so it casts light upon the attitude of successive English kings towards the nobility as a whole, and reassessed the political and military strength of the ruling class. The Staffords derived most of their influence from the ownership of land. Because of the survival of a widely scattered but unique family archive, Dr Rawcliffe has been able to study in unusually close detail the management of their estates and the deployment of their finances, as well as the reorganization of their household, which changed over the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries from a large peripatetic body to a smaller resident establishment where the third Duke of Buckingham could indulge his taste for cultural pursuits.

This study is centred on the Cornish manorial estates of the Duchy of Cornwall in the later Middle Ages, and has been compiled from a very full and hitherto neglected series of records, the completeness of which is perhaps unique for a lay estate. Most aspects of the history of the estates have been recorded and those which differed from other regions of England have been stressed. In order to place the Duchy estates within their regional context Dr Hatcher has studied a wide range of documents and produced a mass of new evidence concerning tin-mining, fishing, trade, towns and local industry in Cornwall and Devon. He shows, for example, that agricultural prosperity in later medieval Cornwall followed an exceptional course, and was determined by a series of interconnected changes within the regional economy, with a much less direct and immediate causal link than is commonly assumed between declining population after 1349 and agricultural recession. The intimate connexions between agric

The Triumph of Augustan Poetics offers an important re-evaluation of the transition from Baroque to Augustan in English literature. Starting with Butler's Hudibras, Blanford Parker describes Augustan satire as a movement away from the 'controversial disputation' of the seventeenth century to a general satire which ridicules Protestant, Anglican and Catholic in equal measure, as well as the poetic traditions that supported them. Once the dominant forms of late medieval and Baroque thought - analogical and fideist, a fully symbolic world and an empty wilderness - were erased, a novel space for the imagination was created. Here a 'literalism' new to European thought can be seen to have replaced the general satire, and at this moment Pope and Thomson create a new art of natural and quotidian description, in parallel with the rise of the novel. Parker's account concludes with the ambiguous or hostile reaction to this new mode seen in the works of Samuel Johnson and others.

'Tragedy' has been understood in a variety of conflicting ways over the centuries, and the term has been applied to a wide range of literary works. In this book, H. A. Kelly explores the various meanings given to tragedy, from Aristotle's most basic notion (any serious story, even with a happy ending), via Roman ideas and practices, to the middle ages, when Averroes considered tragedy to be the praise of virtue but Albert the Great thought of it as the recitation of the foul deeds of degenerate men. Professor Kelly demonstrates the importance of finding out what writers like Horace, Ovid, Dante and Chaucer meant by the term, and how they used it as a tool of interpretation and composition. Referring to a wealth of texts, he shows that many modern analyses of ancient and medieval concepts and works are oversimplified and often result in serious misinterpretations. The book ends with surveys of works designated as tragedies in England, France, Italy and Spain.

Sugar cane has long been one of the world's most important cash crops, and the sugar cane industry can be regarded as one of the world's oldest industries. The industry involves three basic processes: the cultivation of cane, the milling of the cane to extract the juice and the rendering of the juice into crystal sugar. This book is a geography of the sugar cane industry from its origins to 1914. It describes the spread of the industry from India into the Mediterranean during medieval times, across to the Americas in the early years of European colonization, and its subsequent diffusion to most parts of the tropics. It examines changes in agricultural techniques over the centuries, the significance of improvements in milling and manufacturing techniques, and the role of the industry through its demand for labor in forming the multicultural societies of the tropical world. It is the first authoritative study of the development of the industry, in English, in forty years.

The Muslim thinker, Abu 'Isa al-Warraq, lived in ninth-century Baghdad. He is remembered for his extensive knowledge of non-Muslim religious communities and his unorthodox views on Islam itself. This 2002 book represents an edition and translation of Abu 'Isa's Against the Incarnation, the second and last part of his Refutation of the Three Christian Denominations. It is edited and translated by David Thomas and contains the Arabic text alongside the English translation, together with explanatory notes. Dr Thomas' full introduction outlines the pluralist and multifaith society of medieval Baghdad, and places Abu 'Isa in the context of both Muslim theological argument and Christian-Muslim discussions. In this way it demonstrates the author's originality and his influence on later Muslim authors. The book will serve as a companion to the editor's earlier volume, Anti-Christian Polemic in Early Islam: Abu 'Isa al-Warraq's 'Against the Trinity' which was published in 1992.

Courts were the most important frameworks for the production, performance, and evaluation of literature in medieval Islamic civilization. Courts could offer an artist financial support from interested

In this sweeping and richly illustrated history, S. Frederick Starr tells the fascinating but largely unknown story of Central Asia's medieval enlightenment through the eventful lives and astonishing

An example of microhistory at its best, this book offers a new perspective on the socal history of medieval and early modern Europe and on historiography more broadly.

In this sweeping and richly illustrated history, S. Frederick Starr tells the fascinating but largely unknown story of Central Asia's medieval enlightenment through the eventful lives and astonishing

This book showcases the best in modern medieval and religious scholarship, deploying spirited and progressive approaches to the study of Christian mysticism and the philosophy of religion. The volume

This book showcases the best in modern medieval and religious scholarship, deploying spirited and progressive approaches to the study of Christian mysticism and the philosophy of religion. The volume

A Leading Expert on Traditional Archery Offers Insight Into How the Longbow Was Drawn from Medieval Sources to Modern Recreations ?Soar’s book [The Crooked Stick] is indispensible.”?Bernard Cornwell,

Hagiographies or idealized biographies which recount the lives of saints, bodhisattvas and other charismatic figures have been the meeting place for myth and experience. In medieval Europe, the 'lives

This major reference contains full chapters on 138 western medieval thinkers, organized alphabetically from Adam of Wodeham to William of Ware. Each chapter discusses the thinker's life and thought,

Scholars have long recognized the significant role that confraternities, or lay brotherhoods, played in the religious life of medieval and early modern Catholicism. As well as helping shape the devoti

Perceptions of the Body and Sacred Space in Late Antiquity and Byzantium seeks to reveal Christian understanding of the body and sacred space in the medieval Mediterranean. Case studies examine encoun