The Medieval Python

The Book of Cerne: Prayer, Patronage and Power in Ninth-Century England is the first volume in The British Library Studies in Medieval Culture, an important new series of monographs and multi-author v

"Provides a fine contribution to the rich history of the region, showing Evesham's place in the life of the medieval kingdom of England." Professor Ann Williams. In c.701, a minster

In Her Father's Daughter, Lucy K. Pick considers a group of royal women in the early medieval kingdoms of the Asturias and of León-Castilla; their lives say a great deal about structures of power and

St Dionysius was one of the principal saints of medieval France. He is known largely through the writings of Hilduin, the powerful abbot of Saint-Denis in Paris (814–40), who described the life and ma

A romantic, medieval retelling of the classic fairy tale...The poisonous jealousy of a sister gives birth to curse of vengeance. The body of a princess is warped and twisted into the form of a scaly,

The #1 bestselling chapter book is now a graphic novel! Magic. Mystery. Time-travel. Get whisked back to the time of medieval knights with Jack and Annie!A castle. A knight. A quest! When the magic tr

It has become widely accepted among musicologists that medieval music is most profitably studied from interdisciplinary perspectives that situate it within broad cultural contexts. The origins of this consensus lie in a decisive reorientation of the field that began approximately four decades ago. For much of the twentieth century, research on medieval music had focused on the discovery and evaluation of musical and theoretical sources. The 1970s and 1980s, by contrast, witnessed calls for broader methodologies and more fully contextual approaches that in turn anticipated the emergence of the so-called 'New Musicology'. The fifteen essays in the present collection explore three interrelated areas of inquiry that proved particularly significant: the liturgy, sources (musical and archival), and musical symbolism. In so doing, these essays not only acknowledge past achievements but also illustrate how this broad, interdisciplinary approach remains a source for scholarly innovation.

This innovative study investigates the reception of medieval manuscripts over a long century, 1470–1585, spanning the reigns of Edward IV to Elizabeth I. Members of the Tudor gentry family who owned these manuscripts had properties in Willesden and professional affiliations in London. These men marked the leaves of their books with signs of use, allowing their engagement with the texts contained there to be reconstructed. Through detailed research, Margaret Connolly reveals the various uses of these old books: as a repository for family records; as a place to preserve other texts of a favourite or important nature; as a source of practical information for the household; and as a professional manual for the practising lawyer. Investigation of these family-owned books reveals an unexpectedly strong interest in works of the past, and the continuing intellectual and domestic importance of medieval manuscripts in an age of print.

The emergence of the Jewish Bible commentary in the tenth century marks a turning point in Jewish intellectual history, namely, the transition from ancient rabbinic culture to the Arabized Judaism of the medieval period. This book explores a formative moment in this cultural reorientation byanalyzing one of the earliest Jewish Bible commentaries. Written in Arabic in tenth-century Jerusalem, Salmon ben Yeruhim's commentary on Lamentations reveals a nuanced negotiation between the rabbinic tradition and the intellectual resources of the Islamic world. Salmon was a prominent figure among the Karaites, a Jewish movement defined by its commitments to biblical scholarship and penitential practices. For him, Lamentations is instruction for Israel--spiritual guidance for the Jewish community in exile--and his task is to communicate that instruction.Jewish Piety in Islamic Jerusalem explores the medieval Arabic dimensions of Salmon's project, tracing his engagement with the nascent fields of A

The caliphs and sultans who once ruled the Muslim world were often assisted by powerful Jewish, Christian, Zoroastrian, and other non-Muslim state officials, whose employment occasioned energetic discussions among Muslim scholars and rulers. This book reveals those discussions for the first time in all their diversity, drawing on unexplored medieval sources in the realms of law, history, poetry, entertaining literature, administration, and polemic. It follows the discourse on non-Muslim officials from its beginnings in the Umayyad empire (661–750), through medieval Iraq, Egypt, Syria, and Spain, to its apex in the Mamluk period (1250–1517). Far from being an intrinsic part of Islam, views about non-Muslim state officials were devised, transmitted, and elaborated at moments of intense competition between Muslim and non-Muslim learned elites. At other times, Muslim rulers employed non-Muslims without eliciting opposition. The particular shape of the Islamic discourse on this issue is com

Although the topic of humour has been dealt with for other eras, early medieval humour remains largely neglected. These essays go some way towards filling the gap, examining how early medieval writers deliberately employed humour to make their cases. The essays range from the late Roman empire through to the tenth century, and from Byzantium to Anglo-Saxon England. The subject matter is diverse, but a number of themes link them together, notably the use of irony, ridicule and satire as political tools. Two chapters serve as an extended introduction to the topic, while the following six chapters offer varied treatments of humour and politics, looking at different times and places, but at the Carolingian world in particular. Together, they raise important and original issues about how humour was employed to articulate concepts of political power, perceptions of kingship, social relations and the role of particular texts.

Medieval commentaries on the origin and history of language used biblical history, from Creation to the Tower of Babel, as their starting-point, and described the progressive impairment of an originally perfect language. Biblical and classical sources raised questions for both medieval poets and commentators about the nature of language, its participation in the Fall, and its possible redemption. John M. Fyler focuses on how three major poets - Chaucer, Dante, and Jean de Meun - participated in these debates about language. He offers fresh analyses of how the history of language is described and debated in the Divine Comedy, the Canterbury Tales and the Roman de la Rose. While Dante follows the Augustinian idea of the Fall and subsequent redemption of language, Jean de Meun and Chaucer are skeptical about the possibilities for linguistic redemption and resign themselves, at least half-comically, to the linguistic implications of the Fall and the declining world.

Describes the chivalric code of medieval knights using the art and literature of that time, including profiles of legendary figures, examples of knights exhibiting chivalric behavior, an overview of t

Arab messengers played a vital role in the medieval Islamic world and its diplomatic relations with foreign powers. An innovative treatise from the tenth century (Rusul al-Mulik, Messengers of Kings)

Why did weeds matter in the Carolingian empire? What was their special significance for writers in eighth- and ninth-century Europe and how was this connected with the growth of real weeds? In early medieval Europe, unwanted plants that persistently appeared among crops created extra work, reduced productivity, and challenged theologians who believed God had made all vegetation good. For the first time, in this book weeds emerge as protagonists in early medieval European history, driving human farming strategies and coloring people's imagination. Early medieval Europeans' effort to create agroecosystems that satisfied their needs and cosmologies that confirmed Christian accounts of vegetable creation both had to come to terms with unruly plants. Using diverse kinds of texts, fresh archaeobotanical data, and even mosaics, this interdisciplinary study reveals how early medieval Europeans interacted with their environments.

This book is about the place of pedagogy and the role of intellectuals in medieval dissent. Focusing on the medieval English heresy known as Lollardy, Rita Copeland places heretical and orthodox attitudes to learning in a long historical perspective that reaches back to antiquity. She shows how educational ideologies of ancient lineage left their imprint on the most sharply politicized categories of late medieval culture, and how radical teachers transformed inherited ideas about classrooms and pedagogy as they brought their teaching to adult learners. The pedagogical imperatives of Lollard dissent were also embodied in the work of certain public figures, intellectuals whose dissident careers transformed the social category of the medieval intellectual. Looking closely at the prison narratives of two Lollard preachers, Copeland shows how their writings could serve as examples for their fellow dissidents and forge a new rapport between academic and non-academic communities.

An informative, richly detailed and vividly illustrated account of the medieval knight and his time.

Essays examining the compiler and contents of two of the most important and significant extant late medieval manuscript collections.

In The Favor of Friends, Sean Gilsdorf explores the ideology and practice of intercession within early medieval aristocratic society.

This book explores the dissemination of ideas and information on the early silk roads between Europe and China, through the first detailed study of the Sinicization of foreign objects in Chinese poetic writing of the third century CE.Third-century literary developments and the prevailing literary works from that era leave us with an impressive amount of information concerning exotic objects, such as plants, animals, and crafts, and record the cultural exchange between distant peoples whose goods, ideas, and technologies entered China.These hitherto-forgotten rhapsodies express the profound interest and excitement of learned men for foreign objects. They bear witness to the cultural exchanges between China and other civilizations and provide a more nuanced insight of early medieval China as an integrated society rather than an isolated one.

Imagine having 5,000 years of human history's most amazing artworks at your fingertips!Go on a trip through the famous Metropolitan Museum of Art without ever leaving your home! Prepare to explore the treasures of the world's civilisations-from ancient Egyptian amulets, Mayan jewellery, and prehistoric tools-to Medieval tapestries, Renaissance suits of armour, and modern-day baseball cards. Each page brings you closer to the past as you learn about the people of different ages through the objects they left behind.Discover hand-picked highlights of the museum's huge collection as you travel through history, one incredible object at a time. This book combines exclusive Met photography with colourful and quirky illustrations in a resource that parents can trust, with a design that kids will love.© The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Provides a new account of the crucial shift from the classical and medieval conception of Fortune to the modern notion of chance or randomness.

This study is the first to attempt a thorough investigation of the activities of the Columbanian congregation, which played a significant role in the development of Western monasticism. This was a new form of rural monasticism, which suited the needs and aspirations of a Christian elite eager to express its power and prestige in religious terms. Contrary to earlier studies, which viewed Columbanus and his disciples primarily as religious innovators, this book focuses on the political, economic, and familial implications of monastic patronage and on the benefits elite patrons stood to reap. While founding families were in a privileged position to court royal favour, monastic patronage also exposed them to violent reprisals from competing factions. Columbanian monasteries were not serene havens of contemplation, but rather active foci of power and wealth, and quickly became integral elements of early medieval statecraft.

This study is the first to attempt a thorough investigation of the activities of the Columbanian congregation, which played a significant role in the development of Western monasticism. This was a new form of rural monasticism, which suited the needs and aspirations of a Christian elite eager to express its power and prestige in religious terms. Contrary to earlier studies, which viewed Columbanus and his disciples primarily as religious innovators, this book focuses on the political, economic, and familial implications of monastic patronage and on the benefits elite patrons stood to reap. While founding families were in a privileged position to court royal favour, monastic patronage also exposed them to violent reprisals from competing factions. Columbanian monasteries were not serene havens of contemplation, but rather active foci of power and wealth, and quickly became integral elements of early medieval statecraft.

This book examines the interchange of architecture and ritual in the Middle and Late Byzantine churches of Constantinople (ninth to fifteenth centuries). It employs archaeological and archival data, hagiographic and historical sources, liturgical texts and commentaries, and monastic typika and testaments to integrate the architecture of the medieval churches of Constantinople with liturgical and extra-liturgical practices and their continuously evolving social and cultural context. The book argues against the approach that has dominated Byzantine studies: that of functional determinism, the view that architectural form always follows liturgical function. Instead, proceeding chapter by chapter through the spaces of the Byzantine church, it investigates how architecture responded to the exigencies of the rituals, and how church spaces eventually acquired new uses. The church building is described in the context of the culture and people whose needs it was continually adapted to serve. Ra

Henry Adams (1838–1918), journalist, novelist, and historian, was the great-grandson of John Adams and grandson of John Quincy Adams, both presidents of the United States. A professor of medieval history at Harvard whose areas of research were wide-ranging, he was deeply interested in the evolution of democracy in the United States. While Adams is best remembered for his autobiography The Education of Henry Adams (1907), for which he was posthumously awarded a Pulitzer prize, his nine-volume history of the United States during the presidencies of Jefferson and Madison (1801–17), which was published between 1889 and 1891, has been hailed as one of the greatest historical works in English. Adams was an advocate of scientific history, and this monumental work adheres to its principles, considering social trends and circumstances rather than focusing on particular events.

The thirteenth-century poem Roman de la Rose is one of the most significant literary contributions of the Middle Ages. The poem is a composite work by two separate authors; the first part, By Guillaume de Lorris, has always been viewed as an unfinished fragment made complete thanks to the work of his continuator. In Self-Fulfilling Prophecies David F. Hult offers a reading of the 'first' poem by Guillaume, viewed within its literary and cultural context. The book ultimately places into question such modern literary concerns as 'authorial intentionality', 'unity', 'originality' and 'textual closure', and will therefore be of interest to students of literary theory as well as to those specialising in medieval French literature. English translations of quotations from the poems are provided to ensure that a broader audience will benefit from this clearly argued study.

Vitality and change marked twelfth- and thirteenth-century medieval Mediterranean society. Many sought to capitalize upon resurgences in economic success, political intrigue, and social cohesion. Al

William Woodruff had the sort of childhood satirized in the famous Monty Python Yorkshireman sketch. The son of a weaver, he was born on a pallet of straw at the back of the mill and two days later h

Psychology has its roots in natural philosophy and metaphysics. In this valuable contribution to understanding that genealogy, Bakker (medieval and Renaissance philosophy, Radboud U. Nijmegen and Leid

Lavelle (medieval history, University of Winchester) presents this comprehensive look at the intricacies of Anglo-Saxon warfare during the eighth through the eleventh centuries. Examining popular sour

Beginning with an examination of medieval Islamic fundamentalist movements such as Kharjism, Ibadism, Hanbalism, and Wahhabism, Sayed Khatab looks at the similarities and differences between them and

Murmured Conversations is the first complete and rigorously annotated translation of Sasamegoto (1463-1464), considered the most important and representative poetic treatise of the medieval period in

This volume celebrates the remarkable scholarly career of medieval historian John Van Engen with eighteen exceptional essays contributed by Van Engen’s colleagues and former doctoral students, a group

"Reading semiotically against the backdrop of medieval mirrors of princes, Arthurian narratives, and chronicles, this study examines how Renae d'Anjou (1409-1480), Geoffrey Chaucer's House of Fame (ca

Until recently, the figure of the medieval anchorite and the underlying ideological concepts that framed her day-to-day existence have escaped detailed examination, despite the anchorite’s importance

Communist East Germany's demolition of Leipzig's perfectly intact medieval University Church in May 1968 was an act decried as "cultural barbarism" across the two Germanies and beyond. Although oversh

This volume explores the wide range of institutions, beliefs and practices within later medieval Christianity. It describes and analyses routines of Christian life, dissent, and the striving for relig

A medieval Latin commentary on an influential handbook of the Seven Liberal Arts from late antiquity. Employing allegorical interpretation as a method of speculative, proto-scientific inquiry, the com

This is the first global history of dress regulation and its place in broader debates around how human life and societies should be visualised and materialised. Sumptuary laws were a tool on the part of states to regulate not only manufacturing systems and moral economies via the medium of expenditure and consumption of clothing but also banquets, festivities and funerals. Leading scholars on Asian, Latin American, Ottoman and European history shed new light on how and why items of dress became key aspirational goods across society, how they were lobbied for and marketed, and whether or not sumptuary laws were implemented by cities, states and empires to restrict or channel trade and consumption. Their findings reveal the significance of sumptuary laws in medieval and early modern societies as a site of contestation between individuals and states and how dress as an expression of identity developed as a modern 'human right'.