European Medieval History : oso

Medieval Violence

Hannah Skoda — 2013-05-23

Author:: Hannah Skoda
ISBN:: 9780199670833
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199670833.001.0001
Published in print:: 2013
Published Online:: 2013-05-23

This book provides a detailed analysis of medieval brutality, focusing upon Paris and Artois, a thriving region of northern France in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. It examines how violence was conceptualised in this period, and uses this framework to investigate street violence, tavern brawls, urban uprisings, student misbehaviour and domestic violence. The interactions between these various forms of violence are examined in order to demonstrate the complex and communicative nature of medieval brutality. What is often dismissed as dysfunctional behaviour is shown to have been highly strategic and socially integral. Violence was a performance, and one dependent upon the spaces in which it took place; indeed, brutality is shown to have been contingent upon social and cultural structures. At the same time, the common stereotype of the thoughtlessly brutal Middle Ages is challenged, as attitudes towards violence are revealed to have been complex, troubled and ambivalent. Whether violence could function effectively as a form of communication which could order and harmonise society, or whether it inevitably degenerated into chaotic disorder where meaning was multivalent and incomprehensible, remained a matter of ongoing debate in a variety of contexts. Using a variety of source material, including legal records, popular literature, and sermons, the book explores experiences of, and attitudes towards, violence, and highlights profound contemporary ambiguity concerning its nature and legitimacy.

Medieval Amalfi and its Diaspora, 800-1250

Patricia Skinner — 2013-05-23

Author:: Patricia Skinner
ISBN:: 9780199646272
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199646272.001.0001
Published in print:: 2013
Published Online:: 2013-05-23

‘Rich in gold and cloths’? This is the first full-length study of the history of medieval maritime republic of Amalfi that addresses both the internal political, social and economic history of Amalfi (as an independent city-state, under Norman rule and as part of the Kingdom of Sicily) and the history of its diaspora, those Amalfitans who left temporarily or permanently and whose activities contributed to the image of their home city as a thriving centre specialising in the luxury end of the market. In reuniting these two disparate strands of its history, the book argues that, instead of being seen in opposition to each other, the very different evidence presented by the internal documentary archives and the narrative accounts of external observers can and should be utilised to reconstruct the ties which bound the emigrants to their home city. By taking a prosopographical approach, that is, tracing individuals and reconstructing their kin groups, the study reveals the presence of Amalfitans in many parts of the Italian peninsula and further afield in the Mediterranean. At the same time, it critically re-examines previous historiography based on some of the externally-generated views of Amalfitan wealth, suggesting that the latter may have as much (or more) to do with literary and patronage networks as with the actual situation on the ground.

Crusading and the Ottoman Threat, 1453-1505

Norman Housley — 2013-01-24

Author:: Norman Housley
ISBN:: 9780199227051
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199227051.001.0001
Published in print:: 2012
Published Online:: 2013-01-24

The fifty years that followed Mehmed II's capture of Constantinople in 1453 witnessed a substantial attempt to revive the crusade as the principal military mechanism for defending Christian Europe against the advance of Ottoman Turks. This study investigates the origins, character, and significance of this ambitious programme. It locates it against the broad background of crusading history, and assesses the extent to which protagonists and lobbyists for a crusade managed to refashion crusading to meet the Turkish threat, combining traditional practices with new outlooks and techniques. It pays particular attention to diplomatic exchanges and political decision-making, military organization, communication, and devotional behaviour. The book demonstrates the impressive scale of the effort that was made to create a crusading response to the Turks. Crusaders were recruited in very large numbers between 1454 and 1464, and in 1501–3 substantial sums of money were raised through the vigorous preaching of indulgences in the Holy Roman Empire. But while the crusading cause was recognized as important and urgent, the mobilization of resources was prejudiced by the volatile nature of international politics, and by the weakness of the Renaissance papacy. Even when frontline states such as Hungary and Venice welcomed crusading contributions to their conflicts with the Ottomans, building robust structures of cooperation proved to be beyond the ability of contemporaries. As the Middle Ages drew to a close, the paradox of crusade was that its promotion and finance impacted on the lives of Catholics more than its instruments affected the struggle for domination of the Mediterranean Sea and south-eastern Europe.

Seeing Justice Done

Paul Friedland — 2012-09-20

Author:: Paul Friedland
ISBN:: 9780199592692
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History, European Early Modern History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199592692.001.0001
Published in print:: 2012
Published Online:: 2012-09-20

From the early Middle Ages to the 20th century, capital punishment in France, as in many other countries, was staged before large crowds of spectators. This book traces the theory and practice of public executions over time from the perspective of the executioners and government officials who staged them, as well as from the vantage point of the many thousands who came to “see justice done.” While penal theorists often stressed that the fundamental purpose of public punishment was to strike fear in the hearts of spectators, the eagerness with which crowds flocked to executions and the extent to which spectators actually enjoyed the spectacle of suffering suggests that there was a wide gulf between theoretical intentions and actual experiences. Moreover, animal executions and the execution of effigies and corpses point to an enduring ritual function that had little to do with exemplary deterrence. In the eighteenth century, when a revolution in sensibilities made it unseemly for individuals to take pleasure in or even witness the suffering of others, capital punishment became the target of penal reform. From the invention of the guillotine, which reduced the moment of death to the blink of an eye, to the 1939 decree which moved executions behind prison walls, the death penalty in France was systematically stripped of its spectacular elements.

Hostages in the Middle Ages

Adam J. Kosto — 2012-09-20

Author:: Adam J. Kosto
ISBN:: 9780199651702
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199651702.001.0001
Published in print:: 2012
Published Online:: 2012-09-20

In medieval Europe, hostages were given, not taken. They were a means of guarantee used to secure transactions ranging from treaties to wartime commitments to financial transactions. In principle, the force of the guarantee lay in the threat to the life of the hostage if the agreement were broken; but while violation of agreements was common, execution of hostages was a rarity. Medieval hostages are thus best understood not as simple pledges, but as a political institution characteristic of the medieval millennium, embedded in its changing historical contexts. In the early Middle Ages, hostageship is principally seen in warfare and diplomacy, operating within structures of kinship and practices of alliance characteristic of elite political society. From the eleventh century, hostageship diversifies, despite the spread of a legal and financial culture that would seem to have made it superfluous. Hostages in the Middle Ages traces the development of this institution from Late Antiquity through the period of the Hundred Years War, across Europe and the Mediterranean world. It explores the logic of agreements, the identity of hostages, and the conditions of their confinement, while shedding light on a wide range of subjects, from sieges and treaties, to captivity and ransom, to the Peace of God and the Crusades, to the rise of towns and representation, to political communication and shifting gender dynamics. The book closes by examining the reasons for the decline of hostageship in the early modern era, and the rise of the modern variety of hostageship that was addressed by the Nuremberg tribunals and the United Nations in the twentieth century.

The Making of Medieval Antifraternalism

G. Geltner — 2012-05-24

Author:: G. Geltner
ISBN:: 9780199639458
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199639458.001.0001
Published in print:: 2012
Published Online:: 2012-05-24

The mendicant orders—Augustinians, Carmelites, Dominicans, Franciscans, and several other groups—spread across Europe apace from the early thirteenth century, profoundly influencing numerous aspects of medieval life. But, alongside their tremendous success, their members (or friars) also encountered derision, scorn, and even violence. Such opposition, generally known as antifraternalism, is often seen as an ecclesiastical inhouse affair or an ideological response to the brethren’s laxity: both cases registering a moral decline symptomatic of a decadent church. Challenging the accuracy of these views, The Making of Medieval Antifraternalism contends that the phenomenon exhibits a breadth of scope that, on the one hand, pushes it far beyond its accustomed boundaries and, on the other, supports only tenuous links with Reformation or modern forms of anticlericalism. Based on numerous sources, from theological treatises, to poetry, to criminal court records, this study shows that people from all walks of life lambasted and occasionally assaulted the brethren, orchestrating in the process detailed scenes of urban violence. Their myriad motivations and diverse goals preclude us from associating antifraternalism with any one ideology or agenda, let alone allow us to brand many of its proponents as religious reformers. At the same time, it demonstrates the friars’ active role in forging a medieval antifraternal tradition, not only by deviating from their founders’ paths to varying degrees, but also by chronicling their suffering inter fideles and thus incorporating it into the orders’ identity as the vanguard of Christianity. In doing so, The Making of Medieval Antifraternalism illuminates a major chapter in Europe’s social, urban, and religious history.

Pope Urban II's Council of Piacenza

Robert Somerville — 2012-01-19

Author:: Robert Somerville
ISBN:: 9780199258598
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History, History of Religion
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199258598.001.0001
Published in print:: 2011
Published Online:: 2012-01-19

The Council of Piacenza is among the most important papal synods of the Reform that was sweeping through the Western Church at the end of the eleventh century. Piacenza may receive a line or two in textbooks of medieval history due to a connection with the First Crusade, but if the assembly was a Crusade launching pad - and the matter is obscure - this is a footnote to its true significance. The council marked a turning point in the papal schism between Popes Gregory VII/Urban II and the so-called anti-pope Clement III, who was created and sustained by Emperor Henry IV. Urban’s earlier synods anticipated the rulings from Piacenza, and the canons promulgated at Piacenza became landmarks not only for the eleventh-/twelfth-century Reform but more broadly for the Church of the High Middle Ages and even beyond (see below). No accurate figures exist for attendance, but many churchmen from Italy and beyond responded to the papal call for a “general council” early in the year 1095 to deal with issues arising from the schism, and in essence to formulate a revised Reform ecclesiology. Piacenza would have both reaffirmed the provisions from Urban’s earlier synods and issued new decrees. The latter included canons about ordinations by simoniacs and the schismatics, in addition to statements about the use and the limits of mercy for those returning to Urban’s obedience. The official acts are lost, but the decrees survive in many similar twelfth-century copies that can be grouped into a few distinct versions. Identifying “the canons of Piacenza” is thus not a simple process, but important ideas occurring in the council reappear in other texts of Pope Urban, and also are found in the widespread Prologue on the hermeneutics of legal texts formulated by Bishop Ivo of Chartres. Piacenza also attracted skeptics and detractors. The debates that occurred therein are in great part lost from view, but tantalizing hints survive, e.g., in the well-known Chronicion of Bernold of Constance, in the little known Gesta Romanae ecclesiae contra Hildebrandum penned by the schismatic Cardinal-priest Beno of SS. Martino e Silvestro, and in a protocol accompanying several versions of the canons. But notwithstanding critics, inclusion of decrees from Piacenza in Gratian’s Decretum ensured their visibility throughout the High Middle Ages and on into modern times, for Gratian’s work became part of the living tradition of the Church’s Corpus iuris canonici . In addition to a new perspective on the “fortuna” of these canons and a new edition, this book includes a commentary on those texts akin to what was done in the author’s book on Urban II’s Council of Melfi. The last chapter, finally, discusses the legislation of Urban’s synods after Piacenza. That transmission is complicated and episodic, but the canons of Urban’s last council, held at St. Peter’s in Rome at Eastertime of 1099, duplicate a large number of decrees from Piacenza.

Empires of Faith

Peter Sarris — 2012-01-19

Author:: Peter Sarris
ISBN:: 9780199261260
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199261260.001.0001
Published in print:: 2011
Published Online:: 2012-01-19

Drawing upon the latest historical and archaeological research, this work provides a panoramic account of the history of Europe, the Mediterranean and the Near East from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Islam. The formation of a new social and economic order in western Europe in the fifth, sixth and seventh centuries, and the ascendancy across the West of a new culture of military lordship, are placed firmly in the context of on-going connections and influence radiating outwards from the surviving Eastern Roman Empire, ruled from the great imperial capital of Constantinople. The East Roman (or ‘Byzantine’) Emperor Justinian’s attempts to revive imperial fortunes, restore the empire’s power in the West, and face down Constantinople’s great superpower rival, the Sasanian Empire of Persia, are charted, as too are the ways in which the escalating warfare between Rome and Persia paved the way for the development of new concepts of ‘holy war’, the emergence of Islam, and the Arab conquests of the Near East. Processes of religious and cultural change are explained through examination of social, economic, and military upheavals, and the formation of early medieval European society is placed in a broader context of changes that swept across the world of Western Eurasia from Manchuria to the Rhine. Warfare and plague, holy men and kings, emperors, shahs, caliphs and peasants all play their part in a compelling narrative suited to specialist, student, and general readership alike.

Suicide in the Middle Ages

Alexander Murray — 2011-10-03

Author:: Alexander Murray
ISBN:: 9780198207313
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History, Social History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198207313.001.0001
Published in print:: 2000
Published Online:: 2011-10-03

A group of men dig a tunnel under the threshold of a house. Then they go and fetch a heavy, sagging object from inside the house, pull it out through the tunnel, and put it on a cow-hide to be dragged off and thrown into the offal-pit. Why should the corpse of a suicide—for that is what it is—have earned this unusual treatment? This book explores the origin of the condemnation of suicide, in a quest which leads along the most unexpected byways of medieval theology, law, mythology, and folklore—and, indeed, in some instances beyond them. In an epoch when there might be plenty of ostensible reasons for not wanting to live, the ways used to block the suicidal escape route give a unique perspective on medieval religion.

The Soderini and the Medici

Paula C. Clarke — 2011-10-03

Author:: Paula C. Clarke
ISBN:: 9780198229926
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198229926.001.0001
Published in print:: 1991
Published Online:: 2011-10-03

This account of the careers of two brothers, Tommaso and Niccolò Soderini, and their relationship with the Medici family opens up a new perspective on the political world of Renaissance Florence. The Soderini were at different times supporters and adversaries of the Medici, whose rise to power remains the subject of historical debate. Based on hitherto unpublished sources, particularly from the archives of Florence and Milan, this book examines the nature of the ascendancy of the Medici and of the opposition to them, the sources of their power, the operation of their system of patronage, the bonds connecting one of the most successful political elites in Renaissance Italy, and the development of the political institutions of the Florentine state. It contributes to our understanding of the political and constitutional history of Florence.

Power and Identity in the Middle Ages

Huw Pryce and John Watts — 2011-10-03

Author:: HuwPryceProfessor of Welsh History, University of Wales, BangorJohnWattsFellow and Tutor in History, Corpus Christi College, Oxford
ISBN:: 9780199285464
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199285464.001.0001
Published in print:: 2007
Published Online:: 2011-10-03

This volume celebrates the work of the late Rees Davies. Reflecting Davies' interest in identities, political culture, and the workings of power in medieval Britain, the chapters range across ten centuries, looking at a variety of key topics. Issues explored range from the historical representations of peoples and the changing patterns of power and authority, to the notions of ‘core’ and ‘periphery’ and the relationship between local conditions and international movements. The political impact of words and ideas, and the parallels between developments in Wales and those elsewhere in Britain, Ireland, and Europe are also discussed.

Power & Purity

Carol Lansing — 2011-10-03

Author:: Carol Lansing
ISBN:: 9780195149807
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195149807.001.0001
Published in print:: 2001
Published Online:: 2011-10-03

Catharism was a popular medieval heresy based on the belief that the creation of humankind was a disaster in which angelic spirits were trapped in matter by the devil. Their only goal was to escape the body through purification. Cathars denied any value to material life, including the human body, baptism, and the Eucharist, even marriage and childbirth. What could explain the long popularity of such a bleak faith in the towns of southern France and Italy? This book explores the place of Cathar heresy in the life of the medieval Italian town of Orvieto. Based on extensive archival research, it details the social makeup of the Cathar community and argues that the heresy was central to the social and political changes of the 13th century. The late 13th-century repression of Catharism by a local inquisition was part of a larger redefinition of civic and ecclesiastical authority. The book shows that the faith attracted not an alienated older nobility but artisans, merchants, popular political leaders, and indeed circles of women in Orvieto, as well as in Florence and Bologna. Cathar beliefs were not so much a pessimistic anomaly as a part of a larger climate of religious doubt. The teachings on the body and the practice of Cathar holy persons addressed questions of sexual difference and the structure of authority that were key elements of medieval Italian life. The pure lives of the Cathar holy people, both male and female, demonstrated a human capacity for self-restraint.

Pope Gregory VII, 1073–1085

H. E. J. Cowdrey — 2011-10-03

Author:: H. E. J. Cowdrey
ISBN:: 9780198206460
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History, History of Religion
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198206460.001.0001
Published in print:: 1998
Published Online:: 2011-10-03

The reign of Pope Gregory VII (1073–1085), who gave his name to an era of Church reform, is critically important in the history of the medieval church and papacy. Thus it is surprising that this is the first comprehensive biography to appear in any language for over fifty years. This book presents Gregory's life and work in their entirety, tracing his career from early days as a clerk of the Roman Church, through his political negotiations, ecclesiastical governance, and final exile at Salerno. Full account is taken of his turbulent relations with King Henry IV of Germany, from his first deposition and excommunication in 1076, to the absolution at Canossa and the imposition of a second sentence in 1080. Pope Gregory was also a contemporary of William the Conqueror, and, as the author shows, fully supported his conquest of England. Gregory VII is presented as an individual whose deep inner belief in iustitia (righteousness) did not waver in the face of new circumstances, although his broad outlook underwent changes. Deeply committed to the traditions of the past and especially to those of Pope Gregory the Great, his reign prepared the way for an age of strong papal monarchy in the western Church.

Papacy and Law in the Gregorian Revolution

Kathleen G. Cushing — 2011-10-03

Author:: Kathleen G. Cushing
ISBN:: 9780198207245
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History, History of Religion
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198207245.001.0001
Published in print:: 1998
Published Online:: 2011-10-03

This book explores the role of canon law in the ecclesiastical reform movement of the eleventh century, commonly known as the Gregorian Refom movement. Focusing on the Collectio canonum of Bishop Anselm of Lucca — hitherto largely unexplored in English — it is concerned with the symbiotic relationship between canon law and reform, and seeks to explore the ways in which Anselm’s writing can be seen in the context of the reformer’s need to devise and articulate strategies for the renovation of the Church and Christian society. Its principal contention is that Anselm’s collection cannot be seen merely as a catalogue of canon law, but also functioned to articulate, define, and propagate reformist doctrine in a time of great social and religious upheaval.

The Origins of the Hundred Years War

Malcolm Vale — 2011-10-03

Author:: Malcolm Vale
ISBN:: 9780198206200
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History, Military History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198206200.001.0001
Published in print:: 1996
Published Online:: 2011-10-03

In this study of Anglo-French relations in the century before the Hundred Years War, the text examines the legacy of continental rule bequeathed by the Angevin kings of England to their Plantagenet successors. The book explores the sources of Anglo-French tension which ultimately led to the breakdown of feudal and diplomatic relations between the two greatest powers in western Europe.

Modelling the Middle Ages

John Hatcher and Mark Bailey — 2011-10-03

Author:: John Hatcher, Mark Bailey
ISBN:: 9780199244119
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History, Economic History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199244119.001.0001
Published in print:: 2001
Published Online:: 2011-10-03

Most of what has been written on the economy of the Middle Ages is deeply influenced by abstract concepts and theories. The most powerful and popular of these guiding beliefs are derived from intellectual foundations laid down in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by Adam Smith, Johan von Thünen, Thomas Malthus, David Ricardo, and Karl Marx. In the hands of twentieth-century historians and social scientists these venerable ideas have been moulded into three grand explanatory ideas that continue to dominate interpretations of economic development. These trumpet in turn the claims of ‘commercialisation’, ‘population and resources’, or ‘class power and property relations’ as the prime movers of historical change. This book examines the structure and tests the validity of these conflicting models from a variety of perspectives. In the course of their investigations the authors provide not only detailed reconstructions of the economic history of England in the Middle Ages and sustained critical commentaries on the work of leading historians, but also discussions of the philosophy and methods of history and the social sciences. The result is an introduction to medieval economic history, a critique of established models, and a treatise on historiographical method.

The Medieval Idea of Marriage

Christopher N. L. Brooke — 2011-10-03

Author:: Christopher N. L. Brooke
ISBN:: 9780198205043
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History, History of Ideas
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198205043.001.0001
Published in print:: 1994
Published Online:: 2011-10-03

‘What is marriage and what sets it apart from other human relationships?’ These are the key questions which this book addresses in this study of marriage in the medieval world. It draws on many disciplines — history, art, theology, and literature — in order to penetrate the special character of marriage. The book covers the entire period from 1000 to 1500, with special emphasis on the 12th and 13th centuries. Among the themes treated in this study are the cult of celibacy and the relationship between marriage and architecture. The book draws on case-studies and sources, including the letters of Heloise and Abelard, the epics of Wolfram von Eschenbach, and the poetry of Chaucer. It concludes with a chapter on the theology of marriage, and a penetrating look at The Arnolfini Marriage by Jan van Eyck.

Medieval Germany 1056–1273

Alfred Haverkamp, Helga Braun, and Richard Mortimer — 2011-10-03

Author:: Alfred Haverkamp, Helga Braun, Richard Mortimer
ISBN:: 9780198221722
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198221722.001.0001
Published in print:: 1992
Published Online:: 2011-10-03

This is a revised and updated edition of a major history of an important period in German and European history, starting with the accession of Henry IV to the German throne in 1056, taking in the reign of the energetic and successful Frederick Barbarossa (1152–90), and culminating with the election of Rudolf Habsburg, who reimposed order following the fall of the Hohenstaufens. The German empire stretched from Rome to Pomerania, and from Hainaut to Silesia; its history is of major significance for the politics of Europe, for the expansion of Latin Christendom, and for the fortunes of the Papacy. Every aspect of its internal life is covered: economic growth and population increase, education, trade and industry, the church and religious life. Political development and accompanying social changes are examined and placed in their European context. This book provides a guide to the complex and generally unfamiliar history of medieval Germany.

Medieval Frontier Societies

Robert Bartlett and Angus MacKay — 2011-10-03

Author:: RobertBartlettUniversity of ChicagoAngusMacKayUniversity of Edinburgh
ISBN:: 9780198203612
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198203612.001.0001
Published in print:: 1992
Published Online:: 2011-10-03

This study of the nature of frontiers and frontier societies in the Middle Ages focuses on those between England and Scotland, Wales and Ireland, Castile and Granada, and on the Elbe. It examines the consequences for frontier societies of being located in areas of cross-cultural contact, and often confrontation. Institutions, expectations, and even local family structures are shown to have been products of an environment of long-term and ubiquitous fighting. But, devices also developed in frontier societies for mediation, arbitration, and negotiation. Interaction between different religions, laws, languages, and mores, was often hostile, but could sometimes be flexible — responses which are reflected, for example, in the literature and poetry of the areas involved. This comparative study throws light on our thinking about frontiers, and fills a gap in the history of medieval Europe.

The Medieval Expansion of Europe

J. R. S. Phillips — 2011-10-03

Author:: J. R. S. Phillips
ISBN:: 9780198207405
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198207405.001.0001
Published in print:: 1998
Published Online:: 2011-10-03

Between the year 1000 and the middle of the 14th century a remarkable series of events unfolded as Europeans made contact with a substantial part of the inhabited world, much of it never previously known to or suspected by them. Leif Ericsson and other Vikings from Greenland discovered North America; European crusading armies established themselves in Syria and Palestine; Marco Polo and other Italian merchants, and missionaries such as John of Monte Corvino penetrated the dominions of the Mongol great Khans as far as China; the Vivaldi brothers sought to open a sea route to India; Jaime Ferrer was lured by dreams of locating the source of West African gold; and the Atlantic island groups, the canaries, Madeira, and the Azores, were all discovered. This is the second edition of this text and includes a new Foreword and Conclusion, as well as a bibliographical essay, surveying recent work in what is becoming a thriving area of research.

The Medieval Crown of Aragon

Thomas N. Bisson — 2011-10-03

Author:: Thomas N. Bisson
ISBN:: 9780198202363
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198202363.001.0001
Published in print:: 1991
Published Online:: 2011-10-03

This book surveys this history of a great Mediterranean federation whose homelands were Catalonia and Aragon. Based on recent research, it seeks to convey a sense of the energy, drama, and colour of a creative and expansionist people between the 12th and the 15th centuries. This book lays due stress on individual achievement and personality, while at the same time providing a balanced survey of political and dynastic evolution, institutional foundations, economic and cultural matters, and the socio-economic weaknesses which led eventually to a crisis in the federated realms of the late Middle Ages.

Medicine and Religion c.1300

Joseph Ziegler — 2011-10-03

Author:: Joseph Ziegler
ISBN:: 9780198207269
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History, History of Religion
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198207269.001.0001
Published in print:: 1998
Published Online:: 2011-10-03

This book takes a fresh look at the cultural role of medicine among learned people around 1300. It was at this time that learned medicine came to be fully incorporated into the academic system and began to win greater social acceptance. The author argues that physicians and clerics did not confine the role of medicine to its physical therapeutic function, and that fusion rather than disjunction characterised the relationship between medicine and religion at that time. Much of this argument relies on language analysis and on a close study of unedited manuscript sources. By juxtaposing the spiritual writings and the medical output of two learned physicians — Arnau de Vilanova (c. 1238–1311) and Galvano da Levanto (fl. 1300) — the author shows that they saw a medical purpose, namely to ensure the spiritual health of their audience and to reveal the mysteries of God and creation. When entering the spiritual realm, both brought to it a medical framework and extended their medical knowledge and curative activities from body to soul. By examining preachers' manuals and sermons, the author suggests that a growing tendency emerged among clerics in general and preachers in particular to appropriate current medical knowledge for spiritual purposes and to substantiate their extensive use of medical metaphors, analogies, and exempla by citing specific medical authorities.

The Measure of Multitude

Peter Biller — 2011-10-03

Author:: Peter Biller
ISBN:: 9780199265596
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History, History of Ideas
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199265596.001.0001
Published in print:: 2003
Published Online:: 2011-10-03

By 1300, medieval men and women were beginning to measure multitude, counting, for example, numbers of boys and girls being baptized. Their mental capacity to grapple with population, to get its measure, was developing and this book describes how medieval people thought about population through both the texts which contained their thought and the medieval realities which shaped it. They found many topics, such as the history of population and variations between polygamy, monogamy and virginity, through theology. Crusade and travel literature supplied the themes of Muslim polygamy, military numbers, the colonization of the Holy Land, and the populations of Mongolia and China. Translations of Aristotle provided not only new themes but also a new vocabulary with which to think about population. This book challenges the view that medieval thought was fundamentally abstract. It investigates medieval thought's capacity to deal with concrete contemporary realities, and sets academic discussions of population alongside the medieval facts of ‘birth, and copulation, and death’.

Lucca 1430–1494

M. E. Bratchel — 2011-10-03

Author:: M. E. Bratchel
ISBN:: 9780198204848
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198204848.001.0001
Published in print:: 1995
Published Online:: 2011-10-03

This book provides a scholarly history of Lucca in the 15th century, from the overthrow of the Guinigi despotism to the beginning of the French invasion of Italy. Thoroughly grounded in the archives, the study covers a wide range of important themes and topics in Lucchese history. The book explores both the politics and the economy of the city, examining city governance and relations with its subject communities. It sets Lucca in its regional context as an important city-republic and as a neighbour of the large and powerful city of Florence.

Lordship, Kingship, and Empire

J. H. Burns — 2011-10-03

Author:: J. H. Burns
ISBN:: 9780198202066
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198202066.001.0001
Published in print:: 1992
Published Online:: 2011-10-03

This is a study of the ideology of monarchy in late medieval Europe. In the 15th and early 16th centuries, European monarchies faced a series of crises and conflicts, which gave rise to intense debate as to the nature and authority of monarchy in its various forms. From such debates and polemics emerged many of the ideas that were to sustain the later confrontation between ‘absolutism’ and ‘constitutionalism’. This book examines the ideas generated by various crises of monarchy in France, England, the Spanish kingdoms, and what still claimed to be the ‘universal’ monarchies of Empire and Papacy.

A Hound of God

Jean Dunbabin — 2011-10-03

Author:: Jean Dunbabin
ISBN:: 9780198222910
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History, History of Religion
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198222910.001.0001
Published in print:: 1991
Published Online:: 2011-10-03

Pierre de la Palud was a friar of aristocratic birth who was appointed Patriarch of Jerusalem in 1329. This biography follows the course of his eventful life, and exploits his copious writings to build up a vivid picture of the man and the world he inhabited. Lawyer, advocate, preacher, reformer, theologian, politician, encyclopedist, crusader – Pierre was all of these, and the voice of each can be heard in his writing. This book traces the career of Pierre de la Palud from his early reflections on contemporary moral issues – including papal prerogatives, contraception, and usury – to his political and diplomatic activities as Patriarch of Jerusalem. From Dominican friar to French courtier, the variety of Pierre's experience and the range of his writings reflect the turbulence of the fourteenth-century Christian church.

History and the Historians of Medieval Spain

Peter Linehan — 2011-10-03

Author:: Peter Linehan
ISBN:: 9780198219453
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198219453.001.0001
Published in print:: 1993
Published Online:: 2011-10-03

This is a study of medieval Spain and its historians, from the chroniclers of the middle ages to the revisionists of the post-Franco era. The history of medieval Spain has long been perceived as a tale of original sin followed by a long-drawn-out process of atonement. This book traces the development of that perception. It is a formidably researched tour de force, which reveals history in the making during the eight hundred years which separated the end of the Roman period from what is now described as the birth of the modern state. In the differing aspirations of the inventors of the past both then and now — from the restoration of Toledo's Visigothic hegemony in the 1240s to the feudalization of medieval Castile and the sacralization of its kings since the death of Franco — an underlying sense of purpose emerges. In their contest for control of the present through mastery of the past, and the expression of their local loyalties, the historians of the seventh to the fourteenth centuries and the authors of the False Chronicles in the early 1600s have their counterparts in the contemporary Spain of the autonomias.

Goths and Romans 332–489

Peter Heather — 2011-10-03

Author:: Peter Heather
ISBN:: 9780198205357
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198205357.001.0001
Published in print:: 1994
Published Online:: 2011-10-03

This book examines the collision of Goths and Romans in the fourth and fifth centuries. In these years Gothic tribes played a major role in the destruction of the western half of the Roman Empire, establishing successor states in southern France and Spain (the Visigoths) and in Italy (the Ostrogoths). Our understanding of the Goths in this ‘Migration Period’ has been based upon the Gothic historian Jordanes, whose mid-sixth-century Getica suggests that the Visigoths and Ostrogoths entered the Empire already established as coherent groups and simply conquered new territories. Using more contemporary sources, the author is able to show that, on the contrary, Visigoths and Ostrogoths were new and unprecedentedly large social groupings, and that many Gothic societies failed even to survive the upheavals of the Migration Period. This study explores the complicated interactions with Roman power, which both prompted the creation of the Visigoths and Ostrogoths around newly emergent dynasties and helped bring about the fall of the Roman Empire.

France in the Making 843–1180

Jean Dunbabin — 2011-10-03

Author:: Jean Dunbabin
ISBN:: 9780198208464
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198208464.001.0001
Published in print:: 2000
Published Online:: 2011-10-03

Covering the centuries between the disintegration of the Carolingian empire and the rise of the French monarchy, this book traces the long period of gestation that ended with the emergence of the kingdom of France as a recognizable political entity capable of inspiring the loyalty of its peoples. It describes the emergence in the late ninth and tenth centuries of principalities and lesser political units in which the personal qualities or resources of the rulers permitted them to command obedience. In the eleventh century, the threat of political fragmentation led princes to establish sounder theoretical foundations for their authority in legal and administrative procedures. The twelfth-century kings of France, hitherto little more than princes of the Ile-de-France, exploited the state-building activities of their princes to re-establish their own lordship over all the princes, counts, and bishops within their realm. At the same time, they contrived to identify themselves in their subjects, imaginations with the dawning sense of French community. By 1180, the kingdom of France was firmly established, both on the map of Europe and in the minds of its inhabitants.

Framing the Early Middle Ages

Chris Wickham — 2011-10-03

Author:: Chris Wickham
ISBN:: 9780199264490
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199264490.001.0001
Published in print:: 2005
Published Online:: 2011-10-03

The Roman empire tends to be seen as a whole whereas the early middle ages tends to be seen as a collection of regional histories, roughly corresponding to the land-areas of modern nation states. As a result, early medieval history is much more fragmented. In recent decades, the rise of early medieval archaeology has also transformed our source-base, but this has not been adequately integrated into analyses of documentary history in almost any country. This book integrates documentary and archaeological evidence together, and provides a history of the period 400—800, by means of systematic comparative analyses of each of the regions of the latest Roman and immediately post-Roman world, from Denmark to Egypt (only the Slav areas are left out). The book concentrates on classic socio-economic themes, state finance, the wealth and identity of the aristocracy, estate management, peasant society, rural settlement, cities, and exchange. These are only a partial picture of the period, but they are intended as a framing for other developments, without which those other developments cannot be properly understood. The book argues that only a complex comparative analysis can act as the basis for a wider synthesis. The book takes all different developments as typical, and constructs a synthesis based on a better understanding of difference and the reasons for it.

Europe after Rome

Julia M.H. Smith — 2011-10-03

Author:: Julia M.H. Smith
ISBN:: 9780192892638
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780192892638.001.0001
Published in print:: 2007
Published Online:: 2011-10-03

This book offers an integrated appraisal of the early Middle Ages as a dynamic and formative period in European history. It makes use of original sources to introduce early medieval men and women at all levels of society from slave to emperor, and allows them to speak in their own words. It overturns traditional narratives and instead offers a fresh approach to the centuries from ad500 to ad1000. Rejecting any notion of a dominant, uniform early medieval culture, it argues that the fundamental characteristic of the early middle ages is diversity of experience. To explain how the men and women who lived in this period ordered their world in cultural, social, and political terms, it employs a methodology combining cultural history, regional studies, and gender history. Ranging comparatively from Ireland to Hungary and from Scotland and Scandinavia to Spain and Italy, the analysis highlights three themes: regional variation, power, and the legacy of Rome. Collectively, the book's chapters establish the complex cultural realities which distinguished Europe in the period between the end of the central institutions of the western Roman empire in the 5th century and the emergence of a Rome-centred papal monarchy from the late 11th century onwards. In the context of debates about the social, religious, and cultural meaning of ‘Europe’ in the early 21st century, this books seeks the origins of European cultural pluralism and diversity in the early Middle Ages.

Defenders of the Holy Land

Jonathan Phillips — 2011-10-03

Author:: Jonathan Phillips
ISBN:: 9780198205401
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198205401.001.0001
Published in print:: 1996
Published Online:: 2011-10-03

The triumph of the First Crusade (1095–1099) led to the establishment of a Latin Christian community in the Levant. Remarkably, despite growing pressure from the neighbouring Muslim powers, and the failure of the Second Crusade (1145–49), the settlers were able to occupy Jerusalem and substantial areas of what are now Israel, Syria, and the Lebanon for over three-quarters of a century. It was the fall of Jerusalem to Saladin in 1187 which precipitated the famous Third Crusade dominated by Richard the Lionheart. This is the first systematic investigation of the settlers' attempts to seek support for their vital role as guardians of the Holy Land. The book draws together a disparate range of evidence to show how they turned to western Europe, and to a lesser extent Byzantium, for help. As attitudes and strategies evolved, the settlers' approach became increasingly sophisticated, peaking during the reign of King Amalric of Jerusalem (1163–74), when diplomatic activity was particularly intense. The book also investigates the attitude of King Henry II of England towards the crusades, and the effects of the Becket dispute on western responses to the needs of the Holy Land. The study demonstrates that contact between the Latin East and the West was far more complex than previously believed, and exposes for the first time the range and scale of the settlers' efforts to maintain Christian control of the Holy Land.

Death and the Prince

D. L. d'Avray — 2011-10-03

Author:: D. L. d'Avray
ISBN:: 9780198203964
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History, History of Religion
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198203964.001.0001
Published in print:: 1994
Published Online:: 2011-10-03

This book is a study of medieval de mortuis sermons in memory of kings and princes. It examines medieval kingship and attitudes to death, and identifies a period in which this-worldly and other-worldly interests were held in a relatively stable equilibrium. This book's conclusions are based on unpublished medieval sermons from 14th-century Europe. After an outline of the genre's development, the book argues that the portrayal of individual personalities seemed to convey a message about kingship. The message is shown to be much the same as that of 15th-century humanist preaching so far as the ‘external goods’ of wealth and nobility are concerned. Aristotelian influence enhances the secular character of the ideology. The secularity, however, is harmoniously balanced by a more predictable emphasis on death and the afterlife. Furthermore, in drawing this balance the sermons are representative of an outlook widely current in the real world of a 14th-century kingship.

Community and Clientele in Twelfth-Century Tuscany

Chris Wickham — 2011-10-03

Author:: Chris Wickham
ISBN:: 9780198207047
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198207047.001.0001
Published in print:: 1998
Published Online:: 2011-10-03

This book addresses a gap in Italian historiography by examining rural rather than city communes. In recent years, historians have increasingly focused on local and regional studies of village communities as a way of understanding medieval European history. This discussion of a group of villages around Lucca is the first detailed study of the origin of organized village communities in Italy for over seventy years, showing how the social and political structures of the countryside ran alongside those of the city. The author analyses how local politics took recognizable shape as its ruling structures gradually emerged over time. His argument does not end there, and indeed extends beyond Italy to France and Spain, providing sustained comparisons of rural development and social organization. The result is a rare combination of systematic local analysis and wide synthesis, aimed at illuminating the whole area of social transformation in twelfth-century Europe.

The Common Good in Late Medieval Political Thought

M. S. Kempshall — 2011-10-03

Author:: M. S. Kempshall
ISBN:: 9780198207160
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History, History of Ideas
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198207160.001.0001
Published in print:: 1999
Published Online:: 2011-10-03

This study offers a major reinterpretation of medieval political thought by examining one of its most fundamental ideas. If it was axiomatic that the goal of human society should be the common good, then this notion presented at least two conceptual alternatives. Did it embody the highest moral ideals of happiness and the life of virtue, or did it represent the more pragmatic benefits of peace and material security? Political thinkers from Thomas Aquinas to William of Ockham answered this question in various contexts. In theoretical terms, they were reacting to the rediscovery of Aristotle's Politics and Ethics, an event often seen as pivotal in the history of political thought. On a practical level, they were faced with pressing concerns over the exercise of both temporal and ecclesiastical authority — resistance to royal taxation and opposition to the jurisdiction of the pope. In establishing the connections between these different contexts, this book questions the identification of Aristotle as the primary catalyst for the emergence of ‘the individual’ and a ‘secular’ theory of the state. Through a detailed exposition of scholastic political theology, it argues that the roots of any such developments should be traced, instead, to Augustine and the Bible.

The Cloister and the World

John Blair and Brian Golding — 2011-10-03

Author:: JohnBlairThe Queen's College, OxfordBrianGoldingUniversity of Southampton
ISBN:: 9780198204404
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198204404.001.0001
Published in print:: 1996
Published Online:: 2011-10-03

This book's chapters honour a distinguished scholar best known for her work on late medieval economy, demography, and estate management, and on the monastic community at Westminster. The uniting theme is the imprint of the church, especially the monastic church, upon society at large. The breadth of contributions range from the 8th to 16th centuries, with an emphasis on the later middle ages, looking at urban religion, monastic education, and the role of religious communities in stimulating economic growth. Westminster Abbey figures prominently, alongside chapters on the effects of the Dissolution on nunneries, the role of sanctuary in local communities, and on individuals such as Matthew Paris and Robert of Knaresborough whose lives reveal much about medieval England. In a worthy tribute to a great medievalist, the chapters show us a world where the influence of the cloister reached into almost every aspect of daily life.

Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe

Richard Kaeuper — 2011-10-03

Author:: Richard Kaeuper
ISBN:: 9780199244584
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199244584.001.0001
Published in print:: 2001
Published Online:: 2011-10-03

Medieval Europe was a rapidly developing society with a problem of violent disorder. This study reveals that chivalry was just as much a part of this problem as it was its solution. Chivalry praised heroic violence by knights, and fused such displays of prowess with honour, piety, high status, and attractiveness to women. Though the vast body of chivalric literature praised chivalry as necessary to civilization, most texts also worried over knightly violence, criticized the ideals and practices of chivalry, and often proposed reforms. The knights themselves joined the debate, absorbing some reforms, ignoring others, sometimes proposing their own. The interaction of chivalry with major governing institutions (‘church’ and ‘state’) emerging at that time was similarly complex: kings and clerics both needed and feared the force of the knighthood. This book lays bare the conflicts and paradoxes which surrounded the concept of chivalry in medieval Europe.

Byzantium and the Crusader States 1096–1204

Ralph-Johannes Lilie, J. C. Morris, and Jean E. Ridings — 2011-10-03

Author:: Ralph-Johannes Lilie, J. C. Morris, Jean E. Ridings
ISBN:: 9780198204077
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198204077.001.0001
Published in print:: 1994
Published Online:: 2011-10-03

This book is a study of the relations between Byzantium and the Crusader States of Syria and Palestine. The author sets out to explore the policies and principles that shaped contacts between the Eastern Empire, the Crusader States, and the nations of Western Europe whence the Crusaders came. He traces the actions of the Byzantine Emperors in the twelfth century as they sought to keep control of the crusading armies within their territories and to maintain their positions with respect to the West, and shows how mutual suspicion and attempts at co-operation ended in enmity.

Authority and Asceticism from Augustine to Gregory the Great

Conrad Leyser — 2011-10-03

Author:: Conrad Leyser
ISBN:: 9780198208686
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198208686.001.0001
Published in print:: 2000
Published Online:: 2011-10-03

This book examines the formation of the Christian ascetic tradition in the western Roman Empire during the period of the barbarian invasions, c.400–600. In an aggressively competitive political context, one of the most articulate claims to power was made, paradoxically, by men who had renounced ‘the world’, committing themselves to a life of spiritual discipline in the hope of gaining entry to an otherworldly kingdom. Often dismissed as mere fanaticism or open hypocrisy, the language of ascetic authority, the book shows, was both carefully honed and well understood in the late Roman and early medieval Mediterranean. It charts the development of this new moral rhetoric by abbots, teachers, and bishops from the time of Augustine of Hippo to that of St Benedict and Gregory the Great.

Alfonso the Magnanimous

Alan Ryder — 2011-10-03

Author:: Alan Ryder
ISBN:: 9780198219545
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198219545.001.0001
Published in print:: 1990
Published Online:: 2011-10-03

This is a biography of one of the most brilliant 15th century monarchs, Alfonso V of Aragon, who won from his contemporaries the title ‘the Magnanimous’. The book follows him from childhood in the chivalric world of Castile, to the newly-acquired states of Aragon, and his subsequent accession to the Aragonese throne. Pulled by powerful dynastic interests towards intervention in the turbulent world of Castilian politics, Alfonso eventually broke free to pursue his own ambitions in the central Mediterranean. Here he conquered Naples, bent the papacy to his will, broke the power of Genoa and planted his standards against Turkish advance in the Balkans. The book shows that Alfonso was also a shrewd politician, who made himself at home in the diplomatic jungle of Renaissance Italy, a merchant prince acutely aware of the power of commerce and one of the greatest patrons of the early Renaissance. Alfonso the Magnanimous brought humanism to life in Southern Italy, and made his court the most brilliant in Europe. Based on extensive archival research, this biography of Alfonso also covers political and cultural developments during his reign.

The Proprietary Church in the Medieval West

Susan Wood — 2011-05-01

Author:: Susan Wood
ISBN:: 9780198206972
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History, History of Religion
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198206972.001.0001
Published in print:: 2006
Published Online:: 2011-05-01

This book studies the proprietary church with coverage of most of Western Europe, from the end of the Roman Empire in the West to about 1200. The book provides a broad survey in varying degrees of intensity and with a shifting geographical focus; and it asks questions that are as much social and religious as legal or administrative. The book vindicates, for village and estate churches, Ulrich Stutz's basic concept of a church with its possessions, revenues, and priestly office as an object of what we can reasonably call property. However, it largely rejects his and his followers' application of this to great churches, and sees the position of intermediate churches (such as small or middling monasteries) as various, changeable, and ambivalent. Above all, it turns away from Stutz's view of the property relationship as a distinct institution or system of ‘Germanic church law’, presenting it rather as a fluid set of assumptions and practices taking shape as customary law.

Peaceful Kings

Paul Kershaw — 2011-05-01

Author:: Paul Kershaw
ISBN:: 9780198208709
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198208709.001.0001
Published in print:: 2011
Published Online:: 2011-05-01

In Rome on Christmas Day 800 Charlemagne, the Frankish king, was acclaimed ‘most August, crowned by God, great and peacemaking emperor’. This event transformed the nature of his rule, marked the re‐emergence of the ideas of empire in the early medieval West, and changed the history of western monarchy. But why was Charlemagne acclaimed as a peacemaking emperor? How had peace come to be seen as a central component of western European rulership? Drawing upon a wealth of contemporary sources, this study explores the image of peaceful rulership in western Europe from the earliest phase of post‐Roman polities – Vandal Africa, Gibichung Burgundy, Ostrogothic Italy – to the Carolingian and Anglo‐Saxon worlds. From poems celebrating Vandal baths that evoked Stoic concepts of cosmic order to seventh‐century Visigothic poetry and early Irish theorizing on the ideal ruler, this book offers a comprehensive vision of how the relationship between ideas of kingship and peace was explored through poetry, political thought, ritual, and the writing of history across Europe in the early Middle Ages. Peace emerges in these centuries as a concern for kings and emperors, their celebrants, critics, and advisors. It was no less an issue for those whom they ruled. From prayers for safe travel and blessings for new houses through to medieval pilgrim accounts praising the surprising security of ninth‐century Egypt's roads, this study asks what peace meant to early medieval people, and how collective expectations and royal intentions met. This is the first full scholarly exploration of the relationship between the idea of peace and rulership through Europe's formative centuries, setting the shifting terms of that relationship in their full historical, political, and cultural context. In the process it offers new insights to the reception of late antique thought and imagery in the earlier Middle Ages, the range and distinctiveness of early medieval political thought, and the intellectual vitality of the period AD 500 to 900.

An Empire of Memory

Matthew Gabriele — 2011-05-01

Author:: Matthew Gabriele
ISBN:: 9780199591442
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History, History of Religion
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199591442.001.0001
Published in print:: 2011
Published Online:: 2011-05-01

Beginning shortly after his death in 814, the inhabitants of Charlemagne's historical empire looked back upon his reign and saw in it an exemplar of Christian universality—Christendom. They mapped contemporary Christendom onto the past and so, during the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries, the borders of his empire grew with each retelling, almost always including the Christian East. Although the pull of Jerusalem on the West seems to have been strong during the eleventh century, it had a more limited effect on the Charlemagne legend. Instead, the legend grew during this period because of a peculiar fusion of ideas, carried forward from the ninth century but filtered through the social, cultural, and intellectual developments of the intervening years. Paradoxically, what happened was that Charlemagne became less important to the Charlemagne legend. The legend became a story about the Frankish people, who believed they had held God's favor under Charlemagne and held out hope that they could one day reclaim their special place in sacred history. Indeed, popular versions of the Last Emperor legend, which spoke of a great ruler who would reunite Christendom in preparation for the last battle between good and evil, promised just this to the Franks. Ideas of empire, identity, and Christian religious violence were potent reagents. The mixture of these ideas could remind men of their Frankishness and move them, for example, to take up arms, march to the East, and reclaim their place as defenders of the faith during the First Crusade.

Manors and Markets

Bas van Bavel — 2010-05-01

Author:: Bas van Bavel
ISBN:: 9780199278664
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199278664.001.0001
Published in print:: 2010
Published Online:: 2010-05-01

The Low Countries—an area roughly embracing the present‐day Netherlands and Belgium—formed a patchwork of varied economic and social development in the Middle Ages, with some regions displaying a remarkable dynamism. Manors and Market charts the history of these vibrant economies and societies, and contrasts them with alternative paths of development, from the early medieval period to the beginning of the seventeenth century. Providing a concise overview of social and economic changes over more than a thousand years, Bas van Bavel assesses the impact of the social and institutional organization that saw the Low Countries become the most urbanized and densely populated part of Europe by the end of the Middle Ages. By delving into the early and high medieval history of society, van Bavel uncovers the foundations of the flourishing of the medieval Flemish towns and the forces that propelled Holland towards its Golden Age. Exploring the Low Countries at a regional level, van Bavel highlights the importance of localized structures for determining the nature of social transitions and economic growth. He assesses the role of manorial organization, the emergence of markets, the rise of towns, the quest for self‐determination by ordinary people, and the sharp regional differences in development that can be observed in the very long run. In doing so, the book offers a significant contribution to the debate about the causes of economic and social change, both past and present.

Sumptuary Law in Italy 1200-1500

Catherine Kovesi Killerby — 2010-01-01

Author:: Catherine Kovesi Killerby
ISBN:: 9780199247936
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199247936.001.0001
Published in print:: 2002
Published Online:: 2010-01-01

The luxurious spending habits of Italians in the Renaissance are well known. The new luxury, however, was not greeted with universal approval, and chroniclers, poets, churchmen, and statesmen were often critical of, and preoccupied by, its effects. The most voluminous and telling evidence of this preoccupation is the body of laws enacted to restrict and regulate all aspects of luxury consumption — the so-called sumptuary laws. This book offers the first comprehensive study of Italian sumptuary laws through a chronological, geographical, and thematic survey of more than three hundred laws enacted in over forty cities throughout the peninsula. It examines the nature of these laws up to 1500 and relates them to the circumstances, the framework of ideas and the habits of mind that gave rise to them.

Religious Warfare in Europe 1400-1536

Norman Housley — 2010-01-01

Author:: Norman Housley
ISBN:: 9780199552283
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199552283.001.0001
Published in print:: 2008
Published Online:: 2010-01-01

This book describes and analyzes warfare that sprang from and was driven by religious belief, in the period from the Hussite wars to the first generation of the Reformation. The focus is on a number of key theatres. At times warfare between national communities was shaped by convictions of ‘sacred patriotism’, either in defending God-given land or in the pursuit of messianic programmes abroad. Insurrectionary activity, especially when fuelled by apocalyptic expectations, was a second important type of religious war. In the 1420s and early 1430s the Hussites waged war successfully in defence of what they believed to be ‘God's Law’. And some frontier communities depicted their struggle against non-believers as religious war by reference to crusading ideas and habits of thought. The book explores what these conflicts had in common in the ways the combatants perceived their own role, their demonization of their opponents, and the ongoing critique of religious war in all its forms. The author assesses the interaction between crusade and religious war in the broader sense, and argues that the religious violence of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was organic, to the extent that it sprang from deeply-rooted proclivities within European society.

Power and Property in Medieval Germany

Benjamin Arnold — 2010-01-01

Author:: Benjamin Arnold
ISBN:: 9780199272211
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199272211.001.0001
Published in print:: 2004
Published Online:: 2010-01-01

This book takes a fresh look at the problems posed by power and property in a medieval society, in this case the German kingdom. In a series of interrelated studies covering the period 700–1500, but concentrating on the 10th to 13th centuries, it explores the social and economic changes that influenced the real lives of people living in Germany. A number of themes are examined, including the kind of society that emerged along the Rhine and to the east of it in a period when it was hard to identify a Germany; the complex relationship between peasant and lord; the finances and resources of the German crown, the largest single landowner; the social and economic impact of the urban milieu with its towns large and small; and the entanglement of Church and aristocracy. While medieval people did not share mercantilist or post-Adam Smith concepts of economic forces at work in society, this book fruitfully applies the ideas and rationalisations of modern economics to medieval evidence, leading, at times, to unexpected conclusions.

The Pilgrimage of Grace and the Politics of the 1530s

R. W. Hoyle — 2010-01-01

Author:: R. W. Hoyle
ISBN:: 9780198208747
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198208747.001.0001
Published in print:: 2001
Published Online:: 2010-01-01

This is the first full account of the Pilgrimage of Grace since 1915. In the autumn and winter of 1536, Henry VIII faced risings first in Lincolnshire, then throughout northern England. These rebellions posed the greatest threat of any encountered by a Tudor monarch. The Pilgrimage of Grace has traditionally been assumed to have been a spontaneous protest against the Dissolution of the Monasteries, but this lively and intriguing study reveals the full story. The book examines the origins of the rebellions in Louth and their spread; it offers new interpretations of the behaviour of many of the leading rebels, including Robert Aske and Thomas Darcy. It also reveals how the engine behind the uprising was the commons, and notably the artisans, of some of the smaller northern towns. Casting new light on the personality of Henry VIII himself, it shows how the gentry of the North worked to dismantle the movement and help the crown neutralise it by guile as events unfolded towards their often tragic conclusions.

A Nation upon the Ocean Sea

Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert — 2010-01-01

Author:: Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert
ISBN:: 9780195175691
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195175691.001.0001
Published in print:: 2007
Published Online:: 2010-01-01

With the opening of sea routes in the 15th century, groups of men and women left Portugal to establish themselves across the ports and cities of the Atlantic or Ocean Sea. They were refugees and migrants, traders and mariners, Jews, Catholics, and the Marranos of mixed Judaic-Catholic culture. They formed a diasporic community known by contemporaries as the Portuguese Nation. By the early 17th century, this nation without a state had created a remarkable trading network that spanned the Atlantic, reached into the Indian Ocean and Asia, and generated millions of pesos that were used to bankroll the Spanish Empire. This book traces the story of the Portuguese Nation from its emergence in the late 15th century to its fragmentation in the middle of the 17th, and situates it in relation to the parallel expansion and crisis of Spanish imperial dominion in the Atlantic. Against the backdrop of this relationship, the book reconstitutes the rich inner life of a community based on movement, maritime trade, and cultural hybridity. We are introduced to mariners and traders in such disparate places as Lima, Seville and Amsterdam, their day-to-day interactions and understandings, their houses and domestic relations, private reflections and public arguments. This account reveals how the Portuguese Nation created a cohesive and meaningful community despite the mobility and dispersion of its members; how its forms of sociability fed into the development of robust transatlantic commercial networks; and how the day-to-day experience of trade was translated into the sphere of Spanish imperial politics as merchants of the Portuguese Nation took up the pen to advocate a program of commercial reform based on religious-ethnic toleration and the liberalization of trade.

Monasteries and Patrons in the Gorze Reform

John Nightingale — 2010-01-01

Author:: John Nightingale
ISBN:: 9780198208358
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198208358.001.0001
Published in print:: 2001
Published Online:: 2010-01-01

This book explores the prominent role of monasteries in the early medieval period and their relationship to the nobility in Lotharingia throughout the 9th and 10th centuries. It focuses on the evidence from three of the region's greatest abbeys — Gorze, Saint-Maximin, and Saint-Evre — which played a central role in the monastic reform movement. This swept through the region in the 930s and is commonly named after Gorze. Set within the context of the whole social structure and exercise of regional power in the early middle ages, this book demonstrates the vitality and importance of monasteries, focusing on their land transaction as well as their religious roles. Accepted notions of monastic lordship are challenged and the complexity of the two-way relationships between monasteries and their patrons, relationships which ensured the former a central place in the early medieval landscape, is discussed.

Marsilius of Padua and 'the Truth of History'

George Garnett — 2010-01-01

Author:: George Garnett
ISBN:: 9780199291564
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, History of Ideas, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199291564.001.0001
Published in print:: 2006
Published Online:: 2010-01-01

Marsilius of Padua is conventionally considered to be ahead of his time as the first secular political theorist, the first post-classical thinker to espouse republicanism, and a scholastic precursor of the civic humanists of the renaissance. This book attempts to overturn this view, by advancing the first historical interpretation of Marsilius's thought. It examines the neglected evidence for Marsilius's life, and for contemporary responses to his best-known work, Defensor Pacis. Particular attention is given to the second discourse of the Defensor, which tends to receive short shrift in modern scholarly discussions; detailed comparison is also made with Marsilius's lesser-known works. The book argues that Marsilius was not a republican, but an imperialist, and a loyal servant of Ludwig IV, rex Romanorum and claimant to the imperial title. Far from being a precocious work of secular political theory, the Defensor Pacis is an anti-papal polemic underpinned by a profound Christian understanding of history as a providentially ordained process. In this process Marsilius attributes great significance to the conversion of the Emperor Constantine, as the point when the church founded by Christ and the Roman Empire began to coalesce.

Governing Passions

Mark Greengrass — 2010-01-01

Author:: Mark Greengrass
ISBN:: 9780199214907
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199214907.001.0001
Published in print:: 2007
Published Online:: 2010-01-01

The French kingdom dissolved into civil wars, known as the ‘wars of religion’, for a generation from 1562 to 1598. This book examines the reactions of France's governing groups to that experience. Their major political endeavour was securing peace, which they attempted to achieve through a religious pluralism not envisaged in any other state on this scale in this period. Its achievement would only be fulfilled, however, alongside a reform of the kingdom's institutions and society. Peace and social reform went hand in hand — a moral agenda for restoration. France's notables drew on reservoirs of classical and Christian moral philosophy and wisdom to find practical answers to the difficult problems of governance that confronted them. The resulting public introspection and vocal debates are difficult to match anywhere else in Europe at this time. They were an essential part of the profound sense of crisis that France's governing elites experienced during the later 16th century. This book analyses the debates at the Estates General of Blois (1576–1577) and the Assembly of Notables at Saint-Germain-en-Laye of 1583–1584. It shows the French polity in a fresh light, presenting major issues of political thought in their public and practical context. It also re-examines the crucial and little understood reign of Henry III, the last ruler of the Valois monarchy, suggesting how Bourbon France could have emerged very differently from the civil wars of the late 16th century.

The Counter-Reformation in Central Europe

Regina Pörtner — 2010-01-01

Author:: Regina Pörtner
ISBN:: 9780199246151
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199246151.001.0001
Published in print:: 2001
Published Online:: 2010-01-01

This is an account of religious belief and conflict in the strategically important province of Inner Austria between 1580 and 1630. It shows how Protestantisation in the first half of the 16th century was linked to communication with the Protestants of the rest of the Empire, and to the failure of ecclesiastical reform in the church province of Salzburg, of which Styria formed part. The Protestant success of 1578, however, proved deceptive because it lacked constitutional substance, and was defended by an inherently weak union of the Inner Austrian estates. The book analyses the aims, achievements, and shortcomings of the Habsburgs' confessional crusade in Styria, showing how although the progress of Protestantisation was reversed, the Counter-Reformation left an ambivalent legacy to the modern Austrian state.

The Conciliarist Tradition

Francis Oakley — 2010-01-01

Author:: Francis Oakley
ISBN:: 9780199541249
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, History of Ideas, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199541249.001.0001
Published in print:: 2008
Published Online:: 2010-01-01

In the early 15th century, the general council assembled at Constance and, representing the universal Church, put an end to the scandalous schism which for almost forty years had divided the Latin Church between rival lines of claimants to the papal office. It did so by claiming and exercising an authority superior to that of the pope, an authority by virtue of which it could impose constitutional limits on the exercise of his prerogatives, stand in judgement over him, and if need be, depose him for wrongdoing. In so acting, the council gave historic expression to a tradition of conciliarist constitutionalism that long competed for the allegiance of Catholics worldwide with the high papalist monarchical vision that was destined to triumph in 1870 at Vatican I and to become identified with Roman Catholic orthodoxy itself. This book sets out to reconstruct the half-millennial history of that vanquished rival tradition.

The Carmelites and Antiquity

Andrew Jotischky — 2010-01-01

Author:: Andrew Jotischky
ISBN:: 9780198206347
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198206347.001.0001
Published in print:: 2002
Published Online:: 2010-01-01

The Carmelite Order began when a group of hermits settled in a regulated community on Mt Carmel in the kingdom of Jerusalem in the first decade of the 13th century. As the hermits began to found new houses across Christendom, they adopted mendicant practices and developed legendary traditions designed to extend their putative history back before 1200. The Carmelite historical legendary sought to associate generic eremitical monasticism and its Old Testament precursors with the Carmelite Order in order to claim that the Order, founded by Elijah, represented the oldest form of monasticism. This book examines the processes entailed in creating Carmelite history, analyses Carmelite historical narratives written between c.1280 and c.1530, and offers interpretations of the main techniques and arguments deployed in their construction. The wider context of historical writing in other religious orders is also considered, both for comparative purposes and to examine the reception of Carmelite arguments among contemporaries.

Orthodoxy and the Courts in Late Antiquity

Caroline Humfress — 2008-01-01

Author:: Caroline Humfress
ISBN:: 9780198208419
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198208419.001.0001
Published in print:: 2007
Published Online:: 2008-01-01

This book approaches the subject of late Roman law from the perspective of legal practice revealed in courtroom processes, as well as more ‘informal’ types of dispute settlement. From at least the early 4th century, leading bishops, ecclesiastics, and Christian polemicists participated in a vibrant culture of forensic argument with far-reaching effects on theological debate, the development of ecclesiastical authority, and the elaboration of early ‘Canon law’. One of the most innovative aspects of late Roman law was the creation and application of new legal categories used in the prosecution of ‘heretics’. Leading Christian polemicists not only used techniques of argument learnt in the late Roman rhetorical schools to help position the Church within the structure of Empire, they also used those techniques in cases involving accusations against ‘heretics’ — thus defining and developing the concept of Christian orthodoxy itself.

Church and Cosmos in Early Ottonian Germany

Henry Mayr-Harting — 2008-01-01

Author:: Henry Mayr-Harting
ISBN:: 9780199210718
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199210718.001.0001
Published in print:: 2007
Published Online:: 2008-01-01

Integrating the brilliant biography of Bruno, Archbishop of Cologne (953-65) and brother of Emperor Otto I, written by the otherwise obscure monk Ruotger, with the intellectual culture of Cologne Cathedral, this book provides a study of actual politics in conjunction with Ottonian ruler ethic. Our knowledge of Cologne intellectual activity in the period, apart from Ruotger, must be pieced together mainly from marginal annotations and glosses in surviving Cologne manuscripts, showing how and with what concerns some of the most important books of the Latin West were read in Bruno's and Ruotger's Cologne. These include Pope Gregory the Great's Letters, Prudentius's Psychomachia, Boethius's Arithmetic, and Martianus Capella's Marriage of Philology and Mercury. The writing in the margins of the manuscripts, besides enlarging our picture of thinking in Cologne in itself, can be drawn into comparison with the outlook of Ruotger. Exploring how distinctive Cologne was, compared with other centres, this book brings out an unexpectedly strong thread of Platonism in the 10th-century intellect. The book includes a critical edition of probably the earliest surviving, and hitherto unpublished, set of glosses to Boethius's Arithmetic, with an extensive study of their content.

The Wreck of Catalonia

Alan Ryder — 2007-09-01

Author:: Alan Ryder
ISBN:: 9780199207367
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199207367.001.0001
Published in print:: 2007
Published Online:: 2007-09-01

This book examines the fate that overtook the principality of Catalonia in the 15th century, reducing it from dominance within the state of Aragon to a marginal role in the Iberian power created by the union of Aragon and Castile. Part one studies the tensions destabilizing Catalonia: unrest among a peasantry resentful of outdated burdens; merchants and artisans struggling to wrest control of the towns from entrenched oligarchies; an aristocracy devoted to endless feuding; and a monarchy thrown into disarray by the extinction of the Catalan line and its replacement by a Castilian dynasty. In 1462, Catalonia degenerated into a civil war that lasted ten years. Part two seeks to explain how and why the king, Juan II, emerged victorious. The economic and military resources of the two camps, their tactics, and the lines along which Catalan society divided are examined. The book looks at the crucial part played by foreign powers in the conflict, who intervened on both sides until Juan turned the tables with his gamble on a Castilian crown for his heir, Fernando. The surrender of the insurgents in 1472 left Catalonia chaotic, devastated, and mired in many more years of war with France as Juan struggled to recover the territories he had surrendered in return for French aid. Catalonia was then helpless before Fernando, the Catholic King of Castile, who became ruler of Catalonia in 1479. The measures he imposed to restore order and subject the principality to the new ‘Spanish’ state are the theme of the final chapter. The events discussed have a continuing resonance in Spain today.

Medieval Marriage

David d'Avray — 2007-09-01

Author:: David d'Avray
ISBN:: 9780198208211
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198208211.001.0001
Published in print:: 2005
Published Online:: 2007-09-01

This study shows how marriage symbolism emerged from the world of texts to become a social force affecting ordinary people. The book covers the whole medieval period but identifies the decades around 1200 as decisive. New arguments for regarding preaching as a real mass medium in the period c.1200 onwards are presented, building on the author's Medieval Marriage Sermons (Oxford, 2001). In marriage sermons symbolism was crucial, but it also became a social force through law, and lay behind the combination of monogamy with indissolubility, which made the medieval Church's marriage system a unique development in world history. Symbolism is not presented as an explanation on its own: it interacted with other causal factors, notably the 11th-cenury Gregorian Reform's drive for celibacy, which made the higher clergy into a sort of ‘third gender’ and less sympathetic to patriarchal polygamous tendencies. Sexual intercourse as a symbol of Christ's union with the Church became central not just in mysticism but in society as structured by Canon Law. Marriage symbolism also explains some apparently bizarre rules such as the exemption from capital punishment of clerics in Minor Orders even if they were married — provided that they married a virgin not a widow, and that they did not remarry if their wife died. The rules about blessing second marriages are also connected with this nexus of thought. The book is based on a wide range of manuscript sources: sermons, canon law commentaries, Registers of the Apostolic Penitentiary, papal bulls, a Gaol Delivery roll, and pastoral handbooks.

Magic and Impotence in the Middle Ages

Catherine Rider — 2007-09-01

Author:: Catherine Rider
ISBN:: 9780199282227
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199282227.001.0001
Published in print:: 2006
Published Online:: 2007-09-01

This book investigates the common medieval belief that magic could cause impotence. Because impotence was a ground for annulling a marriage in medieval canon law, it received a large amount of discussion in the Middle Ages, and many of these discussions also described how impotence could be caused by magic. Chapters 1-4 trace the development of ideas about magically-caused impotence from the ancient world into the 12th century, arguing that medieval writers only gradually came to distinguish impotence magic from other forms of love magic. Chapters 5-9 then analyse the main kinds of sources which mentioned impotence magic in the late Middle Ages: magical texts, confession manuals, canon law commentaries, theology commentaries, and medicine. A comparison of these sources reveals that medieval writers held surprisingly diverse opinions about what magic was, how it worked, and whether it was ever legitimate to use it. Finally, in Chapter 10, the book shows how ideas about impotence magic were affected in the 15th century by new fears of demonic witchcraft. The book argues that many authors who discussed impotence magic were interested in popular magical practices, and so it acts as a case study of the relationship between elite and popular culture in the Middle Ages. It emphasizes the importance of the 13th-century pastoral reform movement, which sought to enforce more orthodox religious practices. This movement brought churchmen into contact with popular magic, and encouraged them to write about what they saw.

The Interdict in the Thirteenth Century

Peter D. Clarke — 2007-09-01

Author:: Peter D. Clarke
ISBN:: 9780199208609
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: History, European Medieval History
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199208609.001.0001
Published in print:: 2007
Published Online:: 2007-09-01

The interdict was an important and frequent event in medieval society. It was an ecclesiastical sanction which had the effect of closing churches and suspending religious services. Often imposed on an entire community because its leaders had violated the rights and laws of the Church, popes exploited it as a political weapon in their conflicts with secular rulers during the 13th century. This book examines this significant but neglected subject, presenting a wealth of new evidence drawn from manuscripts and archival sources. It begins by exploring the basic legal and moral problem raised by the interdict: how could a sanction that punished many for the sins of the few be justified? From the 12th-century, jurists and theologians argued that those who consented to the crimes of others shared in the responsibility and punishment for them. Hence, important questions are raised about medieval ideas of community, especially about the relationship between its head and members. The book goes on to explore how the interdict was meant to work according to the medieval canonists, and how it actually worked in practice. In particular it examines princely and popular reactions to interdicts and how these encouraged the papacy to reform the sanction in order to make it more effective. Evidence including detailed case-studies of the interdict in action, is drawn from across 13th-century Europe — a time when the papacy's legislative activity and interference in the affairs of secular rulers were at their height.