By Weapons Made Worthy

By Weapons Made Worthy

Author: Jos Bazelmans

Publisher: Amsterdam University Press

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 9053563253

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In this book Jos Bazelmans offers a new perspective on the relationship between lord and retainer in early medieval society. This perspective goes beyond established politico-economic interpretations and aims for an interpretation of this relationship in ritual-cosmological terms. Drawing on recent developments within French structuralist anthropology and the anthropology of gift exchange, Bazelmans develops a new model of early medieval socio-political structure (as represented in Old English Beowulf) which explicitly deals with exchange relations between the living and the supernatural, the commensurablity of subject and object in gift exchange, and the whole set of interdependent life-cycle rituals of lords and their warrior-followers. The value of gifts is considered to be determined not only by their function within a competitive game about prestige, status and power, but also by its equivalence with a constituent. The value of the gift is fundamental to the noble person and develops through a man's life-time. It is, ultimately, of a supernatural origin. The model enables us to understand certain acts at Beowulf's funeral pyre which at first sight appear to be no more than an ethnographic curiosity (Beowulf 3111b-3114a). The warrior's contributions to his pyre form the concluding part of a grand ritual undertaking in which society as a whole is involved and in which the constitution of the noble person, and the disarticulation of that person at his death, is realized. This ritual undertaking goes beyond the politico-economic concerns of the participants which are central to established power-based models of early medieval societal structure. The volume includes an extensive overview of the anthropology of gift exchange.


This Will Make It Taste Good

This Will Make It Taste Good

Author: Vivian Howard

Publisher: Voracious

Published: 2020-10-20

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 031638111X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

An Eater Best Cookbook of Fall 2020 From caramelized onions to fruit preserves, make home cooking quick and easy with ten simple "kitchen heroes" in these 125 recipes from the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of Deep Run Roots. “I wrote this book to inspire you, and I promise it will change the way you cook, the way you think about what’s in your fridge, the way you see yourself in an apron.” Vivian Howard’s first cookbook chronicling the food of Eastern North Carolina, Deep Run Roots, was named one of the best of the year by 18 national publications, including the New York Times, USA Today, Bon Appetit, and Eater, and won an unprecedented four IACP awards, including Cookbook of the Year. Now, Vivian returns with an essential work of home-cooking genius that makes simple food exciting and accessible, no matter your skill level in the kitchen. ​ Each chapter of This Will Make It Taste Good is built on a flavor hero—a simple but powerful recipe like her briny green sauce, spiced nuts, fruit preserves, deeply caramelized onions, and spicy pickled tomatoes. Like a belt that lends you a waist when you’re feeling baggy, these flavor heroes brighten, deepen, and define your food. Many of these recipes are kitchen crutches, dead-easy, super-quick meals to lean on when you’re limping toward dinner. There are also kitchen projects, adventures to bring some more joy into your life. Vivian’s mission is not to protect you from time in your kitchen, but to help you make the most of the time you’ve got. Nothing is complicated, and more than half the dishes are vegetarian, gluten-free, or both. These recipes use ingredients that are easy to find, keep around, and cook with—lots of chicken, prepared in a bevy of ways to keep it interesting, and common vegetables like broccoli, kale, squash, and sweet potatoes that look good no matter where you shop. And because food is the language Vivian uses to talk about her life, that’s what these recipes do, next to stories that offer a glimpse at the people, challenges, and lessons learned that stock the pantry of her life.


The Art and Thought of the "Beowulf" Poet

The Art and Thought of the

Author: Leonard Neidorf

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2023-01-15

Total Pages: 259

ISBN-13: 1501766910

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In The Art and Thought of the Beowulf Poet, Leonard Neidorf explores the relationship between Beowulf and the legendary tradition that existed prior to its composition. The Beowulf poet inherited an amoral heroic tradition, which focused principally on heroes compelled by circumstances to commit horrendous deeds: fathers kill sons, brothers kill brothers, and wives kill husbands. Medieval Germanic poets relished the depiction of a hero's unyielding response to a cruel fate, but the Beowulf poet refused to construct an epic around this traditional plot. Focusing instead on a courteous and pious protagonist's fight against monsters, the poet creates a work that is deeply untraditional in both its plot and its values. In Beowulf, the kin-slayers and oath-breakers of antecedent tradition are confined to the background, while the poet fills the foreground with unconventional characters, who abstain from transgression, display courtly etiquette, and express monotheistic convictions. Comparing Beowulf with its medieval German and Scandinavian analogues, The Art and Thought of the Beowulf Poet argues that the poem's uniqueness reflects one poet's coherent plan for the moral renovation of an amoral heroic tradition. In Beowulf, Neidorf discerns the presence of a singular mind at work in the combination and modification of heroic, folkloric, hagiographical, and historical materials. Rather than perceive Beowulf as an impersonally generated object, Neidorf argues that it should be read as the considered result of one poet's ambition to produce a morally edifying, theologically palatable, and historically plausible epic out of material that could not independently constitute such a poem.


Frisians and Their North Sea Neighbours

Frisians and Their North Sea Neighbours

Author: John Hines

Publisher: Boydell & Brewer

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13: 1783271795

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

La 4e de couv. indique : "As early as the 1st century AD, learned Romans knew of more than one group of people living in north-western Europe beyond their Empire's Gallic provinces whose names contained the element that gives us modern "Frisian". Those apparently were Celtic-speaking peoples, but that population seems to have completely replaced in the course of the convulsions that Europe underwent at the transition from the Ancient world to the Early Medieval in the 4th and 5th centuries. The importance of linguistically Germanic Frisians as neighbours of the Anglo-Saxons, Franks, Saxons and Danes in the centuries immediately following the fall of the Roman Empire in the West is widely recognized, and yet these folk themselves remain enigmatic, and the details of their culture and organization unfamiliar to many. The Frisian population and their lands are the focal point of this volume, although, as is shown, we often have to approach and to understand these people through comparison with, or even through the eyes of, their neighbours. Empirically, this perspective embraces all of the coastal communities of the North Sea region, and their connexions with the Baltic shores. Twelve separate but complementary papers present the most up-to-date discoveries, research and interpretations, following the story of the various Frisians through from the Roman Period to the next great period of disruption and change introduced by the Viking Scandinavians. Methodologically, the thorough combination and integration of linguistic, textual and archaeological evidence offers a new multidisciplinary template and sets new standards for Early Medieval studies."


Topographies of Power in the Early Middle Ages

Topographies of Power in the Early Middle Ages

Author: Mayke de Jong

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2001-06-28

Total Pages: 630

ISBN-13: 9047404041

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The 19 papers presented in this volume by North American and European historians and archaeologists discuss how early medieval political and religious elites constructed ‘places of power’, and how such places, in turn, created powerful people. They also examine how the ‘high-level’ power exercised by elites was transformed in the post-Roman kingdoms of Europe, as Roman cities gave way as central stages for rituals of power to a multitude of places and spaces where political and religious power were represented. Although the Frankish kingdoms receive a large share of attention, contributions also focus on the changing topography of power in the old centres of the Roman world, Rome and Constantinople, to what ‘centres of power’ may have meant in the steppes of Inner Asia, Scandinavia or the lower Vistula, where political power was even more mobile and decentralised than in the post-Roman kingdoms, as well as to monasteries and their integration into early medieval topographies of power.


Creating Consilience

Creating Consilience

Author: Edward Slingerland

Publisher: OUP USA

Published: 2012-01-19

Total Pages: 467

ISBN-13: 0199794391

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Calls for a "consilient" or "vertically integrated" approach to the study of human mind and culture have, for the most part, been received by scholars in the humanities with either indifference or hostility. One reason for this is that consilience has often been framed as bringing the study of humanistic issues into line with the study of non-human phenomena, rather than as something to which humanists and scientists contribute equally. The other major reason that consilience has yet to catch on in the humanities is a dearth of compelling examples of the benefits of adopting a consilient approach. Creating Consilience is the product of a workshop that brought together internationally-renowned scholars from a variety of fields to address both of these issues. It includes representative pieces from workshop speakers and participants that examine how adopting such a consilient stance -- informed by cognitive science and grounded in evolutionary theory -- would concretely impact specific topics in the humanities, examining each topic in a manner that not only cuts across the humanities-natural science divide, but also across individual humanistic disciplines. By taking seriously the fact that science-humanities integration is a two-way exchange, this volume takes a new approach to bridging the cultures of science and the humanities. The editors and contributors formulate how to develop a new shared framework of consilience beyond mere interdisciplinarity, in a way that both sides can accept.


Armed Batavians

Armed Batavians

Author: Johan Nicolay

Publisher: Amsterdam University Press

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 419

ISBN-13: 9053562532

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Using a life-cycle model for Roman soldiers, Johan Nicolay interprets the large quantity of first-century finds as personal memorabilia brought home by ex-soldiers as a reminder of their twenty-five years of service and a symbol of their newly-acquired veteran status. Underpinning Nicolay’s research is an extensive inventory of militaria from urban centers, rural settlements, rivers, and graves—presented in nearly one hundred individual color plates. Introducing a considerable body of unpublished data, as well as offering a perspective on daily life in the northern frontier of the Roman Empire, this volume is a valuable addition to Roman military and material history.


Viking Trade and Settlement in Continental Western Europe

Viking Trade and Settlement in Continental Western Europe

Author: Iben Skibsted Klæsøe

Publisher: Museum Tusculanum Press

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 170

ISBN-13: 8763505312

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The European coastal areas and the lands around the rivers had great importance for the Vikings, who settled in strategic areas and defended themselves - often against other intruding Vikings. This book is a collection of articles focusing on the Vikings and their presence on the western European continent.


The Oxford Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology

The Oxford Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology

Author: Helena Hamerow

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2011-03-31

Total Pages: 1110

ISBN-13: 0199212147

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Written by a team of experts and presenting the results of the most up-to-date research, The Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology will both stimulate and support further investigation into a society poised at the interface between prehistory and history.