The turbulent 14th century story of Eve de Clavering, married three times, no legitimate children but mother to James Audley hero of Bannockburn and Crecy, founder member of the Garter Knights. She lived through baronial rebellion, Scottish conflicts, the beginning of the Hundred Years War, The Black Death, intrigue and plots, fighting like a lioness to protect her family.
This 1998 book is a comprehensive account of the high Hebraic culture developed by the Jews in Normandy during the Middle Ages, and in particular during the Anglo-Norman period. This culture has remained virtually unknown to the public and to the scholarly world throughout modern times, until a combination of recent manuscript discoveries and archaeological findings delineated this phenomenon for the first time. The book explores the origins of this remarkable community, beginning with topographical evidence pointing to the arrival of the Jews in Normandy as early as Roman and Gallo-Roman times, through autograph documentary testimony available in the Cairo Genizah manuscripts and early medieval Latin sources, finally using the rich manuscript evidence of twelfth- and early thirteenth-century writers which attest to the high cultural level attained by this community and to its social and political interaction with the Christian world of Anglo-Norman times and their aftermath.
Saints' cults, with their focus on miraculous healings and pilgrimages, were not only a distinctive feature of Christian religion in fifth-and sixth-century Gaul but also a vital force in political and social life. Here Raymond Van Dam uses accounts of miracles performed by SS. Martin, Julian, and Hilary to provide a vivid and comprehensive depiction of some of the most influential saints' cults. Viewed within the context of ongoing tensions between paganism and Christianity and between Frankish kings and bishops, these cults tell much about the struggle for authority, the forming of communities, and the concept of sin and redemption in late Roman Gaul. Van Dam begins by describing the origins of the three cults, and discusses the career of Bishop Gregory of Tours, who benefited from the support of various patron saints and in turn promoted their cults. He then treats the political and religious dimensions of healing miracles--including their relation to Catholic theology and their use by bishops to challenge royal authority--and of pilgrimages to saints' shrines. The miracle stories, collected mainly by Gregory of Tours, appear in their first complete English translations.
Examines the literary and cultural production of the provincial capital of Poitiers from the late 1560s through the early 1580s. This study considers influences on the salon and the city such as contemporary codes of conduct, the court sessions, and the religious wars.
The monastery of Monte Cassino, founded by St. Benedict in the sixth century, was the cradle of Western monasticism. It became one of the vital centers of culture and learning in Europe. At the height of its influence, in the eleventh and early twelfth centuries, two of its abbots (including Desiderius) and one of its monks became popes, and it controlled a vast network of dependencies--churches, monasteries, villages, and farms--especially in central and southern Italy. Herbert Bloch's study, the product of forty years of research, takes as its starting point the twelfth-century bronze doors of the basilica of the abbey, the most significant relic of the medieval structure. The panels of these doors are inscribed with a list of more than 180 of the abbey's possessions. Mr. Bloch has supplemented this roster with lists found in papal and imperial privileges and other documents. The heart of the book is a detailed investigation of the nearly 700 dependencies of Monte Cassino from the sixth to the twelfth century and beyond. No comparable study of this or any other great medieval institution has ever before been undertaken. Ironically, it was the bombing of 1944, which destroyed the monastery, that led to an unexpected revelation: the discovery, on the reverse side of some panels of the doors, of magnificent engraved figures of patriarchs and apostles. These proved to be remnants of the church portal ordered from Constantinople by Desiderius in the eleventh century, which marked the beginning of the grandiose reconstruction of the abbey and its church, the latter to become a model for many other churches. In order to solve the riddle of the doors of Monte Cassino, Bloch has investigated other bronze doors of Byzantine origin in Italy and the doors of the great Italian master Oderisius of Benevento, as well as those of S. Clemente a Casauria and of the cathedral of Benevento. Also included is a study of the political and cultural impact of Byzantium on Monte Cassino and a chapter on Constantinus Africanus, Saracen turned monk, one of the most interesting figures in the history of medieval medicine. The text is sumptuously illustrated with 193 plates; most of the more than 300 illustrations have never before been published. This three-volume work, with its nine detailed indexes, offers a wealth of information for scholars in many different fields.
This historical work presents a fresh perspective on the history of Henry the Third. It details interestingly how Henry's rule went unpopular after a certain period, resulting from the failure of his foreign policies and the activities of his infamous Poitevin half-brothers, the Lusignans, and the role of his provincial officers in collecting taxes and debts. British Historian Kate Norgate did a fabulous job showing a side of history that went unnoticed for so long. Norgate was one of the first women to achieve academic success in being a historian. She is best known for her famous history of England under the Angevin kings. Contents include: The War With Louis, 1216–1217 The Regency of William the Marshal, 1217–1219 The Legation of Pandulf, 1219–1221 Tutors and Governors, 1221–1223 The Young King, 1223–1227
The sixteenth century was an important period of transition in France, in which antagonistic religious beliefs led to prolonged civil wars and a growing state apparatus competed with medieval notions of political authority and the social order. Poitiers, a midsized provincial capital, actively experienced these tensions. Early known as a center of Reformed belief, it became a stronghold of ultra-Catholic sentiment by 1575. In examining sixteenth-century Poitiers, Hilary J. Bernstein argues that civic governments and the French monarchy enjoyed a mutually beneficial and reinforcing relationship rather than an antagonistic one; that disparate urban groups shared a political language for defining the identity and interests of the city that helped to balance the exclusive nature of urban government; and that French provincial cities did not suffer inevitable decline at the hands of the developing state but, instead, continued to help define the nature of early modern political culture. Though Poitiers continued to celebrate the traditions and institutions of local rule, it sought throughout the century to maintain a strong bond with the monarchy. Bernsteins meticulous research in the rich archives of Poitiers allows her to analyze early modern rhetorical culture and reveal the processes of daily decisionmaking. Using contemporary printed sources, she compares Poitiers to other cities and draws general conclusions about royal policies toward provincial cities. Between Crown and Community illustrates in precise and sometimes dramatic fashion the actual performance of politicsthe interaction of political identities, rhetorical strategies, and ritual practices with the civic traditions of the premodern urban world.
