Early Medieval English Life Courses: Cultural-Historical Perspectives

Thijs Porck and Harriet Soper (ed.)

Published: Brill (November 2021)

ISBN:978-90-04-50186-7

This volume explores how phases of human life such as childhood, puberty, and old age were identified, characterized, and related in contemporary sources, as well as how nonhuman life courses were constructed. The multi-disciplinary contributions range from analyses of age vocabulary to studies of medicine, name-giving practices, theology, Old English poetry, and material culture. Combined, these cultural-historical perspectives reveal how the concept and experience of the life course shaped attitudes in early medieval England.

Medieval Meteorology: Forecasting the Weather from Aristotle to the Almanac

Anne Lawrence-Mathers (Author)

Cambridge University Press (January 2020)

ISBN-13:‎978-1108406000

The practice of weather forecasting underwent a crucial transformation in the Middle Ages. Exploring how scientifically-based meteorology spread and flourished from c.700–c.1600, this study reveals the dramatic changes in forecasting and how the new science of 'astro-meteorology' developed. Both narrower and more practical in its approach than earlier forms of meteorology, this new science claimed to deliver weather forecasts for months and even years ahead, on the premise that weather is caused by the atmospheric effects of the planets and stars, and mediated by local and seasonal climatic conditions. Anne Lawrence-Mathers explores how these forecasts were made and explains the growing practice of recording actual weather. These records were used to support forecasting practices, and their popularity grew from the fourteenth century onwards. Essential reading for anyone interested in medieval science, Medieval Meteorology demonstrates that the roots of scientific forecasting are much deeper than is usually recognized.

A Pious Belligerence: Dialogical Warfare and the Rhetoric of Righteousness in the Crusading Near East

Uri Zvi Shachar

University of Pennsylvania Press (December 2021)

ISBN-13:978-0812253337

In A Pious Belligerence Uri Zvi Shachar examines one of the most contested and ideologically loaded issues in medieval history, the clash between Christians, Muslims, and Jews that we call the Crusades. He does so not to write about the ways these three groups waged war to hold onto their distinct identities, but rather to think about how these identities were framed in relation to one another. Notions of militant piety in particular provided Muslims, Christians, and Jews paths for thinking about both cultural boundaries and codependencies. Ideas about holy warfare, Shachar contends, were not shaped along sectarian lines, but were dynamically coproduced among the three religions.

Reading and Shaping Medieval Cartularies: Multi-Scribe Manuscripts and their Patterns of Growth

Joanna Tucker (Author)

Boydell Press (February 2020)

ISBN-13:978-1783274789

This book offers a new methodology which engages with multi-scribe contributions in two cartulary manuscripts: the oldest cartularies of Glasgow Cathedral and Lindores Abbey. It integrates the physical and textual features of the manuscripts in order to analyse how and why they grew in stages across time. Applying this methodology reveals two communities that took an active approach to reading and shaping their cartularies, treating these manuscripts as a shared space. This raises fundamental questions about the definition of cartularies and how they functioned, their relationship to archives of single-sheet documents, and as sources for institutional identity. It therefore takes a fresh look at the "genre" ofmedieval cartularies through the eyes of the manuscripts themselves, and what this can reveal about their medieval scribes and readers.

Dominican Resonances in Medieval Iceland: The Legacy of Bishop Jón Halldórsson of Skálholt

Gunnar Harðarson, Karl G. Johansson

Brill(August 2021)

ISBN-13 :‎978-9004448797

This book explores the life and times of Jón Halldórsson, bishop of Skálholt (1322–39), a Dominican who had studied the liberal arts and canon law in Paris and Bologna, and provides a snapshot with wider implications for understanding of medieval literacy.

Chaucer and the Ethics of Time

Gillian Adler

University of Wales Press (June 2022)

ISBN-13 :978-1786838360

Geoffrey Chaucer wrote at a turning point in the history of timekeeping, but many of his poems demonstrate a greater interest in the moral dimension of time than in the mechanics of the medieval clock. Chaucer and the Ethics of Time examines Chaucer’s sensitivity to the insecurity of human experience amid the temporal circumstances of change and time-passage, as well as strategies for ethicising historical vision in several of his major works. While wasting time was occasionally viewed as a sin in the late Middle Ages, Chaucer resists conventional moral dichotomies and explores a complex and challenging relationship between the interior sense of time and the external pressures of linearism and cyclicality. Chaucer’s diverse philosophical ideas about time unfold through the reciprocity between form and discourse, thus encouraging a new look at not only the characters’ruminations on time in the tradition of St Augustine and Boethius, but also manifold narrative sequences and structures, including anachronism.

Inwardness, Individualization, and Religious Agency in the Late Medieval Low Countries: Studies in the‘Devotio Moderna’and its Contexts

Charles M. A. Caspers (Author, Editor), Rijcklof H. F. Hofman (Editor), Peter J. A. Nissen (Editor), Johan Oosterman (Editor), Mathilde van Dijk (Editor)

Brepols Publishers (March 2020)

ISBN-13 :978-2503585390

Recent scholarship on the Middle Ages has highlighted the importance of individualistic tendencies in devotion in both the lay world and religious communities. This interaction between individualization and religious agency has been scrutinized in numerous studies, focusing on the beginnings during the so-called 'Twelfth-Century Renaissance', and further development in the later medieval and early modern periods. However, there has hitherto been relatively little scholarship on the phenomenon in the Devotio Moderna: the flourishing of more personalized forms of devotion in north-western Europe during the later Middle Ages. The essays in this volume redress this gap by exploring the processes of inwardness and the emergent individualization of religious practices in the late medieval Low Countries. The essays explore issues including the early impact of the printing press on devotion; meditational aids such as identification with Christ, prayer cycles, practices of remembrance, and devout songs; and the tension between inner devotion and the ideal of communal piety in male and female religious communities. They also discuss some leading individuals of the Devotio movement. By addressing the Devotio Moderna and its contexts - the emergence of inwardness, individualization, and religious agency in the late medieval Low Countries and surrounding areas - the essays in this volume help to enhance and expand our knowledge of devotion in the late Middle Ages, both in lay circles and in religious communities, and they show the distinct contribution of the Low Countries to the European phenomenon of more personalized forms of devotion.

Margery Kempe: A Mixed Life

Anthony Bale (Author)

Reaktion Books (January 2022)

ISBN-13: 978-1789144703

This is a new account of the medieval mystic and pilgrim Margery Kempe. Kempe, who had fourteen children, traveled all over Europe and recorded a series of unusual events and religious visions in her workThe Book of Margery Kempe, which is often called the first autobiography in the English language. Anthony Bale charts Kempe’s life and tells her story through the places, relationships, objects, and experiences that influenced her. Extensive quotations from Kempe’s Book accompany generous illustrations, giving a fascinating insight into the life of a medieval woman. Margery Kempe is situated within the religious controversies of her time, and her religious visions and later years put in context. And lastly, Bale tells the extraordinary story of the rediscovery, in the 1930s, of the unique manuscript of her autobiography.

Histories of People and Landscape: Essays on the Sheffield Region in Memory of David Hey

Richard Hoyle

University Of Hertfordshire Press (April 2021)

ISBN-13:‎978-1912260393

David Hey (1938–2016) was one of the leading local and regional historians of our age and the author of a number of highly regarded books on the practice of local history. His work on surnames was pioneering and he was amongst the first to identify the potential of DNA in historical studies. In this collection of essays in David’s memory, friends and colleagues celebrate his commitment to the landscape, economy, and society of south Yorkshire—especially Sheffield—and Derbyshire, which together make up‘Hey country,’the area in which he grew up and to which he returned to work. This lively volume will be of interest to anyone who shares David Hey’s curiosity for the people, economies, and landscapes of the part of England he made his focus. At the same time the essays will prove to be of interest to all those concerned with the workings of English local society and economy.

Straits: Beyond the Myth of Magellan

Felipe Fernández-Armesto

University of California Press; First Edition (March 2022)

ISBN-13: 978-0520383364

WithStraits, celebrated historian Felipe Fernández-Armesto subjects the surviving sources to the most meticulous scrutiny ever, providing a timely and engrossing biography of the real Ferdinand Magellan. The truth that Fernández-Armesto uncovers about Magellan’s life, his character, and the events of his ill-fated voyage offers up a stranger, darker, and even more compelling narrative than the fictional version that has been celebrated for half a millennium.

Archduke Ferdinand II of Austria: A Second-Born Son in Renaissance Europe

Sylva Dobalova (Editor), Jaroslava Hausenblasova (Editor)

‎Austrian Academy of Sciences (December 2021)

ISBN-13‏: 978-3700185017

The book examines the cultural patronage of Archduke Ferdinand II of Austria (1529–1595), a son of Emperor Ferdinand I. Being the second-born, the Archduke never reached the imperial throne but served as the Governor of Bohemia in Prague and then he reigned in the Tyrol. The volume aims to show how Ferdinand II’s unclear dynastic position was significant in determining his fate, and which strategies he used to represent himself as an important member of the Habsburg dynasty. Twenty-three essays organized in five sections cover his main cultural aims, starting with the structure of his court and its entertainment, architectural projects, visual arts, and the interests of the humanistic circle he gathered around him. The book also presents new information about his famous collection of art and curiosities at Ambras Castle in Innsbruck, which served as a model for Emperor Rudolf II's collecting practice. The interdisciplinary cooperation of scholars from different countries gives readers a unique and comprehensive understanding of the actions of the Archduke in mutual relations. The book portrays the Archduke as a skilled manager, creative inventor and successful networker as the Renaissance movement was developing in Central Europe in the second half of the sixteenth century. Although the Archduke couldn’t fulfil his political ambitions, through his support for collecting, art and science, he contributed significantly to the development of the regions where he resided and connected them with the cultural achievements of Western and Southern Europe. As a whole, the book offers a detailed analysis of the lifestyle of the ''model prince“in this era.

Sedition: The Spread of Controversial Literature and Ideas in France and Scotland, c.1550–1610

O'Brien (Author, Editor), John (Author, Editor), Schachter (Editor), Marc (Editor)

Brepols Publishers (June 2021)

ISBN-13 :‎978-2503589909

This interdisciplinary collection examines the notion of sedition in the period of the French Wars of Religion (1560-1600) and focuses not only on France itself, but also on Scotland during the reign of the French-born Mary Queen of Scots. Composed of eleven chapters written by an international team of experts, this volume concentrates on the political aspects of sedition rather than religious heresy, and covers writings and publications in a wide range of fields: politics, history, law, literature, and gender. A complementary feature of this collection is the spectrum of writings studied; they include edicts and treatises, pamphlets, broadsides, legal documents, dialogues, and satirical prose and poetry. Several chapters also address visual representations of sedition.

The Habsburg Empire under Siege: Ottoman Expansion and Hungarian Revolt in the Age of Grand Vizier Ahmed Köprülü (1661–76)

Georg B. Michels (Author)

‎McGill-Queen's University Press (March 2021)

ISBN-13 :‎978-0228005759

During the seventeenth century Hungary's diverse population of peasants, townsmen, soldiers, and county nobles rose up against the violent imposition of the Counter-Reformation, the Habsburg military occupation, and exhorbitant war taxes. In The Habsburg Empire under Siege Georg Michels explores the little-known grassroots revolts that threatened the Habsburgs' hold over the Hungarian borderlands.Based on extensive research in Hungarian, Austrian, and Dutch archives, this revisionist study shifts attention away from high politics, diplomacy, and military confrontation to the popular revolts that took place during the two decades before the 1683 siege of Vienna. Michels reveals a complex environment in which Calvinist Hungarians, Lutheran Slovaks, Lutheran Germans, and Orthodox Ukrainians worked to defend their religion against brutal Habsburg Counter-Reformation campaigns. Challenging preconceived notions of European, Middle Eastern, and East European history, this book tells a dramatic story of Reformation and Counter-Reformation violence, covering proxy wars, guerrilla warfare, refugee flight, migration from Hungary into Ottoman territory, and largely unknown Christian-Muslim encounters. Offering a trans-imperial perspective that reassesses the complex relationship between Hungarians, Habsburgs, and Ottomans, The Habsburg Empire under Siege portrays the resistance of ordinary men and women and their hopes for liberation from Habsburg oppression, reclaiming their place in history.

Commercial Cosmopolitanism? Cross-Cultural Objects, Spaces, and Institutions in the Early Modern World

Felicia Gottmann (Editor)

Routledge (March 2021)

ISBN-13 : 978-0367464615

Cosmopolitanism is not only a philosophical ideal: for many centuries it has also been an everyday practice across the globe. The early modern era saw hitherto unprecedented levels of economic interconnectedness. States, societies, and individuals reacted with a mixture of commercial idealism and commercial anxiety, seeking at once to exploit new opportunities for growth whilst limiting its disruptive effects. In highlighting the range of commercial cosmopolitan practices that grew out of early modern globalisation, the book demonstrates that it provided robust alternatives to the universalising western imperial model of the later period. Deploying a number of interdisciplinary methodologies, the kind of‘methodological cosmopolitanism’that Ulrich Beck has called for, chapters provide agency-centred evaluations of the risks and opportunities inherent in the ambiguous role of the cosmopolitan, who, often playing on and mobilising a number of identities, operated in between and outside of different established legal, social, and cultural systems.

Memory and the Dissolution of the Monasteries in Early Modern England

Harriet Lyon

Cambridge University Press (October 2021)

ISBN-13：978-1316516409

The dissolution of the monasteries was recalled by individuals and communities alike as a seismic rupture in the religious, cultural, and socio-economic fabric of early modern England. It was also profoundly important in shaping contemporary historical consciousness, the topographical imagination, and local tradition. Memory and the Dissolution is a book about the dissolution of the monasteries after the dissolution. Harriet Lyon argues that our understanding of this historical moment is enriched by taking a long chronological view of the suppression, by exploring how it was remembered to those who witnessed it and how this memory evolved in subsequent generations. Exposing and repudiating the assumptions of a conventional historiography that has long been coloured by Henrician narratives and sources, this book reveals that the fall of the religious houses was remembered as one of the most profound and controversial transformations of the entire English Reformation.