This book brings together for the first time the astonishing diversity of excavated furnishings and artefacts from medieval London homes. These include roofing and other structural items, decorative fixtures and fittings, and assortment of culinary…
Debra Birch's lively account of pilgrimage to Rome throughout the medieval period is well-documented and clearly presented. HISTORY TODAY [Emma Mason]Well researched, clearly written, and, quite apart from the eternal city, provides an excellent int…
Among the most evocative items to be discovered by archaeologists are the scraps of silk and wool and other fabrics that signal so eloquently their owner's status and concerns. Such clothing and textile finds have figured prominently in excavations…
This imaginative history of the Britons, written in the twelfth century, is the first work to recount the woes of Lear and the glittering career of Arthur. It rapidly became a bestseller in the British Isles and Francophone Europe, with over 200 man…
Written in the 1130s, Geoffrey's imaginative history of the Britons from Brutus to Cadwallader, the first work to recount the woes of Lear and the glittering career of Arthur, rapidly became a bestseller in the British Isles and Francophone Europe,…
This is the first book to survey the experience of servants in rural Europe from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century. Live-in servants were a distinctive element of early modern society. They were typically young adults aged between 16 and 24 wh…
The Sutton Hoo ship-burial is one of the most significant finds ever made in Europe. It lies in a burial ground which contains all the elements of archaeological mystery: seventeen mounds, buried treasure, and sacrificed horses. In this very accessi…
The master cook who worked in the noble kitchens of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries had to be both practical and knowledgeable. His apprenticeship acquainted him with a range of culinary skills and a wide repertoire of seasonal dishes, but he…
"Carole Rawcliffe continues with her mission to clean up the Middle Ages. In earlier work she has already given us scholarly yet sympathetic portrayals of English medicine, hospitals, and welfare for lepers. Now she widens her scope to public health…
Warfare is a major feature of the history of the middle ages, but its study has often been the province of amateurs; only recently have the technical details of warfare and its organisation been subject to proper scholarly investigation. Professor V…
Alongside the familiar pitched battles, regular sieges, and large-scale manoeuvres, medieval and early modern wars also involved assassination, abduction, treason and sabotage. These undercover operations were aimed chiefly against key individuals,…
In Europe, the cross went north and east as the centuries unrolled: from the Dingle Peninsula to Estonia, and from the Alps to Lapland, ranging in time from Roman Britain and Gaul in the third and fourth centuries to the conversion of peoples in the…
Winner of the University of Georgia's Creative Research Medal 2012 Winner of the 2012 La coronica International Book Award Jousting was for some 500 years the major spectator sport in western Europe. And yet, despite its enormous popularity in the M…
Pietro Monte's Collectanea is a wide-ranging treatise on the arts of knighthood, focusing on martial arts, athletics, arms and armour, and military practice, but touching on subjects as diverse as diet, zoology and the design of life preservers. Mon…
This beautifully illustrated work fills a gap in the literature in English on the swords made and used in northern Europe during the Viking age, between the mid eighth and the mid eleventh centuries. Ewart Oakeshott outlines the significance and div…
Runes, often considered magical symbols of mystery and power, are in fact an alphabetic form of writing. Derived from one or more Mediterranean prototypes, they were used by Germanic peoples to write different kinds of Germanic language, principally…
Sweden's connections to and relationships with the European and wider world is a field of study attracting considerable scholarly attention. The essays here, from archaeologists and historians, offer a new perspective on early modern Sweden as deepl…
A monument in Mahler studies, this volume concentrates on the composer's vocal music and, in particular, on some of his most famous, most original and best loved compositions: the late Rueckert orchestral songs and Kindertotenlieder; Das Lied von de…
From as early as the first 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". These were apparently…
The wars waged by the English in France during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries led to the need for judicial agencies which could deal with disputes that arose on land and sea, beyond the reach of indigenous laws. This led to the jurisdictiona…
One of the most difficult and complex ethical and cultural codes to define, chivalry has proved a flexible, ever-changing phenomenon, constantly adapted in the hands of medieval knights, Renaissance princes, early modern antiquarians, Enlightenment…
Knives were vital to medieval man for a whole range of uses, from the domestic to the wider social context: Anglo-Saxon pre-Christian burials bear silent witness to this dependence in the many cases where knives are found among the grave-goods. Forg…
Until recently, very little was known about medieval shoes. Glimpses in manuscript illustrations and on funerary monuments, with the occasional reference by a contemporary writer, was all that the costume historian had as evidence, not least because…
A treasury of information based on solid scholarship, anyone seeking a factual and vivid account of the story of arms from the Renaissance period to the Industrial Revolution will welcome this book. The author chooses as his starting-point the invas…
This book is the most authoritative and up-to-date source of quick reference on the Baroque composer and theorist Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764), covering every significant area of his life and creative activity. In particular, the dictionary and…
Well-illustrated, closely argued and fascinating. GUARDIAN This is the first book-length study in English to investigate what women did in the Viking age, both at home in Scandinavia and in the Viking colonies from Greenland to Russia. Evidence for…
Robert the Monk's history of the First Crusade (1095-99), which was probably completed c. 1110, was in the nature of a medieval "bestseller", proving by far the most popular narrative of the crusade's events; the number of surviving manuscript copie…
The rearing of cattle is today a fairly sedentary practice in Ireland, Britain and most of north-west Europe. But in the not-so-distant past it was common for many rural households to take their livestock to hill and mountain pastures for the summer…
The sword is the most iconic of all weapons. Throughout history, it has connected various, sometimes conflicting, dimensions of human culture: physical combat and representation of political power, definition of gender roles and refinement of body t…
Historical dress and textiles, always a topic of popular interest, has in recent years become an academic subject in its own right, transcending traditional genre boundaries. This annual journal includes in-depth studies from a variety of discipline…
`A wholly feminine voice within Catholicism-they express the inexpressible better than any amount of rational thinking about God.' THE TIMES The three women who are the subject of this fascinating study lefta rich legacy of medieval spirituality. Fr…
Brooches, rings, buckles, pendants, buttons, purses and other accessories were part of everyday dress in the middle ages. Over two thousand such items dating from the period 1150-1450 are described and discussed here, all found in recent archaeologi…
The period from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century witnessed a rapid development of the tournament. Alongside the original tourney - a mass battle fought between opposing armies of knights with minimal and rudimentary regulation - new forms of…
Collected together for the first time in one volume are the most important critical study of Pelagius to date, together with a selection of his letters. Arriving in Rome in the late 4th century, Pelagius soon acquired a considerable reputation as a…
Churchill once famously remarked that he would not join the navy because it was "all rum, sodomy and the lash". How far this was true of the navy during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars is the subject of this important new book. Summary…
The study of medieval clothing and textiles has aroused great attention in recent years, as part of the growing concern in material culture as a whole; apart from its own intrinsic interest, it has much to reveal about life at the time. This excitin…
The twelfth century has long been recognised as a period of unusual vibrancy and importance, witnessing seminal changes in the inter-related spheres of theology, devotional practice, and iconography, especially with regard to the cross and the cruci…
Julian Anderson is renowned internationally as one of the leading composers of his generation. This substantial book of conversations with the scholar and critic Christopher Dingle captures Anderson's thoughts and memories in-depth for the first tim…
Completed in 1482, Johannes Leckuchner's Art of Combat with the "Langes Messer" (Messerfechtkunst) is among the most important documents on the combat arts of the Middle Ages. The Messer was a single-edged, one-handed utility sword peculiar to centr…
This short study of the history of the Order of St John of Jerusalem, Rhodes and Malta, also known as the Knights Hospitaller, is intended as an introduction to the Order for academics working in other fields, as well as the interested general reade…
The phrase "designed landscape" is generally associated with the great parks and gardens of the post-medieval period, with grand country houses surrounded by parkland, such as Chatsworth and Longleat. However, recent research has made it clear that…
When Ludwig van Beethoven died in March 1827, the world of music felt an intense loss. The composer's funeral procession was one of the largest Vienna had ever witnessed, and the poet Franz Grillparzer's eulogy brought the tensions between the compo…
Bears are iconic animals, playing a variety of roles in human culture. They have been portrayed as gods, monsters, kings, fools, brothers, lovers, and dancers; they are seen as protectors of the forest; symbols of masculinity; a comfort for children…
Bestiaries are a particularly characteristic product of medieval England, and give a unique insight into the medieval mind. Richly illuminated and lavishly produced, they were luxury objects for noble families. Their three-fold purpose was to provid…
A contemporary of the famous landscape designer "Capability" Brown, Richard Woods has never received the recognition he deserves: in contrast to Brown, he emphasised the pleasure ground and kitchen garden, with a more pronounced use of flowers than…
The Continental Saxons developed from a subsistence economy, practiced up to the Carolingian conquest in the late eighth century, to become rulers of the Holy Roman Empire a little over a century and a half later. A historian introduces the topic, e…
This year's volume focuses largely on the British Isles, with papers on dress terms in the Middle English Pearl; a study of a thirteenth-century royal bride's trousseau, based on unpublished documents concerning King Henry III's Wardrobe; an investi…
The Romance of Le Hem and The Tournament at Chauvency are eyewitness accounts of the famous tournaments held in 1278 at Le Hem on the banks of the Somme in north-eastern France, and in 1285 at Chauvency in Lorraine. Written within weeks of the event…
England's first Protestant foreign policy venture took place under Henry VIII, who in the wake of the break with Rome pursued diplomatic contacts with the League of Schmalkalden, the German Protestant alliance. This venture was supported by evangeli…
Between 376 and 476 the Roman Empire in western Europe was dismantled by aggressive outsiders, "barbarians" as the Romans labelled them. Chief among these were the Visigoths, a new force of previously separate Gothic and other groups from south-west…
In 1700 the fastest coach from London to Manchester took five days. By 1790 the development of the turnpike road system across England had reduced this figure to twenty-seven hours, and both the landscape and the ways in which people experienced it…
