Medieval England Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

2025, GRS Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Studies

This paper inspects the elusive divine involvement of politics in Geoffrey Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, focussing on how the gods and goddesses vigorously trace the destiny of the insignificant lovers. Different from reflexive fantabulous and fabulous mythological records, goddesses such as Venus and Fortune exercise an enormous influence over human-emotion and decision-making, moulding hesitation on the independence of individual determination. By investigating supernatural manipulation and its emotional and political ramifications, the research investigates how Chaucer analyses the role of higher superpowers in shaping human and societal fates. Venus, representing the inconsistency and instability of love passion, and Fortune, demonstrating the unpredictable nature of earthly events, contribute to a tale formed by divine randomness and emotional softness. The consequent tension between predestination and free-will emphasizes Chaucer's complex realization of love, fate, human and supernatural agency. Eventually, the poem propositions a clear deliberation on the boundaries of human control in a cosmos governed by heavenly impulse, revealing the comprehensive socio-political and supernatural consequences of such religious conceptions.

2025, Yearbook of Langland Studies

YLS welcomes submissions dealing with Piers Plowman and related poetry and prose in the traditions of didactic and allegorical alliterative writing. Papers concerning the literary, historical, religious, intellectual, codicological, and critical contexts of these works are also invited. Submissions are doubleblind peer reviewed. In preparing their manuscripts for review, authors should avoid revealing their identity within the essay itself and follow the MHRA Style Guide (available at ). The editors are Alastair Bennett (Royal

2025, The Two Norths: Identity and Hybridity in Yorkshire and Northumberland, 1066-1215

This study uses two baronial families: the de Lacy Barons of Pontefract and de Vescy Barons of Alnwick as a lens through which to examine wider identity within the regions. Previous work has generally taken a wider focus on the whole region, or over a longer period. This innovative approach to investigating wider identity will provide a framework for further comparative work in England’s borderlands. This thesis will provide an important study on local, regional and national identities in a period crucial to identity development in northern England. The two families at the centre of this study are also overdue a re-examination, with the last major
study on the Pontefract branch of the de Lacy family being carried out by W.E. Wightman in the 1960s. While meticulous in his assessment of landholding, Wightman was not particularly concerned with identity, and consequently his study ends some years short of major events considered by this thesis. Similarly, the de Vescy family has received relatively little attention, aside from Keith Stringer’s 1999 chapter examining the family from a transnational perspective. This project is able to build on this work to examine the barons of Alnwick in more detail. The project examines identity at a number of levels, dealing with both individual and group identity throughout. This is achieved by looking at familial identity, social identity and religious benefactions, political identity both within the honour and within the wider regnal community, and examining the relationship between these baronial families and Scotland given their position in a borderland. Woven throughout this analysis is the argument that there is a sense of ‘two Norths’, as Yorkshire became more integrated into the Kingdom of England during this period, while Northumberland remained a more active and hybrid frontier zone. Despite these differences, both regions clearly continued to form England’s borderland with Scotland.

2025, Historical Research

This article aims to demonstrate that much of the information found in the chronicle of Burton for the 1250s was obtained through Henry of Marchington, a clerk working at the royal chancery between 1254 and 1264 at least. Using new evidence from a register produced at Burton in these same years, cross-referenced with that of the chronicle, I argue that the source material for the chronicle, especially documents pertaining to the baronial movement in 1258-9, came to Burton via the clerk. The case of Burton thus offers an unusually precise insight into how a monastic chronicler could obtain information. * This article presents the first results of my doctoral research at King's College London, supervised by David Carpenter, Julia Crick and Alice Taylor. I would like to thank them, as well as the anonymous reviewers and editors, for their helpful suggestions.

2025, Domesday to America

Prepared for inclusion in Domesday to America, Volume II-by Patrick A. Payne A reevaluation of Payne family records from Norfolk and Suffolk has brought to light new evidence that the long-assumed extinct line of Thomas Payne of Itteringham and Elizabeth Boleyn may in fact have continued-through both documented descendants and a newly recognized cadet branch. At the heart of this rediscovery is Drew Payne, born circa 1568, identified in a 1589-90 petition to Queen Elizabeth I as the son of Elizabeth Bullen (Boleyn), daughter of Sir Edward Bullen. Drew petitioned the Crown for a reversion lease in recognition of his military service in the Low Countries-a request granted by Sir Thomas Heneage, one of the Queen's most senior courtiers. This single document proves two things: 1. Drew Payne descended directly from the Boleyn family, likely making him a distant cousin of Anne Boleyn, Queen of England. 2. The Payne-Boleyn bloodline did not die out in the 16th century as previously believed.

2025, Domesday to America

Domesday to America, Volume II: The Colonization of America and the Great Companies of London by Patrick Allen Payne This volume continues the investigative trajectory of Domesday to America, tracing the genealogical and historical... more

2025, Domesday to America- an Introduction

Domesday to America: Introduction to a Genealogical and Dynastic Inquiry into the PAYNE Family and Their Norman Origins Patrick A. Payne This introductory volume of the Domesday to America Project sets the stage for a sweeping... more

2025, The Wars of the Roses: War and Martial Culture in England 1485-1487

The military history of the Wars of the Roses has received little attention from academic historians in recent years. While the Hundred Years War and the armies of Henry VIII have been the subject of several substantial scholarly studies, the military aspects of the domestic struggles of the later fifteenth century have been relatively neglected. This new study argues that later fifteenth-century England was a highly militarised society, but that warfare and developments in weaponry, tactics and military organisation took place within a distinctly English legal and cultural framework. It examines the conduct of armed conflict, within the context of rebellion against royal authority, the effects of that conflict across English society, and the ways in which the Wars of the Roses were memorialized and made sense of by contemporaries and later generations.

2025, in Thomas Aquinas and the Eucharist: Pathways to Revival, Michael Dauphinais, Andrew Hofer, and Roger Nutt, eds.

This chapter investigates the relationship between sacrifice, understood within the context of moral virtue, and the outward sacramental signs of the rite of the Eucharist as a sacrament and a sacrifice. In this regard, it relies on a close textual reading of Aquinas's own texts on this matter, in dialogue with subsequent developments in Aquinass later reception history. In dialogue with Aquinass text in the Summa, this chapter incorporates conceptual insights from sixteenth-century conversations within Catholic theology about the role of moral acts in relation to outward liturgical signs and the place of the metaphysical language of modes in our understanding of the Eucharist as a Christological sacrifice, a moral act in charity, and a liturgical event.

2025

Исторические, культурные, межнациональные, религиозные и политические связи Крыма со Средиземноморским регионом и странами Востока: Материалы IX Международной научной конференции (Севастополь, 2–7 июня 2025 г.) / Отв. ред. Ю.А. Пронина;... more

2025, Criminal Law Forum

This study examines the spatial patterns of homicide in three 14thcentury English cities-London, York, and Oxford-through the Medieval Murder Map project, which visualizes 355 homicide cases derived from coroners' inquests. Integrating historical criminology with contemporary spatial crime theories, we outline a new historical criminology of space, focused on how urban environments shaped patterns of lethal violence in the past. Findings reveal similarities in all three cities. Homicides were highly concentrated in key nodes of urban life such as markets, squares, and thoroughfares. Temporal patterns indicate that most homicides occurred in the evening and on weekends, aligning with routine activity theory. Oxford had far higher homicide rates than London and York, and a higher proportion of organized group-violence, suggestive of high levels of social disorganization and impunity. Spatial analyses reveal distinct areas related to town-gown conflicts and violence fueled by student factionalism. In London, findings suggest distinct clusters of homicide which reflect differences in economic and social functions. In all three cities, some homicides were committed in spaces of high visibility and symbolic significance. The findings highlight how public space shaped urban violence historically. The study also raises broader questions about the long-term decline of homicide, suggesting that changes in urban governance and spatial organization may have played a crucial role in reducing lethal violence. I INTRODUCTION In his A System of Logic, John Stuart Mill (2011 [1843]) emphasised disciplined comparison as the backbone of scientific reasoning. In his

2025, Electronic Texts in American Studies

“Who served as a Soldier in the Western Army, in the Massachusetts Line, in the Expedition under General HARMAR, and the unfortunate General St. CLAIR. Containing An Account of his CAPTIVITY, SUFFERINGS, and ESCAPE from the KICKAPOO INDIANS. WRITTEN BY HIMSELF, And published at the earnest Importunity of his Friends, for the benefit of AMERICAN YOUTH.”

2025, Halmágyi Miklós

Ut a tróni8 KORTÁRS SZENTEK isTVÁN KIRÁLY ÉS HENRIK CSÁSZÁF3 HAGIOGRÁFIAI PÁRHUZAMAI Az ezredforduló korának, ennek a végítéletre váró kornak emlékezetes alakja volt 11. Henrik, német király és római császár. Idén, 2o24-ben ezer éve annak, hogy földi élete véget ért. A kerek évforduló jó alkalmat ad a rá való emlékezésre, legendáinak felidézésére. Henrik személye azért is kü-1önleges, mert õ volt az egyetlen német származású császár, akit szentté avattak. Magyar szempontból azért jelentõs, mert sógora volt Szent lstván királynak, fivére Boldog Gizellának, nagybátyja Szent lmre hercegnek. Adódik a lehetõség, hogy összehasonlítsuk az uralkodócsalád szent életû tagjairól szóló forrásokat és legendákat. Mit mondanak a kortárs források az elsõ ezredforduló idején élt keresztény uralkodóról, Henrikrõl, akit ii46-ban szentté avatott a pápa? Miként fejlõdtek a róla szóló legendák? A legenda-fejlõdés áttekintése módot ad a magyar szentekrõl való hagyomány jobb megértésére is.í Ami Szent Henrik születésének évét illeti, ellentmondanak egymásnak a források. 973 és 978 egyaránt kiszámítható a ránk maradt különbözõ emlékekbõl. Stefan Weinfurter, német történész amellett foglalt állást, hogy 973-ban jött világra. A napot viszont már egyértelmûen ránk hagyományozták a kortársak: május 6-án született Civakodó Henrik, bajor herceg és Burgundi Gizella gyermekeként. Apja halálát követõen 995-ben Bajorország ura lett. ioo2-ben nagy lehetõség csillant fel elõtte, amikor másodfokú unokatestvére, 111. Ottó, német császár gyermektelenül meghalt. Henrik ekkor határozott lépéseket tett a hatalom megszerzésére. Kezébe ragadta a német uralkodói jelvényeket, köztük a Szent Lándzsát, és elérte, hogy ioo2. június 7-én, német királlyá koronázza a mainzi érsek, majd szeptember 8-án, Szûz Mária születésének napján elfoglalta a trónt Aachenben. A fennmaradt források alapján Henrik önmagával fontosabb szemben igényes, ugyanakkor ellentmondást alig tûrõ személyiség volt. mozzanatai A korban bevett uralkodói szerepfelfogásnak megfelelõen saját hatalmát Istentõl kapott küldetésként értelmezte. Ugy tekintett magára mint lsten házának intézõjére, akire a jól elvégzett munka után jutalom vár, ám szömyû büntetés lesz osztályrésze, ha hanyagnak bizonyul. Ez motiválta egyházpolitikájában, amikor a megüresedett püspöki stallumokba többnyire saját híveit ültette, akárcsak az egyes apátságok élére. Henrik alakját és a hatalomról való gondolkodását remekül szemlélteti a regensburgi szakramentárium ábrázolása.2 Az uralkodó két karját két VIGILI6 84 i Életrajzát elsõsorban Weinfurter, tiszteletének fejlõdését Kandhza mûve alapján vázolom. Stefan Weinfurter: Hé?z.73rz.ch JI (ioo2-io24). He>7'7':schGr cm E7?c!e dG7' ZG3te72. Pustet, Regensburg, iggg; Iliana Ka[rLdzha:. The Cult of the Chaste lmpericü Couple.. He`nry 11 omd Cmigunde in the Hotgiog"phic Trcûd2tt.ons, Arf, cz7td MG772o7y of f72G Hozy Romcín E77zpz.rG (c. i35o-i5oo). PhD-Dissertation, Central

2025

Did censorship exist before the invention of the printing press and the Index Librorum Prohibitorum? This study examines the attempted suppression of written religious and political dissent in pre-Reformation England, with a focus on legal aspects and historical context. A wide range of instruments was in use to discourage the circulation of unwelcome books. They ranged from drastic measures such as executions and public book burnings to more subtle approaches like erasures and reader warnings. Wycliffite writings were the most obvious target, but civil censorship developed at the same time. Even books of magic make a rare appearance in the records. An interesting aspect is the paradox of censorship: The very act of suppression generated publicity, and many heterodox doctrines are only known from their own condemnation.

2025, Medieval Studies Research Blog

2025, Notes and Queries

In its complete form, it consists of five Rhyme Royal stanzas followed by a two-line Latin postscript. The Trinity College manuscript omits the final stanza and the postscript. The final stanza does appear, however in the Balliol College manuscript and in the Landsdowne manuscript, which records only the fifth and final stanza. 1 The poem has been printed in several modern anthologies of Middle English verse including Carleton Brown's series, Roman Dyboski collection of lyrics from Richard Hill's fifteenth-century commonplace book, Luria and Hoffman's Norton Critical edition of Middle English lyrics, and R. T. Davies edited collection of short verse. 2 These editions typically take the Balliol version as the base text, or, in the case of Carleton, print the Trinity version and then provide the missing lines from Balliol in brackets. In every case, the editor includes the Latin postscript: 'Beati qui in domino moriuntur/Humiliatus sum vermis'. In the case of Carleton's and Dyboski's versions, no translation is provided for the postscript.

2025

Talk given at the 43rd International Haskins Society Conference, 15-17 November 2024, University of Richmond (VA)

2025

Norbert Elias’ colossal work The Civilising Process diminished the role of religion in the civilising process of the Medieval period. Yet, the initial ideas set forth by the church through the Peace of God in c.975 underpinned the entire process. The civilising process, according to Elias emerged from the French courts of the twelfth century. Yet, those same courts were home to the secular upper-classes who were directly influenced by the ideals the church set forth during the period of the crusades, which would go on to shape the social happenings of the early middle ages. However, the question here is not how the church influenced the civilising process, but rather: what was the longevity of those ideas that shaped the early civilising of knighthood? This paper asks the how far can we trace the clerical influence of chivalric civility into the fourteenth century? And, secondly, were ideas from the thirteenth century still shaping knightly lives and literature? To do so, the fourteenth century knightly manual Livre de Chevalerie by Geoffroi de Charny will be used to understand how far clerical teachings played a role in maintaining a civilised knighthood. Charny will be examined in conjunction with excerpts from popular author Ramon Llull to assess the extent and change of clerical influence across an eighty-year period.

2025, Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques

The special issue "Quantifying the English Archive: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Administrative and Social Histories of Medieval England" showcases recent developments in the application of quantitative and digital methodologies to medieval administrative records. This introduction provides a brief overview of scholarship from the last fifty years that used numerical data derived from written texts to reveal new information about daily life in medieval England. It then summarizes the major findings and contributions of the six articles in the issue, each of which employs quantitative analysis of archival records to study previously under-explored communities, places, and institutions.

2025, Studies in the Literary Imagination

This article argues that Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was written as a Christmas poem and may have been performed during the holiday celebrations. Unlike previous arguments that have seen the poem’s Christmas setting as superficial or religious in nature, this article illustrates how the poem reflects the games and masked performances (disguisings) that were part of medieval Christmas celebrations. In particular, it argues that the Green Knight’s entrance mirrors a Christmas mumming or disguising and that the description of Hautdesert may be describing an elaborate stage set or tabletop decoration.

2025

Building upon the work of J.W. Baldwin, Philippe Buc, David L. d’Avray, this paper aims to develop a major premise of Langton’s political-theological thought – his attitude toward kingship – and provoke reappraisal of prevailing... more

2025

In a previous paper about the Varenne family, I mentioned the somewhat surprising marriage of Gundred of Oosterzele with the knight William of Varenne, who was a leading participant in the Norman invasion of England in 1066. Oosterzele is a rural commune in East Flanders, situated only 20 kms from Ghent, but more than 300 kms from Varenne… There are lots of fancy stories attempting to explain this unusual marriage, some suggesting that Gundrade was in fact a daughter of the Conqueror and his wife Matilde of Flanders. Matilde married William the Conqueror in 1051 and they had ten children. Gundrade was born in Ghent in 1053 and cannot possibly have been a daughter of Mathilde. Nevertheless, she still appears in some genealogies as Gundrade of Normandy and as an additional daughter of the duke and his wife .

2025, Nova et Vetera

This essay was first delivered as a lecture at Blackfriars Hall, Oxford on February 1,
2023, as part of the Aquinas Lectures series, held during Hilary Term (2023): "Aquinas
and the Future of Christian Thought." I am grateful to Fr. Oliver Keenan, O.P., and the
Aquinas Institute for their kind invitation to participate in this lecture series, and to the
community at Blackfriars Hall for their generous welcome.

2025, Off Center Magazine

Samuel Mason’s life reflects the violent, shifting loyalties of early America. Born in 1739, he served under George Washington but quickly gained a reputation as a thief, counterfeiter, and river pirate. From frontier forts to the outlaw stronghold of Cave-In-Rock, Mason led a gang that terrorized travelers along the Mississippi River and Natchez Trace. Once a justice of the peace, he died in disgrace—his severed head returned for bounty. From Soldier to Scoundrel traces Mason’s descent into infamy and examines how blurred the line between patriot and predator could be in the lawless American frontier.

2025, Academic Sharing Platform Publishing House

This essay reviews the history of livestock and animal farming in England from the 5th to the 11th centuries AD. The 5th to 7th centuries were challenging after the Roman rule ended. However, evidence suggests that animal farming continued more than previous records indicated. In the 8th century, new settlements appeared, leading to different ways of handling animal remains, especially in monasteries and trading areas. A comparison of the ‘Saxon’ and ‘Danelaw’ regions from the late 9th to early 11th centuries shows some differences in traditions, but the local factors emerge as the critical influencers. Looking ahead, new biomolecular research can provide valuable insights, but it must focus on archaeological questions rather than just being analytical. This essay aims to show how cattle farming, shaped by the diversity and complexity of local factors, contributed to agriculture and society in medieval times. It uses documentary analysis to explore how the cattle industry improved daily life and activities during this period.

2025, The Change in the Traditional Paradigm of the Development of the Foreign Policy of the English Kingdom in 1477-1478/ Изменение традиционной парадигмы развития внешней политики Английского королевства в 1477-1478 гг.

Аннотация. На протяжение нескольких столетий традиционной парадигмой развития внешней политики Англии являлось противостояние с Францией, в котором Англия опиралась на континентальных союзников. В XV веке таким союзником становится Бургундское герцогство. Однако в 1477 г. погибает бургундский герцог Карл Смелый, что приводит к войне за Бургундское наследство. Действия Эдуарда IV в отношение Франции и Бургундии в этот сложный период были крайне неоднозначны, а их оценка в дальнейшем вызвала оживленные дискуссии в исторической науке. Исследователи упрекали Эдуарда IV в алчности и боязни потерять французскую пенсию. Более того, существует мнение, что Эдуард IV имел намерение поделить ослабленное герцогство Бургундское с Людовиком XI. В настоящей статье мы постараемся выяснить, насколько справедливыми являются эти упреки, а также рассмотреть иные мотивы короля Эдуарда IV в изменении внешней политики Англии, исходя из итогов французской экспедиции 1475 г.

2025

This paperpresents the results ofresearch for a Doctorate undertakenfrom 1991 to 1995, in the Department ofArchaeology and Palaeoanthropology at the University ofNew England, Armidale, NSW The aim of the research was to construct a model for the transfer and adaptation of industrial technology from Britain to Australia in the nineteenth century. The paper considers what factors were important for the process of international technology transfer. This leads to hypotheses about how it should have been adapted as a result of its transfer. These are then tested by a comparison of the physical remains of the technology preserved in both countries. A generalised model for the transfer and adaption of industrial technology from Britain to Australia in the nineteenth century is then putforward. In order to construct a model for the transfer and adpation of industrial archaeology between Britain and Australia in the nineteenth century, published research on international technology-transfer,...

2025, Lecale Review

Located nearly a mile north-west of Ballynoe, in the townland of Erenagh, lies a little field called ‘the church park’, once the site of a medieval church and the Abbey of ‘Carryke’, founded almost 900 years ago. Surprisingly, in this... more

Located nearly a mile north-west of Ballynoe, in the townland of Erenagh, lies a
little field called ‘the church park’, once the site of a medieval church and the
Abbey of ‘Carryke’, founded almost 900 years ago. Surprisingly, in this land of
saints and scholars, much of its history remains a mystery.

2025, Historiographical mobility in the late Middle Ages: the example of Jean Froissart

The writing of history and the desire to shape it evolved around different motivations and conditions throughout history. In this context, the example of medieval European historiography was a very visible part of this evolution. The historiography of this period, which we refer to as the Middle Ages and cover a span of 1000 years, was built upon four main pillars: the Greek-Roman and the Jewish-Christian traditions. Typically, it was thought that the religiously-centered understanding of history, based on the Jewish-Christian tradition, was the dominant historiographical tradition in medieval Europe. This wasn't entirely wrong, but it became the main reason why the historiography of medieval Europe was seen as a static, unchanging concept. However, over this 1000-year period, things did not remain so uniform, and historical writing was constantly evolving. One of the best examples of this evolution is Jean Froissart, who lived in the 14th century. Froissart served in important courts throughout his life, including those of Queen Philippa of England, King Edward III, Edward III’s eldest son, the Black Prince, King David II of Scotland, and the Duke of Clarence. But why and how did a continental European writer born in Valenciennes end up in so many different courts? What caused this mobility of a scribe in the late Middle Ages?
What made him special was not the individuals he served, but how he gained patronage from them. The key questions and differences arise from the chronicle he wrote during these times of patronage. Why and at whose request was this chronicle, deeply influenced by the Arthurian romances that regained popularity after the 12th century, written? Why did this chronicle adopt a chivalric style of narration? How and in what way did he find patronage? Why did he write his work in French? As a secular scribe, why is he considered an important factor in the change of late medieval historiography? All of these questions can be understood by looking at the general changes and crises experienced in Europe during the 12th century. At its simplest, the rise and growth of cities, the growing power of the bourgeoisie due to increased trade, and the establishment of universities led to a new dynamism in medieval European historiography, thus causing it to change. As a result of all these factors, Froissart’s chronicle essentially presented an idealized version of the period he lived in. This brings us to another question: why did Froissart feel the need to mythologize and idealize historical narration in his chronicle?

2025, Аспирантский сборник. Выпуск 14. Сборник статей по материалам Международного форума молодых исследователей искусства «Научная Весна-2024»

В статье исследуется иконография онокентавра со змеем в английских бестиариях 1170–1260-х годов. Цель исследования –– выявить истоки этого редкого иконографического подтипа онокентавра. Выдвигаются три гипотезы происхождения модуля в... more

2025, Notes & Queries

The charter known as S221 survives in a single-sheet original, held in the British Library under the shelfmark Cotton Charter VIII.27. Issued in 901 for the church community of Much Wenlock, it records several grants and exchanges of land. In his now-ubiquitous handbook that supplies the charter its identifying number, Peter Sawyer describes it as being issued by ‘Æthelred and Æthelflæd, rulers of Mercia’. This makes it one of the few charters that can be (or is usually) directly connected to the reign of Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians (d.918) in the early tenth century.

2025, Journal of the Early Book Society, Vol. 27

2025, Mediterranea

This article discusses the shared content of three interrelated astronomical manuscripts from late medieval Italy, arguing that certain elements of this shared content trace their origins to Maghribī sources. This includes two tables of geographic coordinates with a pronounced focus on locations in North Africa as well as a gnomonic table for the latitude of Tunis. One of the coordinate tables is known to resemble an Arabic table in a zīj by Ibn al-Raqqām, who was active in Tunis, Béjaïa, and Granada in the period 1280-1315. It will be argued that a likely explanation of this knowledge transfer lies in the documented mercantile and diplomatic contacts between the Republic of Venice and Ḥafṣid Tunisia in the decades around 1300.

2025

What does it mean when we rehearse the time-worn temporal phrase, ‘from manuscript to print’? For several decades, scholars have offered powerful models for understanding how queer individuals and communities experience both the restrictive and liberatory potentials of living against the grain of normative, linear time. Time has likewise been a perennial concern in the history of art, whether focused on how sequences of objects produced by a given community obey a unique temporal logic, how the endurance of objects outside of their ‘own’ time makes affective demands on the contemporary viewer or how notions of originality and epigonism are themselves time-bound. This article engages such discourses of non-normative temporalities while examining British Library Arundel MS 66, an English manuscript of mostly astrological texts with images copied from printed Italian sources, focusing in particular on the figure of Andromeda, variously rendered as a beautiful trans woman, unjustly bound. The purpose of this essay is to offer a point of resistance against the prepositional paradigm, from/to, that has dominated book history and in so doing expose the broader social imperatives that such an evolutionary model has underwritten. More than a critique via a case study, this essay will point up what is to be gained by considering manuscripts copied from printed books not as a perverse reversal of prepositional decorum, but instead as generative conjunctions.

2025, Rivista di Storia, Arte e Archeologia per le Province di Alessandria e Asti

Il presente contributo si prefigge di analizzare l'opposizione di lunga durata tra nobiltà del Popolo e del Comune in Alessandria mediante due affondi su due diversi episodi della sua storia. Nella prima parte si ripercorrono, con l'analisi di una fonte edita ma finora mai esaminata approfonditamente nella sua essenza di prodotto di fazione, le ultime battute della lotta portata avanti da una frangia della nobiltà del Comune per ottenere l'abbattimento definitivo dell'Anzianato duecentesco, avvenuto con la riforma del 1588-1589; la seconda sezione costituisce invece il primo studio organico interamente dedicato alla vicenda della Casa Ducale del 1417 (in realtà, come si vedrà, di poco precedente), ben nota alla storiografia ma da essa tramandata in forma semplificata e affrontata solo incidentalmente dagli storici moderni.

2025

Salito al trono ancora bambino alla morte del padre, Giovanni Senza Terra, Enrico III cinse la corona d'Inghilterra per oltre mezzo secolo. Un regno lunghissimo, ricordato soprattutto per l'adozione di provvedimenti legislativi che la tradizione considera l'embrione dell'assetto politico che tuttora vige nel Regno Unito Particolare di una statua raffigurante Enrico III d'Inghilterra (1207-1272).

2025

La carriera del valdostano Raoul Gros, arcivescovo di Tarantasia dal 1246 al 1271, è emblematica di come la posizione di vertice raggiunta da un ecclesiastico non solo di nobile famiglia, ma anche di grande talento personale, e abbastanza fortunato da durare molto a lungo nella carica, potesse avere ricadute significative in un ambito familiare allargato, includendo cioè la parentela non soltanto in linea maschile ma femminile, su una durata non di una sola ma di due e addirittura di tre generazioni, e in un orizzonte non soltanto locale ma internazionale.

2025, Review of Gibbs, Spike, Lordship, State Formation and Local Authority in Late Medieval and Early Modern England

Jeremy M. Rodriguez. Review of Gibbs, Spike, Lordship, State Formation and Local Authority in Late Medieval and Early Modern England. H-Albion, H-Net Reviews. April, 2025.

2025, Comitatus

Bishop AEthelwold, His Followers, and Saints' Cults in Early Medieval England: Power, Belief, and Religious Reform (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2022), xvi + 293 pp., 10 ills. Alison Hudson's first monograph, the latest volume in the Anglo-Saxon Studies series, is an ambitious work that aims to recontextualize the reforms of Bishop AEthelwold and his followers through a hagiographical lens. A specialist in early medieval England, Hudson has served as a Project Coordinator for Early Medieval English Manuscripts at the British Library and published extensively on this period. Her new book marshals her impressive command of the manuscript sources to reconsider how AEthelwold and his followers used the worship of saints to influence the laity and shore up their political and economic base. Hudson focuses on the bishop's "circle," whom she describes as "the men and women who staffed and/or were trained at the houses AEthelwold refounded … because they were conscious of their links to each other, identifying themselves as 'alumni AEthelwoldi' " (3). Pushing back against scholars such as Eric John who argued that this group's reforms were made possible only through royal backing, she argues that "they also … interacted and engaged with groups outside their monasteries, and thereby sought to gain others' support" (225). Hudson analyzes how this circle carefully encouraged the veneration of certain saints to achieve their political and religious goals as part of their reform program. Using the introduction and first chapter to lay out the terms of her analysis and establish her historiographical intervention, Hudson suggests that AEthelwold and his circle's choice of saints had more to do with constituencies outside the monastery than with monastic worship. She identifies three contexts for saintly veneration, which she describes as "'individual, ' 'intra-communal,' and 'supracommunal' " (18). Although the majority of the book focuses on the third category, Hudson does not discount the importance of the worship of saints by individual monks and monastic communities. Her first chapter considers veneration of saints in individual prayers and monastic life by considering their role in education and in daily readings, relying upon sources such as AEthelwold's Regularis concordia. Hudson pushes back against previous scholarship that argued that the the circle focused primarily on the worship of local saints and especially those mentioned by the Venerable Bede. She argues instead that in individual and monastic spaces, the monks generally favored the same continental saints being worshipped in the Carolingian world. Accordingly, she notes that their use of local saints was instead an attempt to reach external audiences through "supracommunal" veneration. Hudson explains that this form of worship allowed reformers to reach the laity through activities such as "liturgical celebrations … translation ceremonies, pilgrimage to shrines, and miraculous healings" (18). Using a wide range of written sources and archaeological evidence, she suggests that this furthered their reforming goals and secured their economic and financial security. The second and third chapters consider how the circle's choice of local saints served practical purposes. Building upon the work of David Rollason, Stephen White, and Barbara Rosenwein, Hudson examines their charters to consider how

2025

andrew ayton and craig lambert in the summer of 1364 the Margarete, commanded by John Frensh, sailed out of sandwich harbour. As she headed for the Bay of Brittany to collect a cargo of salt she collided with another ship, sank and took with her £60. 1 undeterred by this experience in september Frensh was back in england requesting permission to take a further £40 in gold and £20 worth of cloth to Gascony in order to purchase wine. 2 six years later Frensh reappears in the records as commander of another Margarete. 3 Clearly the owners had reasoned that, despite the obvious risks, maritime commerce was too profitable to ignore and had promptly commissioned a new vessel, poignantly naming her the Margarete. that Frensh was willing to continue his commercial activities after such an accident highlights the resilience of Kent's seafarers. indeed, in the following decade Frensh would serve in no fewer than six naval expeditions as commander of five ships. 4 What the above vignette shows is that the later medieval ship-board community, that is shipowners, shipmasters and mariners, was a vibrant and dynamic section of medieval society, acutely aware and experienced in both the dangers and rewards of maritime enterprise. indeed, coastal settlements and the ship-board communities they produced were central to England's lifeblood. Mariners, through fishing, provided food to eat and freighted goods and other necessities by established coastal and deep sea trade routes. they were also the vehicles that drove the martial and diplomatic ambitions of medieval kings, a subject at the heart of this article.

2025

Reviewed by John S. Ceccatti The brewing industry offers historians of all varieties a fitting lens through which to view the interactions of business, government, society, and technology. Most histories of brewing, however, do not attempt such broad synthesis. Of the numerous book-length works in this field, the bulk focus on a single brewery or town, and most of these are highly celebratory in nature, often marking an anniversary of one sort or another. There are some notable exceptions to this unfortunate situation.

2025, Battlefield

A brief article looking at the siege of Framlingham castle during the First Barons War

2025, La Cultura

Si deve alla felice iniziativa di Franco Montanari se questo prezioso volume, ben noto a tutti gli studiosi di filosofia antica e di letteratura greca, è ora nuovamente disponibile, grazie alla bella ristampa curata da Montanari stesso con Enrica Salvaneschi ed edita dalle romane Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura. Pubblicato nel 1963, ma già pronto per la stampa nel 1958, questo lavoro, che per tanti aspetti costituisce un'opera unica e irripetibile, fu concepito da Giuliana Lanata -che era nata il 12 marzo 1931 -all'età di ventisette anni: un'impresa che, tenuto conto della densità del volume, dell'ampiezza del suo quadro testimoniale e, infine, e soprattutto, della sicurezza e saggezza di giudizio della sua autrice, può a buon diritto essere definita, con le parole di Montanari nella Premessa alla nuova edizione (p. vii), «del tutto stupefacente». Come tutti sanno, il volume fu pubblicato nella gloriosa e rimpianta "Biblioteca di Studi Superiori" de La Nuova Italia Editrice, come volume xliii della sezione 'Filosofia antica', diretta da Rodolfo Mondolfo e da Mario Untersteiner. Di Untersteiner Giuliana Lanata era stata allieva all'Università degli Studi di Genova, quando lo studioso vi teneva la cattedra di Letteratura greca, prima di passare alla Statale di Milano su quella di Storia della filosofia antica. La sezione 'Filosofia antica' era nata e si era strutturata su un ambizioso progetto di rifacimento dei Fragmente der Vorsokratiker di Diels-Kranz. Il progetto prevedeva una serie di nuove raccolte di frammenti e testimonianze dei singoli Presocratici -in alcuni casi di tradizioni filosofiche presocratiche: tali furono gli Ionici. Testimonianze e frammenti, a cura di Antonio Maddalena, vol. xlii, e soprattutto i tre tomi dei Pitagorici. Testimonianze e frammenti, a cura di Maria Timpanaro Cardini, voll. xxviii, xli, xlv (recentemente ristampati con il titolo Pitagorici antichi. Testimonianze e frammenti, a cura di M. Timpanaro Cardini, Introduzione di G. Reale, Bompiani, Milano 2010). Le nuove raccolte di testi dovevano essere arricchite, rispetto al Diels-Kranz, da una traduzione italiana dei testi, da un commento analitico dettagliato e aggiornato, e da ricche Bibliografie. Nella sezione 'Filosofia antica' lo stesso Untersteiner pubblicò importanti volumi destinati a costituire pietre

2025, Open Library of the Humanities

The Angevin dynasty were the rulers of a medieval European empire. Although their control of their cross-channel domains were relatively short lived (1154-1204), they occupy a central place in the modern imaginary of the Middle Ages. This introductory essay to the collection Remembering the Angevins explores how the administrative and legal reforms, building projects, and literary culture fostered by the Angevins created a robust framework of cultural memory, one that carried their legacy into the modern era. Since the Reformation, the Angevin world has acted as a backdrop or screen onto which modern fantasies and anxieties have been projected. The essays in this volume explore the intellectual, social, and political contexts in which modern Angevin representations were forged. They show how representations of historical Angevin figures and the larger 'Plantagenet Cinematic Universe' or 'Robin Hood Times' (as contributors refer to the settings of the films) can be effectively read, critiqued, and taught. The link that is demonstrated by the contributors between Angevin memory and contemporary politics raises the issue of American attachment to the story of Magna Carta, enshrined within American political identity in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, but likely to occupy a more uncertain place if unchecked executive power is allowed to take hold.