Mediaeval Colchester’s Lost Landmarks By John Ashdown-Hill Breedon Books, 2009 ISBN: 978 1 85983 686 6 Colchester is proud of being the ‘Britain’s oldest recorded town’. Its Roman past is well publicised, and so too is its more recent history. However, until now medieval Colchester had been sadly neglected. Using a mixture of medieval documentary […]
The Written World: Past and Place in the Work of Orderic Vitalis
July 17, 2009 By
The Written World: Past and Place in the Work of Orderic Vitalis By Amanda Jane Hingst University of Notre Dame Press, 2009 ISBN: 978-0-268-03086-5 The Anglo-Norman monk Orderic Vitalis (1075-c.1142) wrote his monumental, highly individual Historia Ecclesiastica as an exercise in monastic discipline intended to preserve the events and character of Christendom for future generations. […]
Medieval Italy: Texts in Translation
July 6, 2009 By
Medieval Italy: Texts in Translation Edited by Katherine L. Jansen, Joanna Drell, and Frances Andrews University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009 ISBN: 978-0-8122-4164-8 Medieval Italy gathers together an unparalleled selection of newly translated primary sources from the central and later Middle Ages, a period during which Italy was famous for its diverse cultural landscape […]
Muhammad Is Not the Father of Any of Your Men: The Making of the Last Prophet
July 6, 2009 By
Muhammad Is Not the Father of Any of Your Men: The Making of the Last Prophet By David S. Powers University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009 ISBN: 978-0-8122-4178-5 The Islamic claim to supersede Judaism and Christianity is embodied in the theological assertion that the office of prophecy is hereditary but that the line of descent ends […]
The Battle of Kosovo 1389: An Albanian Epic
July 6, 2009 By
The Battle of Kosovo 1389: An Albanian Epic By Anna Di Lellio; with translations by Robert Elsie IB Tauris, 2009 ISBN: 978-1-84885-094-1 The Battle of Kosovo of 1389 holds enormous significance in the formation of modern Balkan nation states, especially among South Slav and Serbian nationalist circles. What has given this single battle such resonance, […]
Lords and Lordship in the British Isles in the Late Middle Ages
June 30, 2009 By
Lords and Lordship in the British Isles in the Late Middle Ages By Rees Davies, edited by Brendan Smith Oxford University Press, 2009 ISBN: 978-0-19-954291-8 It is well known that political, economic, and social power in the British Isles in the Middle Ages lay in the hands of a small group of domini-lords. In his […]
Parks in Medieval England
June 30, 2009 By
Parks in Medieval England By S.A. Mileson Oxford University Press, 2009 ISBN: 978-0-19-956567-2 Parks were prominent and, indeed, controversial features of the medieval countryside, but they have been unevenly studied and remain only partly understood. Stephen Mileson provides the first full-length study of the subject, examining parks across the country and throughout the Middle Ages […]
Archaeology of the countryside in medieval Anatolia
June 7, 2009 By
Archaeology of the countryside in medieval Anatolia By Edited by T. Vorderstrasse and J. Roodenberg Publications de l’Institut historique-archeologique neerlandais de Stamboul, Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten/Netherlands Institute for the Near East (NINO), 2009 ISBN: 978-90-6258-324-9 This book is a publication of the acts of a symposium held at the NINO in 2008 on […]
Re-thinking Dionysius the Areopagite
June 7, 2009 By
Re-thinking Dionysius the Areopagite By Sarah Coakley and Charles M. Stang Wiley, 2009 ISBN: 978-1-4051-8089-4 Dionysius the Areopagite, the early sixth-century Christian writer, bridged Christianity and neo-Platonist philosophy. Bringing together a team of international scholars, this volume surveys how Dionysius’s thought and work has been interpreted, in both East and West, up to the present […]
Monemvasia: A Byzantine City State
June 7, 2009 By
Monemvasia: A Byzantine City State By Haris A. Kalligas Routledge, 2009 ISBN: 978-0-415-24880-8 This lavishly illustrated book stands out in its field as the only book currently available on the best-preserved Byzantine city in the Peloponnese – Monemvasia. Haris A. Kalligas, a world authority on Monemvasia’s history and architecture, here explores the city’s foundation, its […]
Early Islamic Spain: The History of Ibn al-Qutiyah
June 7, 2009 By
Early Islamic Spain: The History of Ibn al-Qutiyah By David James Routledge, 2009 ISBN: 978-0-415-47552-5 This book is the first published English-language translation of the significant History of Islamic Spain by Ibn al-Qutiya (d. Cordova 367 / 977). Including extensive notes and comments, a genealogical table and relevant maps, the text is preceded by a […]
The Great Caliphs: the Golden Age of the ‘Abbasid Empire
June 7, 2009 By
The Great Caliphs: the Golden Age of the ‘Abbasid Empire By Amira K. Bennison IB Tauris, 2009 ISBN: 9781845117375 The flowering of the ‘Abbasid caliphate between 750 and 1258 CE is often considered the classical age of Islamic civilization. In the preceding 120 years, the Arabs had conquered much of the known world of antiquity […]
The Letters of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln
June 6, 2009 By
The Letters of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln Translated by F.A.C. Mantello and Joseph Goering University of Toronto Press, 2009 ISBN: 978-0-8020-9813-9 Robert Grosseteste (c.1170-1253) was an English statesman, philosopher, theologian, and bishop of Lincoln, and also one of the most controversial figures in his country’s episcopate. His long life coincided with the central period […]
Say What I Am Called: The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book and the Anglo-Latin Riddle Tradition
June 6, 2009 By
Say What I Am Called: The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book and the Anglo-Latin Riddle Tradition By Dieter Bitterli University of Toronto, 2009 ISBN: 978-0-8020-9352-3 Perhaps the most enigmatic cultural artifacts that survive from the Anglo-Saxon period are the Old English riddle poems that were preserved in the tenth century Exeter Book manuscript. Clever, […]
The Teutonic Knights in the Holy Land, 1190-1291
June 6, 2009 By
The Teutonic Knights in the Holy Land, 1190-1291 By Nicholas Morton Boydell, 2009 ISBN: 9781843834779 The Teutonic Order was founded in 1190 to provide medical care for crusaders in the kingdom of Jerusalem. In time, it assumed a military role and played an important part in the defence of the Christian territories in the Eastern Mediterranean […]
The Cult of St George in Medieval England
June 6, 2009 By
The Cult of St George in Medieval England By Jonathan Good Boydell, 2009 ISBN: 9781843834694 Recently, St George has enjoyed a modest revival as a specifically English national symbol. But how became the patron saint of England in the first place has always been a mystery. He was not English, nor was his principal shrine […]
Commercial Agreements and Social Dynamics in Medieval Genoa
May 19, 2009 By
Commercial Agreements and Social Dynamics in Medieval Genoa By Quentin Van Doosselaere Cambridge University Press, 2009 ISBN: 9780521897921 Commercial Agreements and Social Dynamics in Medieval Genoa is an empirical study of medieval long-distance trade agreements and the surrounding social dynamics that transformed the feudal organization of men-of-arms into the world of Renaissance merchants. Drawing on […]
The Church in Anglo-Saxon England
May 19, 2009 By
The Church in Anglo-Saxon England By John Godfrey Cambridge University Press, 2009 ISBN: 9780521109048 It is likely that the gospel was brought to Britain in Roman times by merchants and soldiers from Gaul. The author offers a details and balanced history of the events of these years. While his main theme is the conversion of […]
The Cathedral: The Social and Architectural Dynamics of Construction
May 19, 2009 By
The Cathedral: The Social and Architectural Dynamics of Construction By Alain Erlande-Brandenburg Cambridge University Press, 2009 ISBN: 9780521110372 The popular image of the traditional western city has usually been dominated by the cathedral, whose sheer size seemed to create an isolated physical and spiritual focal point. In this iconoclastic study, the author sets out to […]
Pain and Suffering in Medieval Theology: Academic Debates at the University of Paris in the Thirteenth Century
May 2, 2009 By
Pain and Suffering in Medieval Theology: Academic Debates at the University of Paris in the Thirteenth Century By Donald Mowbray Boydell & Brewer, 2009 ISBN: 9781843834618 Questions of pain and suffering occur frequently in medieval theological debate. Here, Dr Mowbray examines the innovative views of Paris’s masters of theology in the thirteenth century, illuminating how […]
The World of the Medieval Shipmaster: Law, Business and the Sea, c.1350-c.1450
April 27, 2009 By
The World of the Medieval Shipmaster: Law, Business and the Sea, c.1350-c.1450 By Robin Ward Boydell & Brewer, 2009 ISBN: 9781843834557 Despite a background of war, piracy, depopulation, bullion shortages, adverse political decisions, legal uncertainties and deteriorating weather conditions, between the mid-fourteenth and the mid-fifteenth centuries the English merchant shipping industry thrived. New markets were […]
Aladdin’s Lamp: How Greek Science Came to Europe Through the Islamic World
April 27, 2009 By
Aladdin’s Lamp: How Greek Science Came to Europe Through the Islamic World By John Freely Alfred Knopf, 2009 ISBN: 978-0-307-26534-0 Aladdin’s Lamp is the fascinating story of how ancient Greek philosophy and science began in the sixth century B.C. and, during the next millennium, spread across the Greco-Roman world, producing the remarkable discoveries and theories […]
The construction of authority in ancient Rome and Byzantium : the rhetoric of empire
April 14, 2009 By
The construction of authority in ancient Rome and Byzantium : the rhetoric of empire By Sarolta A. Takács Cambridge University Press, 2009 ISBN: 9780521878654 In The Construction of Authority in Ancient Rome and Byzantium, Sarolta Takács examines the role of the Roman emperor, who was the single most important law-giving authority in Roman society. Emperors […]
Bannockburn: The Triumph of Robert the Bruce
April 4, 2009 By
Bannockburn: The Triumph of Robert the Bruce By David Cornell Yale University Press, 2009 ISBN: 9780300145687 Few battles resonate through British history as strongly as Bannockburn. On June 24, 1314, the Scots under the leadership of Robert the Bruce unexpectedly trounced the English, leaving thousands dead or wounded. The victory was one of Scotland’s greatest, the more […]
Prato: Architecture, Piety, and Political Identity in a Tuscan City-State
April 4, 2009 By
Prato: Architecture, Piety, and Political Identity in a Tuscan City-State By Alick M. McLean Yale University Press, 2009 ISBN: 9780300137149 This handsome book recounts the historical development of one city republic, Prato in Tuscany, from the eleventh through the fourteenth century. In telling the story of Prato’s origins, construction, and demise, Alick McLean considers the planning, […]
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