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From Roman West to Rus’: Four Medieval Books Added to our Patreon Shop

Now on our Patreon Shop: four more medieval studies’ book from the Arc Humanities Press’ Past Imperfect Series. Here is what you can now buy!

Demons in the Middle Ages

By Juanita Feros Ruys

Demons—evil angels or fallen angels—form an inescapable part of the religious and cultural landscape of the European Middle Ages. This book explores their significance across fifteen hundred years of European history, from the North African desert homes of the eremites in the Late Antique period, to the miracle tales of the medieval monasteries of Western Europe, the academic disputes of the Scholastics, and conjuring of necromancers in the later Middle Ages. It argues that for all these groups, demons constituted a necessary part of the cosmic structure, whether by defining a monastic calling, fulfilling a role in God’s properly ordered universe, or holding out the promise of untold wealth and knowledge.

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By the end of the Middle Ages, however, concern about the impact of demons and their connection with heresy would lead to the witch hunts that would sweep Europe and the New World in the early modern era.

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The Emergence of the English

By Susan Oosthuizen

This book takes a critical approach to the assumption that the origins of the English can be found in fifth- and sixth-century immigration from north-west Europe. It begins by evaluating the primary evidence, and discussing the value of ethnicity in historical explanation. The author proposes an alternative explanatory model that sets short- and medium-term events and processes in the context of the longue durée, illustrated here through the agricultural landscape. She concludes that the origins of the English should rather be sought among late Romano-British communities, evolving, adapting, and innovating in a new, post-imperial context.

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Though focusing on England between the fifth and seventh centuries, this volume explores themes of universal interest—the role of immigration in cultural transformation; the importance of the landscape as a mnemonic for cultural change; and the utility of a common property rights approach as an analytical tool.

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The Transformation of the Roman West

By Ian Wood

The history of the Late Roman Empire in the West has been divided into two parallel worlds, analysed either as a political and economic transformation or as a religious and cultural one. But how do these relate one to another? In this concise and effective synthesis, Ian Wood considers some ways in which religion and the Church can be reintegrated into what has become a largely secular discourse. The Church was at the heart of the changes that look place at the end of the Western Empire, not only regarding religion, but indeed every aspect of politics and society. Wood contends that the institutionalisation of the Church on a huge scale was a key factor in the transformation which began in the early fourth century with an incipiently Christian Roman Empire and ended three hundred years later in a world of thoroughly Christianised kingdoms.

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The Kingdom of Rus’

By Christian Raffensperger

As scholarship continues to expand the idea of medieval Europe beyond “the West,” the Rus’ remain the final frontier relegated to the European periphery. The Kingdom of Rus’ challenges the perception of Rus’ as an eastern “other” – advancing the idea of the Rus’ as a kingdom deeply integrated with medieval Europe, through an innovative analysis of medieval titles. Examining a wide range of medieval sources, this book exposes the common practice in scholarship of referring to Rusian rulers as princes as a relic of early modern attempts to diminish the Rus’. Not only was Rus’ part and parcel of medieval Europe, but in the eleventh and twelfth centuries Rus’ was the largest kingdom in Christendom.

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