What’s new in medieval studies? Here are ten open-access articles published in April, which range from a new look at Richard III to dog tricks in Byzantium.
This ongoing series on Medievalists.net highlights what has been published in journals over the last month that deal with the Middle Ages. All ten articles are Open-Access, meaning you can read them for free. We now also have a special tier on our Patreon where you can see the full list of 74 open-access articles we found.
Politics, Investments and Public Spending in Bologna (End of 13th – First Half of 14th Century)
By Marco Conti
Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook
Abstract: Not all major Italian cities of the late Middle Ages could rely on an established and organised system of public debt like Florence, Venice, Genoa, and others. The study of one such city, Bologna, reveals that whenever the city found itself in serious financial straits, outside of ad hoc impositions, it found a solution for financing public expenditure in the credit of private individuals. In Bologna during the communal period (1288–1327), loans seem to have been an investment reserved for the elite of the ruling pars; by contrast, some additional data on loans to the commune during the period of the Visconti lordship (1350–1360) seem to indicate how this form of financing was a way to make the Bolognese participate in the redistribution of public money through the interest received on the loans. Moreover, data concerning tax farmers highlight the complex interaction of Bolognese society in the tax system, where a part of society decided to invest regularly in the management of indirect taxes.
Jews and Judaism in the Poetry and Prose of the Persian Sufi Abū Sa‘īd-i Abū l-Ḫayr (967–1049 CE): An Approach to the Religious Other in Medieval Islamic Society
By Paul B. Fenton
Religions
This article is a case study of an early Persian Sufi Abū Sa‘īd-i Abū l-Ḫayr (357–440H/967–1049 CE) within the wider question of the approach to the religious other in the multi-religious society of medieval Islam. In his poetry and the tales ascribed to him, Abū Sa‘īd was one of the first Muslim mystics to have conveyed empathy and even admiration towards Jews, frequently portrayed negatively in early Sufi texts. Simultaneously, he also expresses fundamental enmity towards them and a traditional missionary desire to convert them to Islam. This apparent ambivalence, revealing a complexity that straddles tolerance and intolerance, is set in a broader context of Sufi attitudes toward religious diversity, and a cursory survey is presented of conceptions of the transcendental unity of religions in Sufi writings in Arabic or Persian. The author posits that Abū Sa‘īd’s duality may mirror a personal religious journey or an intentional concealment of his convictions in order to escape reproof.
Evaluating the Effect of Sex on Mortality Risks in Medieval Ireland
By Allison C. Ham
American Journal of Biological Anthropology
This study evaluates the effect of sex on mortality risks in medieval Ireland to advance our understanding of the social, biological, and environmental factors that were deleterious to female health and survival in the past.
Three Fallen Kings: on the Edge of Northumbria in the Isle of Axholme (617–79)
By Alex Harvey
Early Medieval England and its Neighbours
This paper is the first attempt to assess the Isle of Axholme in the early medieval period, to determine its nature as a hitherto overlooked key point of economic, ritual, and geographic articulation along Northumbria’s southern frontier in the seventh century. First, an introduction to the current scholarly paradigm on the military campaigns of seventh-century English kings along this frontier is undertaken, followed by an analysis of recent interdisciplinary scholarship on the kingdom of Lindsey, and how this relates to Hatfield and the Isle of Axholme. The Isle is then used to discuss the locations of four major battles: the Battles of the River Idle, Heathfelth, Maserfield, and the River Trent. All but Maserfield can be reasonably argued to have taken place along the borders of the Isle, and in these cases, their locations are discussed. Still, an argument can be made to place Maserfield within this southern frontier too. As a result, this paper highlights the socio-economic and geopolitical importance of Lindsey, and reveals the Isle as an area of cyclical border conflict within a Humber-based frontier zone and, in doing so, offers a new perspective on Northumbria’s southern limits.
Everyone Shall Know Me By This: The Archives of Medieval Lordship
By Tom Johnson
History Workshop Journal
A fifteenth-century bailiff named Nicholas Greenhalgh drew a picture in his account book. Next to the image he wrote noverint universi per presentes me (‘Everyone shall know me by these present [things]’), suggesting that he conceived it as a self-portrait, one that would be preserved in the archive of his lord. This essay explores these two suggestions, first by placing the image in the wider context of such ‘doodles’ in fifteenth-century administrative writings; and second by considering the afterlife of seigneurial archives in present-day England. It argues that such archives continue to reanimate the relations of lordship that generated them.
By Janet E. Kay, István Koncz, Jordan Wilson, Rachel Singer, Merle Eisenberg, Lee Mordechai, and Timothy P. Newfield
Speculum
Archaeological evidence from funerary contexts is largely ignored in current scholarship on the First Plague Pandemic, despite the important information that burials and cemeteries can provide about how plague might have affected societies. Skeletal (mainly dental) remains are used in the paleogenomic search for victims of plague (Yersinia pestis), but significant contextual information is to be gained from plague-positive graves through bioarchaeological study of the complete individual and their broader funerary context, both of which are largely absent from current scholarship. We argue that future scholarship on the First Plague Pandemic must bring burial archaeology to the growing body of evidence, and archaeologists themselves must lead or be involved in this research.
We present three ways in which burial archaeology can be used effectively to study the impact of first-pandemic plague on individuals and communities: by reconsidering whether we should be looking for an archaeology of “crisis” for this disease event, by evaluating burial archaeology (especially of multiple burials) in its proper sociocultural context, and by examining bioarchaeological evidence from entire cemeteries where plague genomes are recovered in any quantity. We conclude by offering an example of how such archaeological evidence can be more inclusively and effectively incorporated into interdisciplinary plague studies, to the benefit of the field.
Multilingualism and crusade preaching: the narrative on Bernard of Clairvaux’s preaching in Germany
By Alexander Marx
Historical Research
The Vita of Bernard of Clairvaux, penned by his friend Geoffrey of Auxerre, narrates that he required an interpreter when preaching the second crusade (1145–9) to a German audience. Interestingly, this story was recycled in several texts written at the time of the third crusade (1187–92), specifically in works by Peter the Chanter and Gerald of Wales. The article examines therefore how the story’s context and purpose shifted: defending Bernard, the later versions blamed the uninspired or even hypocritical interpreter for the second crusade’s failure. This exemplary tale epitomized reform efforts evolving around the early university of Paris; and this context explains why the tale appears predominantly in didactic texts dedicated to the instruction of preaching. Locating the crusade’s failure in the incorrect transmission of an original message helped preachers around the third crusade to rationalize misfortune in the Holy Land, just as it sensitized them not to repeat previous mistakes.
Un-disabling the King: Richard III and the ‘New Evidence’
By Olga Prokopis
Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice
This article examines an information cascade surrounding King Richard III of England that was created by a chain of communicative events in popular media. The discovery of his lost grave in 2012 and the subsequent identification of his scoliosis subjected Richard III to sustained media scrutiny in the years between the discovery and the reinterment of his remains. Channel 4’s 2014 Richard III: The New Evidence (TNE) proposed that Richard III’s physical fitness was impacted by an extravagant diet and excessive alcohol consumption in the last years of his life, misrepresenting studies undertaken by the University of Leicester to create a sensationalist narrative. The press then communicated TNE’s narrative through colloquial discourse, labelling Richard III a ‘drunk’ and a ‘glutton’. Using the historical reputation model, this paper reconstructs the information cascade and discusses its epistemological impact: the dissemination of stereotypes and misinformation, and the harmful denial of disability.
Diplomacy, family ties and divided loyalties: Joan of Navarre as a queenly diplomat
By Elena Woodacre
En la España Medieval
This article examines the diplomatic agency of Joan of Navarre (c. 1369–1437) as queen consort and queen dowager of England. It focuses particularly on the period between 1403 and 1419 and her role as a key connecting point between England and Brittany, in her capacity as wife and stepmother to English kings and mother of John V of Brittany. The case study demonstrates the fundamental strategies Joan used to engage in diplomatic relations, including both formal aspects, such as gift-giving, and informal methods of influence through alternative channels, drawing on her family networks and trusted courtiers. The article reconsiders the significant role that Joan, like other queens and royal women, played in diplomacy, an area that has often been overlooked due to the emphasis on male actors and formal negotiations.
Wonder dogs of Byzantium from an animal point of view
By Sophia Xenophontos
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies
This article looks at Byzantine dogs for the first time from the animal’s point of view, i.e. not for what our textual sources tell us about their contribution to Byzantine human history, society, and culture, but for what they may enable us to trace regarding the dogs’ own sensory and emotional experience, reactions and dispositions, individuality and agency. Methodologically this is made possible by using methods and insights from Animal Studies, especially by exploiting the benefits of a modern biological and ethological understanding of the nature of dogs, and of posthumanistic approaches that collapse the human–animal divide.
We found 74 open-access articles from March – you can get the full list by joining our Patreon – look for the tier that says Open Access articles in Medieval Studies.
Top Image: “King Richard III’s grave, with human remains in situ, looking north. From ‘The king in the car park’: new light on the death and burial of Richard III in the Grey Friars church, Leicester, in 1485 (DOI: 10.1017/S0003598X00049103) – Photo by Richard Buckley, Mathew Morris, Jo Appleby, Turi King, Deirdre O’Sullivan, Lin Foxhall / Wikimedia Commons
What’s new in medieval studies? Here are ten open-access articles published in April, which range from a new look at Richard III to dog tricks in Byzantium.
This ongoing series on Medievalists.net highlights what has been published in journals over the last month that deal with the Middle Ages. All ten articles are Open-Access, meaning you can read them for free. We now also have a special tier on our Patreon where you can see the full list of 74 open-access articles we found.
Politics, Investments and Public Spending in Bologna (End of 13th – First Half of 14th Century)
By Marco Conti
Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook
Abstract: Not all major Italian cities of the late Middle Ages could rely on an established and organised system of public debt like Florence, Venice, Genoa, and others. The study of one such city, Bologna, reveals that whenever the city found itself in serious financial straits, outside of ad hoc impositions, it found a solution for financing public expenditure in the credit of private individuals. In Bologna during the communal period (1288–1327), loans seem to have been an investment reserved for the elite of the ruling pars; by contrast, some additional data on loans to the commune during the period of the Visconti lordship (1350–1360) seem to indicate how this form of financing was a way to make the Bolognese participate in the redistribution of public money through the interest received on the loans. Moreover, data concerning tax farmers highlight the complex interaction of Bolognese society in the tax system, where a part of society decided to invest regularly in the management of indirect taxes.
Click here to read this article
Jews and Judaism in the Poetry and Prose of the Persian Sufi Abū Sa‘īd-i Abū l-Ḫayr (967–1049 CE): An Approach to the Religious Other in Medieval Islamic Society
By Paul B. Fenton
Religions
This article is a case study of an early Persian Sufi Abū Sa‘īd-i Abū l-Ḫayr (357–440H/967–1049 CE) within the wider question of the approach to the religious other in the multi-religious society of medieval Islam. In his poetry and the tales ascribed to him, Abū Sa‘īd was one of the first Muslim mystics to have conveyed empathy and even admiration towards Jews, frequently portrayed negatively in early Sufi texts. Simultaneously, he also expresses fundamental enmity towards them and a traditional missionary desire to convert them to Islam. This apparent ambivalence, revealing a complexity that straddles tolerance and intolerance, is set in a broader context of Sufi attitudes toward religious diversity, and a cursory survey is presented of conceptions of the transcendental unity of religions in Sufi writings in Arabic or Persian. The author posits that Abū Sa‘īd’s duality may mirror a personal religious journey or an intentional concealment of his convictions in order to escape reproof.
Click here to read this article
Evaluating the Effect of Sex on Mortality Risks in Medieval Ireland
By Allison C. Ham
American Journal of Biological Anthropology
This study evaluates the effect of sex on mortality risks in medieval Ireland to advance our understanding of the social, biological, and environmental factors that were deleterious to female health and survival in the past.
Click here to read this article
Three Fallen Kings: on the Edge of Northumbria in the Isle of Axholme (617–79)
By Alex Harvey
Early Medieval England and its Neighbours
This paper is the first attempt to assess the Isle of Axholme in the early medieval period, to determine its nature as a hitherto overlooked key point of economic, ritual, and geographic articulation along Northumbria’s southern frontier in the seventh century. First, an introduction to the current scholarly paradigm on the military campaigns of seventh-century English kings along this frontier is undertaken, followed by an analysis of recent interdisciplinary scholarship on the kingdom of Lindsey, and how this relates to Hatfield and the Isle of Axholme. The Isle is then used to discuss the locations of four major battles: the Battles of the River Idle, Heathfelth, Maserfield, and the River Trent. All but Maserfield can be reasonably argued to have taken place along the borders of the Isle, and in these cases, their locations are discussed. Still, an argument can be made to place Maserfield within this southern frontier too. As a result, this paper highlights the socio-economic and geopolitical importance of Lindsey, and reveals the Isle as an area of cyclical border conflict within a Humber-based frontier zone and, in doing so, offers a new perspective on Northumbria’s southern limits.
Click here to read this article
Everyone Shall Know Me By This: The Archives of Medieval Lordship
By Tom Johnson
History Workshop Journal
A fifteenth-century bailiff named Nicholas Greenhalgh drew a picture in his account book. Next to the image he wrote noverint universi per presentes me (‘Everyone shall know me by these present [things]’), suggesting that he conceived it as a self-portrait, one that would be preserved in the archive of his lord. This essay explores these two suggestions, first by placing the image in the wider context of such ‘doodles’ in fifteenth-century administrative writings; and second by considering the afterlife of seigneurial archives in present-day England. It argues that such archives continue to reanimate the relations of lordship that generated them.
Click here to read this article
Burial Archaeology and the First Plague Pandemic
By Janet E. Kay, István Koncz, Jordan Wilson, Rachel Singer, Merle Eisenberg, Lee Mordechai, and Timothy P. Newfield
Speculum
Archaeological evidence from funerary contexts is largely ignored in current scholarship on the First Plague Pandemic, despite the important information that burials and cemeteries can provide about how plague might have affected societies. Skeletal (mainly dental) remains are used in the paleogenomic search for victims of plague (Yersinia pestis), but significant contextual information is to be gained from plague-positive graves through bioarchaeological study of the complete individual and their broader funerary context, both of which are largely absent from current scholarship. We argue that future scholarship on the First Plague Pandemic must bring burial archaeology to the growing body of evidence, and archaeologists themselves must lead or be involved in this research.
We present three ways in which burial archaeology can be used effectively to study the impact of first-pandemic plague on individuals and communities: by reconsidering whether we should be looking for an archaeology of “crisis” for this disease event, by evaluating burial archaeology (especially of multiple burials) in its proper sociocultural context, and by examining bioarchaeological evidence from entire cemeteries where plague genomes are recovered in any quantity. We conclude by offering an example of how such archaeological evidence can be more inclusively and effectively incorporated into interdisciplinary plague studies, to the benefit of the field.
Click here to read this article
Multilingualism and crusade preaching: the narrative on Bernard of Clairvaux’s preaching in Germany
By Alexander Marx
Historical Research
The Vita of Bernard of Clairvaux, penned by his friend Geoffrey of Auxerre, narrates that he required an interpreter when preaching the second crusade (1145–9) to a German audience. Interestingly, this story was recycled in several texts written at the time of the third crusade (1187–92), specifically in works by Peter the Chanter and Gerald of Wales. The article examines therefore how the story’s context and purpose shifted: defending Bernard, the later versions blamed the uninspired or even hypocritical interpreter for the second crusade’s failure. This exemplary tale epitomized reform efforts evolving around the early university of Paris; and this context explains why the tale appears predominantly in didactic texts dedicated to the instruction of preaching. Locating the crusade’s failure in the incorrect transmission of an original message helped preachers around the third crusade to rationalize misfortune in the Holy Land, just as it sensitized them not to repeat previous mistakes.
Click here to read this article
Un-disabling the King: Richard III and the ‘New Evidence’
By Olga Prokopis
Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice
This article examines an information cascade surrounding King Richard III of England that was created by a chain of communicative events in popular media. The discovery of his lost grave in 2012 and the subsequent identification of his scoliosis subjected Richard III to sustained media scrutiny in the years between the discovery and the reinterment of his remains. Channel 4’s 2014 Richard III: The New Evidence (TNE) proposed that Richard III’s physical fitness was impacted by an extravagant diet and excessive alcohol consumption in the last years of his life, misrepresenting studies undertaken by the University of Leicester to create a sensationalist narrative. The press then communicated TNE’s narrative through colloquial discourse, labelling Richard III a ‘drunk’ and a ‘glutton’. Using the historical reputation model, this paper reconstructs the information cascade and discusses its epistemological impact: the dissemination of stereotypes and misinformation, and the harmful denial of disability.
Click here to read this article
Diplomacy, family ties and divided loyalties: Joan of Navarre as a queenly diplomat
By Elena Woodacre
En la España Medieval
This article examines the diplomatic agency of Joan of Navarre (c. 1369–1437) as queen consort and queen dowager of England. It focuses particularly on the period between 1403 and 1419 and her role as a key connecting point between England and Brittany, in her capacity as wife and stepmother to English kings and mother of John V of Brittany. The case study demonstrates the fundamental strategies Joan used to engage in diplomatic relations, including both formal aspects, such as gift-giving, and informal methods of influence through alternative channels, drawing on her family networks and trusted courtiers. The article reconsiders the significant role that Joan, like other queens and royal women, played in diplomacy, an area that has often been overlooked due to the emphasis on male actors and formal negotiations.
Click here to read this article
Wonder dogs of Byzantium from an animal point of view
By Sophia Xenophontos
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies
This article looks at Byzantine dogs for the first time from the animal’s point of view, i.e. not for what our textual sources tell us about their contribution to Byzantine human history, society, and culture, but for what they may enable us to trace regarding the dogs’ own sensory and emotional experience, reactions and dispositions, individuality and agency. Methodologically this is made possible by using methods and insights from Animal Studies, especially by exploiting the benefits of a modern biological and ethological understanding of the nature of dogs, and of posthumanistic approaches that collapse the human–animal divide.
Click here to read this article
We found 74 open-access articles from March – you can get the full list by joining our Patreon – look for the tier that says Open Access articles in Medieval Studies.
See also our list of open-access articles from March
Top Image: “King Richard III’s grave, with human remains in situ, looking north. From ‘The king in the car park’: new light on the death and burial of Richard III in the Grey Friars church, Leicester, in 1485 (DOI: 10.1017/S0003598X00049103) – Photo by Richard Buckley, Mathew Morris, Jo Appleby, Turi King, Deirdre O’Sullivan, Lin Foxhall / Wikimedia Commons
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