Christianity and the Latin tradition in early Medieval Ireland
The Christianity which arrived in Ireland with the fifth-century missionaries was more than just a literate religion; it was very much a religion of the book.
Anglo-Saxon smiths and myths
Knowledge of the metalworking and jewellery-making abilities of the Anglo-Saxons has been much enhanced in recent years by metallurgical and other technical studies.
Archaeology, common rights and the origins of Anglo-Saxon identity
It is generally accepted that rights over land, especially rights of pasture, played a formative role in establishing the identity of early Anglo-Saxon ‘folk groups’, the predecessors of the middle Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.
Hungary’s Conversion to Christianity: The Establishment of Hungarian Statehood and its Consequences to the Thirteenth Century
The Carpathian Basin occupies a peculiar place in history. It was the ground where Roman-Germanic world met that of the Slavs and mounted nomad peoples, where no group had achieved sustained unity before the state of Hungary was founded.
The Birth of the Monarchy out of Violent Death
There were many motives for murdering a king.
Rome, New Rome and Baghdad: Pathways of Late Antiquity
What I propose to do in this lecture is to discuss some salient features of Late Antiquity as a category in historical studies and then move on to the theme of Islam in Late Antiquity
Castle Building and Its Social Significance in Medieval Hungary
The history of Hungarian fortification and castle-building has been a subject of Hungarian historiography ever since the 1870s, when Bela Czobor wrote his pioneering study, “Hungary’s Medieval Castles.”
Miracula, Saints’ Cults and Socio-Political Landscapes: Bobbio, Conques and post-Carolingian society
Despite the centrality of monastic sources to debates about social and political transformation in post-Carolingian Europe, few studies have approached the political and economic status of monasteries and their saints’ cults in this context, to which this thesis offers a comparative approach.
Signs of Power. Manorial Demesnes in Medieval Iceland
An important aspect of medieval Icelandic social organization, namely the manor, has been neglected in previous research, and very little research has been undertaken comparing Icelandic manorial organization with other regions. This article focuses on one aspect of manorial organization, namely the manorial demesne or central farm of the manor.
Rethinking Hardown Hill: Our Westernmost Early Anglo-Saxon Cemetery?
This paper reassesses the early Anglo-Saxon assemblage from Hardown Hill, Dorset. Wingrave excavated the objects in 1916 but apart from his 1931 report, and Evison’s 1968 analysis, there has been little subsequent discussion.
Amending the Ascetic: Community and Character in the Old English Life of St. Mary of Egypt
Among the most eligible saints for such treatment, Mary of Egypt deserves particular consideration: her popularity is evidenced by over a hundred extant Greek manuscripts of her Life and her uniquely prominent position in the Lenten liturgical cycle in the Eastern Church.
Death as an architect of societies Burial and social identity during the Viking Age in South-western Scania
In my opinion, the mono-cultural Viking Age is largely the product of one past social group, that had imposed on us their narration about the events, through production of tangible and durable monuments and sources. If analysis of the past should be of any value, it needs to be not only specifically spatially located, but also socially located.
England’s First Attempt to Break the Commercial Monopoly of the Hanseatic League, 1377-1380
During the second half of the fourteenth century English traders first seriously threatened the Hanseatic League’s commercial monopoly in the Baltic. The League, attempting to defendits monopoly, treated the English unjustly,where upon in 1377 the English Parliament rescinded the charter that granted the League important concessions and privileges in its English trade.
‘The Raw and The Cooked’: ways of cooking and serving food in Byzantium
Departing from ancient tradition, which associated the eating of uncooked food (ōmon) only with barbarians, raw food was widely consumed, above all in monastic communities, but also on an everyday basis in Byzantium.
White Croatia and the arrival of the Croats: an interpretation of Constantine Porphyrogenitus on the oldest Dalmatian history
The article examines Constantine Porphyrogenitus’ (913–59) witness on the arrival of the Croats in Dalmatia during the seventh century. The emperor’s narrative proposes a migration from a land called White Croatia, located somewhere in central Europe, and a battle with the Avars in order to secure their new territory.
The Byzantine Silver Bowls in the Sutton Hoo Ship Burial and Tree-Worship in Anglo-Saxon England
The ten Byzantine silver bowls included amongst the grave goods interred in the chamber of the Mound 1 ship burial at Sutton Hoo remain one of the most puzzling features of this site…
Making Sacrifices: Beowulf and Film
This essay reviews opening scenes in some recent film Beowulfs, which, although they have nothing at all to say about Scyld Scefing, suggest a sacrificial reading of the prologue and perhaps even the whole poem.
Foreign dangers: Activities, responsibilities and the problem of women abroad
I consider a very important issue in dealing with the subject of Empires: the problematic position of women, and their contradictory witnesses not only in representations in early medieval sources but also those deriving from their gendered roles as they have been imagined
War or Peace? The Relations Between the Picts and the Norse in Orkney
This article will focus mainly on the earliest period of Norse settlement, before the Norse earldom was established.
Goths, Lombards, Romans, and Greeks: Creating Identity in Early Medieval Italy
This essay explores how two different non-Roman historians represented the past to their peoples: the Gothic historian Jordanes’ sixth-century work, the Getica, and the eighth-century Lombard historian Paul the Deacons’ History of the Lombards.
Scandinavia and the Huns: an Interdisciplinary Approach to the Migration Era
The aim of this paper is to discuss the early Migration period as a particular period of ‘short term history’ and its formative impact on the Scandinavian longue duree in the first millenium.
Britain and the Beginning of Scotland
Until recently it was generally held that Scotland first began to take shape with a union of Picts and Scots under Cinaed mac Ailpín, who died in 858.
The secret histories of Gregory of Tours
In recent years the spiritual side of Gregory’s Histories has been firmly brought into focus, but the possibility that there may be a political aspect to them and to their literary form has been little considered
Earliest case of Down Syndrome discovered
Researchers in France have discovered the remains of a child from the 5th or 6th century AD that had Down Syndrome. It is the earliest case to have been found so far.
Saints, Tradition and Monastic Identity: The Ghent Relics, 850-1100
The extraordinary story ofthe Ghent relics was first told by Oswald Holder- Egger in an article published in 1886. During his work on part two of volume 15 of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica Scriptores series, which Holder- Egger had just finished, he had come across the hagiographie literature produced at the abbeys of St Baafs and St Pieters in Ghent.