The Uses Of The Past In The Early Middle Ages

This is the first book to investigate how people in the early middle ages used the past: to legitimate the present, to understand current events, and as a source of identity. Each essay examines the mechanisms by which ideas about the past were - sometimes - subtly reshaped for present purposes.

This book considers the role of anger in the social lives and conceptual universes of a varied and significant cross-section of medieval people: monks, saints, kings, lords, and peasants.

This highly interdisciplinary volume, with a focus on southern European case studies, sets out to illuminate medieval thought, and to consider how the underlying values of the Middle Ages exerted significant influence in medieval society in the West.

This volume examines the use of the textual resources of the past to shape cultural memory in early medieval Europe.

Using and Not Using the Past after the Carolingian Empire offers a new take on European history from c.900 to c.1050, examining the ‘post-Carolingian’ period in its own right and presenting it as a time of creative experimentation with new forms of authority and legitimacy. In the late eighth century, the Frankish king Charlemagne put together a new empire. Less than a century later, that empire had collapsed. The story of Europe following the end of the Carolingian empire has often been presented as a tragedy: a time of turbulence and disintegration, out of which the new, recognisably medieval kingdoms of Europe emerged. This collection offers a different perspective. Taking a transnational approach, the authors contemplate the new social and political order that emerged in tenth- and eleventh-century Europe and examine how those shaping this new order saw themselves in relation to the past. Each chapter explores how the past was used creatively by actors in the regions of the former Carolingian Empire to search for political, legal and social legitimacy in a turbulent new political order. Advancing the debates on the uses of the past in the early Middle Ages and prompting reconsideration of the narratives that have traditionally dominated modern writing on this period, Using and Not Using the Past after the Carolingian Empire is ideal for students and scholars of tenth- and eleventh-century European history.

Books have rarely been written about the history of any emotion except love and shame, and this volume is the very first on the meaning of anger in the Middle Ages. Well aware of modern theories about the nature of anger, the authors consider the role of anger in the social lives and conceptual universes of a varied and significant cross-section of medieval people: monks, saints, kings, lords, and peasants. They are careful to distinguish between texts (the sources on which historians must rely) and the reality behind the texts. They are sensitive, as well, to the differences between ideals and normative behavior. The first eight essays in the volume focus on anger in the Latin West, while the last two turn to the fringes of Europe (the Celtic and Islamic worlds) for purposes of comparison. Barbara H. Rosenwein concludes the volume with an essay on modern conceptions of anger and their implications for understanding its role in the Middle Ages. The essays reveal much that is new about medieval rituals of honor and status and illuminate the rationales behind such seemingly irrational practices as cursing, feuding, and the punishment of blinding.

"Stock has opened up lines of thinking about the medieval world--and our modern one too--which lead in fascinating directions."--

Compares the archives of European states after 1500 to reveal changes in how records supported memory, authority and power.

This book, first published in 2000, is a pioneering study of politics and society in the early Middle Ages. Whereas it is widely believed that the source materials for early medieval Europe are too sparse to allow sustained study of the workings of social and political relationships on the ground, this book focuses on a uniquely well-documented area to investigate the basis of power. Topics covered include the foundation of monasteries, their relationship with the laity, and their role as social centres; the significance of urbanism; the control of land, the development of property rights and the organization of states; community, kinship and lordship; justice and dispute settlement; the uses of the written word; violence and the feud; and the development of political structures from the Roman empire to the high Middle Ages.

De Re Metallica brings together a wide variety of perspectives on metal use in the Middle Ages, a topic that has received less systematic scholarly attention than it deserves, given its central importance for medieval culture. Because of its strength, beauty, and prestige, metal figured prominently in many medieval contexts, from the military and utilitarian to the architectural and liturgical. Metal was a crucial ingredient in weapons and waterpipes, rose windows and reliquaries, coinage and jewelry. The 23 essays presented here, from an international team of scholars, explore the production and use of such objects, from the early Middle Ages to the sixteenth century, and from the British Isles, Iceland, and Scandinavia, to France, Germany, Spain and Italy. This thematic, chronological, and geographical scope will make this volume into a valuable resource for historians of art, technology, and culture.