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Celebrating St Melor at Amesbury Priory Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-07-19 Anne Bagnall Yardley
This article examines relevant information from Amesbury Priory to elucidate the ways in which the priory celebrated the life of their patron saint Melor in a commemorative office. Based on Cambrid...
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The Tournament at Saint-Inglevert (1390): Chivalry, Diplomacy and Pas d’armes Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-07-19 Craig Taylor
In March and April 1390, three French knights jousted against over one hundred knights and squires who had travelled from across Europe to challenge them, but above all from England. This great tou...
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A Local Translation in a Global World: Odoric of Pordenone, William of Solagna, and a Giant Tortoise in Fourteenth-Century Padua Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-07-18 Philippa Byrne
This article revisits one of the texts associated with the fourteenth-century spread of Franciscan mission across Eurasia, the account of the travels of Odoric of Pordenone (d.1331). Odoric's text ...
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Race, Skin Colour, Enslavement and Sexuality in the Late Medieval Mediterranean Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-07-16 Michelle Armstrong-Partida
Medieval race-making connected enslavement and a wanton nature based on ideas that enslaved women had an uncontrollable sexual appetite. Focusing primarily on Muslim, Mongol (‘Tatar’, Turkic, or an...
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Magistrae of the Beguines of Valenciennes and Their Social Networks Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-06-18 Huanan Lu
This article uses sources from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries to provide a systematic examination of the magistrae at the beguinage of Saint Elizabeth of Valenciennes, in which Marguerite ...
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Jews, Lordship, and the Experience of Power in Early Eleventh Century France Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-06-06 Tzafrir Barzilay
The article explores the views of Jews in the early eleventh century on issues of rulership and power through analysis of a Hebrew text known as the ‘1007 Anonymous’. The article opens with a discu...
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From Christmas Candlesticks to Deathbeds: The Material Culture of the Male ‘Middling Sort’ in Late Medieval English Wills Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-05-30 Louisa Z. Foroughi
This article analyses how men of the rural ‘middling sort’ in late medieval England used movable goods to perform their status and gender by applying relational approaches from material culture stu...
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Penance, Murder, and the Sanctity of Close Kinship in Early Medieval England and Francia Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-05-20 Alex Traves
Many secular and ecclesiastical texts from early medieval England and Francia between the ninth and eleventh centuries show that in these societies, the killing of kin was treated as a distinct, an...
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Margery Kempe and the Late-Medieval Image Debates in England: The Curious Case of the Non-Animating Crucifix Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-05-15 Einat Klafter
This article examines the devotional practices presented by The Book of Margery Kempe in connection to late-medieval English image debates. While scholarly consensus holds that Kempe displays an un...
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Christian Community and the Barbarians in the Life of Severinus of Eugippius Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-05-10 Marta Szada
Eugippius’ Life of Severinus is a text in which society is described through the dichotomy between Romans and barbarians. In this paper, I examine how exactly Eugippius imagines this polarity and t...
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Resonet Vox Fidelis: Scribal Colophons and Ecclesiastical Reform in Medieval Iberia Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-05-08 Ana de Oliveira Dias
A remarkable number of early medieval manuscripts produced in the Iberian Peninsula preserve scribal colophons recounting the circumstances of their production and naming their makers. Because of t...
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Elite Attitudes to the ‘Public Sphere’ in Fifteenth-Century Castile Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-04-26 Laurence McKellar
This article examines the manifold and complex responses of fifteenth-century elite politicians and writers to ‘public’ politics in Castile. Through analysis of a variety of sources including chron...
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Medieval Liturgy and the Making of Poland: A Study in Early Medieval Political Identification (c. 960s—c. 1030s) Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-04-07 Paweł Figurski
Although the issues of premodern ethnogenesis, early medieval state formation, and political identification are central fields of inquiry in recent historiography, scholars rarely refer to liturgic...
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The Making and Meaning of the Bayeux Tapestry Revisited Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-03-26 Mark Hagger
This article revives the suggestion, previously made by Otto Werckmeister and Shirley Ann Brown, that the Bayeux Tapestry was intended to act as part of a petition to free Bishop Odo of Bayeux from...
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Carolingian After-Images: Hariulf’s History of St Riquier and Its Context Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-03-26 Kathleen Thompson
Hariulf’s History of St Riquier is usually consulted for detail on liturgical, architectural and political history, but is rarely considered in its entirety. It was written in the changing and comp...
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The Translatio imperii and the Spatial Construction of History in the Twelfth Century Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-03-13 Eric Wolever
Based on the theories of Otto of Freising and Hugh of Saint Victor, scholars widely accept that medieval authors conceived of history as a spatial progression of empires from Babylon in the east to...
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Miracles and Misadventures: Childhood and Public Health in the Late Medieval Low Countries Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-03-05 Janna Coomans, Bente Marschall
Administrative sources and miracle accounts from six Netherlandish urban shrine cults help to explore the interests of inhabitants and urban institutions in intervening in children’s safety, behavi...
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‘Our Dearest Lord and Father Received Him From the Baptismal Font’: The Life and Career of Philippe le Convers Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-03-05 Jessica Marin Elliott
This article examines the life and career of Philippe le Convers, a converted Jew who was a powerful royal administrator and the godson of King Philip the Fair of France (r. 1285–1314). Unlike othe...
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Of relics and kings: Cyprus in Franciscan apocrypha of the Trecento Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-01-16 Anthi Andronikou
What sacred objects did the Lusignan kings of Cyprus treasure in their collection of holy items? Certainly, they had fragments of the Holy Cross and saints’ skulls, but what about Passion relics su...
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‘For help and comfort and to resist the enemy of God’: Greek refugees in the Burgundian Low Countries Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-01-16 Hendrik Callewier
It is well known that after the fall of Constantinople, Greek refugees fled to Western Europe. This migration is usually associated with Italy, where it stimulated the further development of the Re...
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The judgement of God and the fate of a dog: the ninth-century ordeal debate and the anonymous Song of Count Timo Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-01-16 Amos Bronner
This paper argues that the judicial ordeal was the subject of a lively debate in the ninth century. Research on the medieval ordeal has mainly focused on opposition to the practice in the twelfth c...
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Out of sight, out of mind? The wills of monastic and mendicant bishops in Britain and Ireland, 1350–1535 Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-01-16 David E. Thornton
This article examines the wills of bishops in late medieval Britain and Ireland who were members of religious orders, and attempts to answer two questions: to what extent can these wills be disting...
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Noble violence and civic justice: rural lords under trial in the Italian city communes 1276–1322 Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-01-16 Lorenzo Caravaggi
This article analyses three criminal suits brought against nobles from rural districts of two Italian city-communes who were accused of homicide, robbery, and assault – and focuses on their courtro...
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Law and spiritual sanctions: asserting the stability of pro anima donation charters in late tenth- and eleventh-century central Italy Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-01-16 Maya Maskarinec
This article examines the citation of legal texts in late tenth- and eleventh-century pro anima donation charters in favour of ecclesiastical institutions in central Italy. It argues that, in gener...
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Meanings of food in medieval Britain and Ireland: themes Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-11-07 C. M. Woolgar
Food is central to our understanding of the social, economic and cultural history of the medieval past. Its study sits at the nexus of disciplines, of different classes of sources and data, and of ...
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Barns, granaries and security: crop storage, processing and investment in medieval England Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-11-07 David A. Hinton
Increased storage capacity was an essential part of demesne farming in England, as many surviving barns indicate. Their size facilitated their use also as winter workplaces for threshing grain and ...
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Brewing difference: malting, gender and urbanity in medieval England. An examination of drying and malting kilns, c.1150–1500 Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-09-10 Ben Jervis
Kilns used for drying grain and for malting are common features of archaeological excavations in medieval towns and in the countryside. They occur in a variety of situations, including within urban...
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Mazers and the drinking culture of late medieval England Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-09-08 C. M. Woolgar
Mazers, drinking vessels often made of maple, were an important part of the material culture of medieval England from at least the first half of the twelfth century. They were significant for the r...
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Poor commons and kings’ propines: food and status in later medieval Aberdeen Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-09-06 Elizabeth Gemmill
Assuring the supply of food and drink in the medieval Scottish town, and safeguarding the town’s reputation in relation to this, were at the heart of the burgh government’s duties. Some foods were ...
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A simple food with many meanings: bread in late medieval England Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-09-03 Christopher Dyer
Bread was the most important item of diet in medieval England. Cereals were consumed in boiled form, but bread was preferred. Bread was not just convenient, but was also symbolic of well-being. Alt...
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The ‘Lamb of God’ in the early Middle Ages: a zooarchaeological perspective Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-09-02 Matilda Holmes
Medieval ecclesiastical estates have long been linked to vast flocks of wool-producing sheep that underpinned the wealth of the nation well into the sixteenth century. Recent surveys of English med...
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The earliest English culinary recipes: dietary advice in Old English medical texts Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-08-30 Debby Banham
The earliest culinary recipes written in the English language, or in England, are contained in the three main Old English medical collections, now known as Bald’s Leechbook, Leechbook III and the L...
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Food security and insecurity in medieval Irish towns Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-08-29 James A. Galloway, Margaret Murphy
The degree to which the townspeople of medieval Ireland enjoyed food security or experienced food insecurity forms the subject of this paper. Having outlined the context within which Irish medieval...
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Peasants and food security in England and Wales c.1300 Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-08-29 Phillipp R. Schofield
Food security is discussed with a particular focus on the decades either side of 1300, years characterised by poor weather and significant fluctuations in food availability, evident especially in t...
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Self-presentation and geographical origin at the fifteenth-century University of Paris: an analysis of manuscript decoration Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-07-17 Teresa Barucci
ABSTRACT This article analyses the decorated prefatory statements in two fifteenth-century books of the proctors of the German natio at the University of Paris as part of the discussion on the relationship between academic mobility and identity construction in medieval Europe. The article argues that the decorated statements – a virtually unexplored source – functioned as acts of self-presentation
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To receive ‘the best form and example of living’: ascetic instruction in the Life of John of Gorze Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-07-13 Catherine Rosbrook
ABSTRACT While studies of knowledge transmission in the central Middle Ages are abundant, much remains to be discovered about learning practices in an extra-institutional context. An exceptionally detailed example comes from the first portion of the Life of John of Gorze. It recounts John’s earliest encounters with asceticism, as he endeavoured to carve out a life pleasing to God. John learned to live
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A medieval effort toward unity: Latins, Greeks, Russians and the Mongol Khan Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-07-09 Alexander V. Maiorov
ABSTRACT This article explores the little studied role of the Rus princes and the Rus prelates of the Byzantine Church in the establishment of immediate contacts between the papal court and the rulers of the Nicene Empire in the mid thirteenth century. These resulted in a new round of negotiations for the union of the Roman Church and the Byzantine Church. At the heart of these contacts was not only
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A monastic angelology in stone: the sculpted angels at Conques Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-07-04 Kristine Tanton
ABSTRACT In the Middle Ages, angels were a constant presence and participated with the faithful in praising God. Due to the manifold roles played by angels in Christian theology, it is not surprising that they were a popular subject for church decoration. At the abbey church of Sainte-Foy at Conques, the attention paid to and regard for angels was expressed to an exceptional degree and therefore provide
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Representing the mysteries of the vine: drinking wine with Gregory of Tours Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-06-28 Gregory I. Halfond
ABSTRACT The literary corpus of Bishop Gregory of Tours (538–94) abounds in references to wine and vineyards. While these references have been mined by historians for insight into early medieval agriculture and commerce, comparatively scant attention has been paid to Gregory’s own complex attitude towards wine. The bishop of Tours was well aware that sin frequently accompanied an excessive desire for
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St Stephen's, Vienna, and the crises of 1408: practice theory and the socio-politics of the medieval building site Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-06-27 Gabriel Byng
ABSTRACT In 1408 Vienna's politics were traversed by violence. Dynastic conflict among the Habsburgs and internecine differences between residents culminated in executions and overthrows of the city's government. Concurrently, building work at the city's largest church – overseen by leading figures in its civic politics, also victims of one of the year's purges – slackened. It was a moment when high
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In (political) love. Building social order and consensus through emotional politics in fifteenth-century urban Castile: the case of the city of Cuenca Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-06-27 José Antonio Jara Fuente
ABSTRACT This article examines the role played by emotional references in the processes of political communication between the urban world and the nobility in fifteenth-century Castile. Chronologically, the study is framed by the succession of civil wars that shook the kingdom from the beginning of the century to Isabella I’s final victory in 1479–80, a context that greatly contributed to bringing
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In dialogue: responses to papal communication Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-06-10 Iben Fonnesberg-Schmidt, Lars Kjær, William Kynan-Wilson
ABSTRACT This essay examines responses to papal communication in Latin Christendom principally between the years 1100 and 1400. It introduces seven multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary articles in a special issue of the Journal of Medieval History on this topic, while also exploring further examples that reveal the range of responses to papal communication and the significance of these responses
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Italian and French responses to Urban V’s visual communications, c.1368–1420 Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-05-17 Claudia Bolgia
ABSTRACT This article explores the visual responses (with political, spiritual and social connotations) to the visual statements about the role of Rome and the pope in Western Christendom made by Pope Urban V (1362–1370) at the time of his return to the Urbe from Avignon in 1367–9. It investigates the plurality of responses to these papal statements, the chain of further visual communications that
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The Investiture Contest in the margins: popes and peace in a manuscript from Augsburg cathedral Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-05-15 Erik Niblaeus
ABSTRACT The article is an analysis of a dispute between the canons of Augsburg cathedral chapter and their bishop, Hermann II (1096–1133). It concentrates on a series of short texts collected in the margins of an older patristic manuscript and argues that most of these texts can be said to form a kind of dossier, likely assembled by the canons in the aftermath of a cancelled personal visit by Pope
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Papal crusade propaganda and attacks against Jews in France in the 1230s: a breakdown of communication? Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-05-13 Christoph T. Maier
ABSTRACT This article presents a case study of the papal communication accompanying crusader violence against Jews in France in the mid 1230s. The pogroms perpetrated during the preparatory phase of the so-called Crusade of the Barons, during which 1000s of Jews were killed, are the best-documented anti-Jewish attacks of the thirteenth century. They coincide with a period of unprecedented crusade propaganda
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Difficult gifts: gifts to and from the popes in twelfth- and thirteenth-century England Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-05-13 Lars Kjær
ABSTRACT This article explores how gifts, and stories about gifts, to and from the popes were treated and discussed in twelfth- and thirteenth-century England. The first part explores the intellectual context in which these stories were written, namely scriptural and classical ideas about the gift that circulated in the period, and the practical challenges faced by the papacy. The second part explores
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Papal communications and historical writing in Angevin England Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-05-13 Michael Staunton
ABSTRACT This article examines the role of papal communications in historical writing in England under the Angevin kings (1154–1216). Taking the examples of Gervase of Canterbury, Roger of Howden and Herbert of Bosham, it demonstrates a variety of responses to papal communications between the curia and England. By the late twelfth century such communications – particularly papal letters – had become
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‘Theologians know best’: Paris-trained crusade preachers as mediators between papal, popular and learned crusading pieties Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-05-09 Jessalynn Lea Bird
ABSTRACT The study of the crusades would be transformed if scholars started not with papal letters but with evidence demonstrating how organisers in various periods and regions served as brokers between papal, popular and learned discourses and crusading pieties. Surviving preaching materials suggest that Paris masters promoting various crusades forefronted contemporary reform campaigns targeting usurers
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Power, celebration and circuits of legitimation: the local use of papal letters in late twelfth-century Denmark Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-05-05 Emil Lauge Christensen, Kim Esmark, Iben Fonnesberg-Schmidt
ABSTRACT This article explores the role of papal communication in the local construction of royal and papal authority. Taking the kingdom of Denmark as its case, it analyses letters issued by Pope Alexander III to King Valdemar I and the Danish clergy before a grand meeting at Ringsted in 1170. It is argued that to understand the function and impact of the papal letters fully it is necessary to examine
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Trade, taste and ecology: honey in late medieval Europe Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-03-28 Alexandra Sapoznik, Lluís Sales i Favà, Mark Whelan
ABSTRACT Often considered a ubiquitous and widely available sweetener, this article represents the first study of the honey trade across Europe in the later Middle Ages. Demand for honey, fuelled by diverse cultural and social factors, encouraged an international trade that by the late medieval period spanned the Mediterranean, western Atlantic, and the North and Baltic Seas, connecting peoples, traders
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Sorrow, masculinity and papal authority in the writing of Pope Innocent III (1198–1216) and his curia Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-03-15 Kirsty Day
ABSTRACT This article examines how Pope Innocent III (1198–1216) and his curia used emotions to communicate the supreme authority of the pope through a gendered order of knowledge and feeling in letters. Innocent and his curia worked codes of masculinity into an emotional regime of excellence and spiritual possibility, one that excluded women and femininity and enabled the derogation of feminised forms
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The royal forests of the Árpáds in the eleventh and twelfth centuries Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-03-15 Pavol Hudáček
ABSTRACT This paper deals with the royal forests in the kingdom of Hungary. Few sources have survived from the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and it is therefore difficult to find any references to the forests of the Árpád dynasty. For this reason, research on medieval royal forests in Western Europe informs the interpretation of what information there is and shapes a comparison with the situation
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The crowd’s two faces: keeping the peace and fearing the stranger in late medieval Flanders Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-03-13 Mireille Pardon
ABSTRACT This article examines the reputation of crowds in relation to judicial practice in fifteenth-century Flanders. Medieval chronicles tend to frame rebellious crowds as frighteningly irrational rather than strategic in order to discredit the political movements they described. Legal records from Bruges and Ghent suggest this stereotype extended to disturbances unrelated to revolt. Bailiffs’ accounts
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History in liturgy: negotiating merit in Ely’s virgin mothers Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-03-02 W. Tanner Smoot
ABSTRACT As the custodians of a particularly diverse cult of saints, the monks of Ely faced a commemorative dilemma in the in late eleventh century. The abbey’s cult centred around the virgin queen St Æthelthryth, whose incorruptible body exemplified the integrity of the monastic community. Ely’s reverence for Æthelthryth extended to her female kindred, as the monks also venerated her sisters Wihtburh
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The clergy between town and country in late Merovingian hagiography Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-02-24 Yaniv Fox
ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to examine the hagiographical portrayal of ecclesiastical activity in the late Merovingian countryside, especially as it pertains to parochial priests and deacons. It considers two saints’ Lives, the Suffering of Praejectus of Clermont and the Life of Eligius of Noyon, two roughly contemporaneous late seventh-century compositions, and the different ways they approached
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Peace in the desert, peace in the realm: the Carthusian monastery of Durbon, protection and the safeguard of exempt monasteries in Angevin Provence Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-02-24 Hollis Shaul
ABSTRACT Through a case study of the Carthusian monastery of Durbon in Angevin Provence around the year 1300, this article explores the usage of the legal mechanism of safeguard by exempt monasteries. Though exempt monasteries and royal authorities were often at odds in fourteenth-century Europe, the safeguard allowed monasteries to seek royal protection for their property without relying upon or admitting
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The empress and the humanist: profit and politics in the correspondence of Anne of Świdnica and Petrarch Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-12-30 Sophie Elise Charron
ABSTRACT This article presents a reassessment of Anne of Świdnica (1339–62), Holy Roman Empress and queen of Bohemia, based on a reading of Petrarch's De laudibus feminarum. By reinterpreting their correspondence as an act of gift-giving within a framework of court patronage, it makes a case for her calculated effort to benefit her public image by corresponding with Petrarch, while he, in turn, benefited
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The price of the throne. Public finances in Portugal and Castile and the War of the Castilian Succession (1475–9) Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-12-26 Rodrigo da Costa Dominguez, José Manuel Triano-Milán
ABSTRACT The reign of Henry IV of Castile ended without a clear heir to the throne, triggering a military conflict between the candidates, Isabella and Ferdinand – the future Catholic Monarchs – and Joanna and Afonso V of Portugal. Ultimately, what was at stake was the balance of power not only in the Iberian Peninsula, but in Western Europe more broadly. The conflict transcended the military field
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Holy war and Church reform: the case of Gerhoch of Reichersberg (1092/3–1169) Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-12-15 Johannes Tutzer
ABSTRACT This paper analyses the connection between holy war, crusading and Church reform in Gerhoch of Reichersberg’s Tractatus in psalmos and other exegetical works. For Gerhoch, the First and Second Crusade constituted a facet of Church reform. By exploring the forms and manifestations of spiritual and material warfare, this essay argues that both the physical fighting on the crusades and the spiritual
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Medical knowledge in thirteenth-century preaching: the sermons of Luca da Bitonto Journal of Medieval History (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-12-12 Edward Sutcliffe
ABSTRACT Metaphors of physical health and illness occurred frequently in medieval exegesis, with diseased bodies providing figurative language that could be applied to sin and its effects upon the soul. The increasing availability of newly translated medical learning in Europe in the thirteenth century augmented and enriched this discourse in innovative ways. The present paper offers a close analysis