Medieval Literature

The Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages by Matthew E. Bunson The encyclopedia details the panoply of events, people, ideas, and movements that have come to define this era with some 2,000 entries presenting a thorough examination of rulers, artists and writers, religious figures and events.

Women and Gender in Medieval Europe by Margaret C. Schaus (Editor); Margaret Schaus From women's medicine and the writings of Christine de Pizan to the lives of market and tradeswomen and the idealization of virginity, gender and social status dictated all aspects of women's lives during the middle ages. A cross-disciplinary resource, Women and Gender in Medieval Europe examines the daily reality of medieval women from all walks of life in Europe between 450 CE and 1500 CE, i.e., from the fall of the Roman Empire to the discovery of the Americas. Moving beyond biographies of famous noble women of the middles ages, the scope of this important reference work is vast and provides a comprehensive understanding of medieval women's lives and experiences. Masculinity in the middle ages is also addressed to provide important context for understanding women's roles. Entries that range from 250 words to 4,500 words in length thoroughly explore topics in the following areas: ¿ Art and Architecture ¿ Countries, Realms, and Regions ¿ Daily Life ¿ Documentary Sources ¿ Economics ¿ Education and Learning ¿ Gender and Sexuality ¿ Historiography ¿ Law ¿ Literature ¿ Medicine and Science ¿ Music and Dance ¿ Persons ¿ Philosophy ¿ Politics ¿ Political Figures ¿ Religion and Theology ¿ Religious Figures ¿ Social Organization and Status Written by renowned international scholars, Women and Gender in Medieval Europe is the latest in the Routledge Encyclopedias of the Middle Ages. Easily accessible in an A-to-Z format, students, researchers, and scholars will find this outstanding reference work to be an invaluable resource on women in Medieval Europe.

Medieval Jewish Civilization by Norman Roth (Editor) This is the first encyclopedic work to focus exclusively on medieval Jewish civilization, from the fall of the Roman Empire to about 1492. The more than 150 alphabetically organized entries, written by scholars from around the world, include biographies, countries, events, social history, and religious concepts. The coverage is international, presenting people, culture, and events from various countries in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. For a full list of entries and contributors, a generous selection of sample entries, and more, visit the Medieval Jewish Civilization: An Encyclopedia website.

Medieval Iberia by E. Michael Gerli (Editor) As the first comprehensive reference to the vital world of medieval Spain, this unique volume focuses on the Iberian kingdoms from the fall of the Roman Empire to the aftermath of the Reconquista. The nearly 1,000 signed A-Z entries, written by renowned specialists in the field, encompass topics of key relevance to medieval Iberia, including people, events, works, and institutions, as well as interdisciplinary coverage of literature, language, history, arts, folklore, religion, and science. Also providing in-depth discussions of the rich contributions of Muslim and Jewish cultures, and offering useful insights into their interactions with Catholic Spain, this comprehensive work is an invaluable tool for students, scholars, and general readers alike. For a full list of entries and contributors, a generous selection of sample entries, and more, visit the Medieval Iberia: An Encyclopedia website.

Charlemagne by Rosamond McKitterick Charlemagne is often claimed as the greatest ruler in Europe before Napoleon. This magisterial study re-examines Charlemagne the ruler and his reputation. It analyses the narrative representations of Charlemagne produced after his death, and thereafter focuses on the evidence from Charlemagne's lifetime concerning the creation of the Carolingian dynasty and the growth of the kingdom, the court and the royal household, communications and identities in the Frankish realm in the context of government, and Charlemagne's religious and cultural strategies. The book offers a critical examination of the contemporary sources and in so doing transforms our understanding of the development of the Carolingian empire, the formation of Carolingian political identity, and the astonishing changes effected throughout Charlemagne's forty-six year period of rule. This is a major contribution to Carolingian history which will be essential reading for anyone interested in the medieval past. Rosamond McKitterick has also received the 2010 Dr A. H. Heineken Prize for History for her research into the Carolingians.

The Adventures of Ibn Battuta by Ross E. Dunn Known as the greatest traveler of premodern times, Abu Abdallah ibn Battuta was born in Morocco in 1304 and educated in Islamic law. At the age of twenty-one, he left home to make the holy pilgrimage to Mecca. This was only the first of a series of extraordinary journeys that spanned nearly three decades and took him not only eastward to India and China but also north to the Volga River valley and south to Tanzania. The narrative of these travels has been known to specialists in Islamic and medieval history for years. Ross E. Dunn's 1986 retelling of these tales, however, was the first work of scholarship to make the legendary traveler's story accessible to a general audience. Now updated with revisions, a new preface, and an updated bibliography, Dunn's classic interprets Ibn Battuta's adventures and places them within the rich, trans-hemispheric cultural setting of medieval Islam.

The Oxford Companion to Chaucer by Douglas Gray With over 2,000 entries from an international team of scholars, this new Oxford Companion provides a wealth of clear, up-to-date assessments on all aspects of Chaucer. Entries, both short and long, from 'Aaron' to 'Zodiac', provide information on Chaucer's life and times, his works and thecharacteristics in them, his language and metre, his reading and the creative uses he made of it, and on his major moral and literary themes. Extensive reference is also made to the development of critical opinion about his works over the centuries. Complete with a chronology, a note to readers,illustrations, and extensive cross-referencing, this is a fascinating, practical guide to readers of Chaucer at every level.

Berenguela of Castile (1180-1246) and Political Women in the High Middle Ages by Miriam Shadis The women in the family which ruled thirteenth-century Castile used maternity, familial and political strategy, and religious and cultural patronage to secure their personal power as well as to promote their lineage. Leonor of England, and her daughters Blanche of Castile (queen of France), Urraca (queen of Portugal), Costanza (a Cistercian nun of Las Huelgas) and Leonor, (queen of Aragon) provide the context for a study focusing on Berenguela of Castile, queen of Leon through marriage and of Castile by right of inheritance, whose most significant accomplishment was to enable the successful rule of her son Fernando.

Maimonides by Joel L. Kraemer This authoritative biography of Moses Maimonides, one of the most influential minds in all of human history, illuminates his life as a philosopher, physician, and lawgiver. A biography on a grand scale, it explicates one man's life against the background of the social, religious, and political issues of his time.

Framing the Early Middle Ages by Chris Wickham The Roman empire tends to be seen as a whole whereas the early middle ages tends to be seen as a collection of regional histories, roughly corresponding to the land-areas of modern nation states. As a result, early medieval history is much more fragmented, and there have been few convincingsyntheses of socio-economic change in the post-Roman world since the 1930s. In recent decades, the rise of early medieval archaeology has also transformed our source-base, but this has not been adequately integrated into analyses of documentary history in almost any country.In Framing the Early Middle Ages Chris Wickham aims at integrating documentary and archaeological evidence together, and also, above all, at creating a comparative history of the period 400-800, by means of systematic comparative analyses of each of the regions of the latest Roman and immediatelypost-Roman world, from Denmark to Egypt (only the Slav areas are left out). The book concentrates on classic socio-economic themes, state finance, the wealth and identity of the aristocracy, estate management, peasant society, rural settlement, cities, and exchange. These are only a partial pictureof the period, but they are intended as a framing for other developments, without which those other developments cannot be properly understood.Wickham argues that only a complex comparative analysis can act as the basis for a wider synthesis. Whilst earlier syntheses have taken the development of a single region as 'typical', with divergent developments presented as exceptions, this book takes all different developments as typical, andaims to construct a synthesis based on a better understanding of difference and the reasons for it. This is the most ambitious and original survey of the period ever written.

The Birth of Europe by Jacques. Le Goff In this ground-breaking new study,Jacques Le Goff, arguably the leading medievalist of his generation, presents his view of the primacy of the Middle Ages in the development of European history. "[A] superb and necessary book. This provocative assessment from a lifetime of scholarship might help us to place ourselves, not just territorially, but in that other precious element of history: time." The Guardian "A book that never fails to be informative, readable and provocative. Le Goff... has been the bravest and best of champions for medieval history. This book... is in every sense an inspiration." BBC History Magazine Praised by prominent figures in Europe and history including: Rt Hon Christopher Patten, CH, Former Member of the European Commission, and Neil Kinnock, Vice-President, European Commission.

The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Literature, 1100-1500 by Larry Scanlon (Editor) The medieval period was one of extraordinary literary achievement sustained over centuries of great change, anchored by the Norman invasion and its aftermath, the re-emergence of English as the nation's leading literary language in the fourteenth century and the advent of print in the fifteenth. This Companion spans four full centuries to survey this most formative and turbulent era in the history of literature in English. Exploring the period's key authors - Chaucer, Langland, the Gawain-Poet, Margery Kempe, among many - and genres - plays, romances, poems and epics - the book offers an overview of the riches of medieval writing. The essays map out the flourishing field of medieval literary studies and point towards new directions and approaches. Designed to be accessible to students, the book also features a chronology and guide to further reading.

The Historical Present by Walter Kudrycz Medievalism has become a central concern for those studying and teaching medieval history. It can be distinguished from traditional medieval history because it is not directly concerned with the study of the Middle Ages themselves, but rather it looks at how ideas about the medieval era operate in modern culture. This volume breaks new ground by moving beyond the arena of contemporary popular culture by interpreting modern academic attitudes towards the Middle Ages as themselves forms of medievalism. What is presented as refined historical truth is no more than a construction of truth derived from the larger philosophical and cultural trends of our own day. This volume argues that modernity's sense of the medieval past is the product of the dominant intellectual movements of the nineteenth century, Romanticism and Idealism, and that nineteenth century attitudes have continued to inform current understandings of the Middle Ages. This is a narrative that combines the main themes of modern scholarship on the medieval age with a subtly portrayed picture of the philosophical culture which produced them.