Contesting The Middle Ages

Contesting the Middle Ages is a thorough exploration of recent arguments surrounding nine hotly debated topics: the decline and fall of Rome, the Viking invasions, the Crusades, the persecution of minorities, sexuality in the Middle Ages, women within medieval society, intellectual and environmental history, the Black Death, and, lastly, the waning of the Middle Ages. The historiography of the Middle Ages, a term in itself controversial amongst medieval historians, has been continuously debated and rewritten for centuries. In each chapter, John Aberth sets out key historiographical debates in an engaging and informative way, encouraging students to consider the process of writing about history and prompting them to ask questions even of already thoroughly debated subjects, such as why the Roman Empire fell, or what significance the Black Death had both in the late Middle Ages and beyond. Sparking discussion and inspiring examination of the past and its ongoing significance in modern life, Contesting the Middle Ages is essential reading for students of medieval history and historiography.

This book breaks with three common scholarly barriers of periodization, discipline and geography in its exploration of the related themes of heresy, magic and witchcraft. It sets aside constructed chronological boundaries, and in doing so aims to achieve a clearer picture of what ‘went before’, as well as what ‘came after’. Thus the volume demonstrates continuity as well as change in the concepts and understandings of magic, heresy and witchcraft. In addition, the geographical pattern of similarities and diversities suggests a comparative approach, transcending confessional as well as national borders. Throughout the medieval and early modern period, the orthodoxy of the Christian Church was continuously contested. The challenge of heterodoxy, especially as expressed in various kinds of heresy, magic and witchcraft, was constantly present during the period 1200-1650. Neither contesters nor followers of orthodoxy were homogeneous groups or fractions. They themselves and their ideas changed from one century to the next, from region to region, even from city to city, but within a common framework of interpretation. This collection of essays focuses on this complex.

The Mediterranean and its hinterlands were the scene of intensive and transformative contact between cultures in the Middle Ages. From the seventh to the seventeenth century, the three civilizations into which the region came to be divided geographically – the Islamic Khalifate, the Byzantine Empire, and the Latin West – were busily redefining themselves vis-à-vis one another. Interspersed throughout the region were communities of minorities, such as Christians in Muslim lands, Muslims in Christian lands, heterodoxical sects, pagans, and, of course, Jews. One of the most potent vectors of interaction and influence between these communities in the medieval world was inter-religious conversion: the process whereby groups or individuals formally embraced a new religion. The chapters of this book explore this dynamic: what did it mean to convert to Christianity in seventh-century Ireland? What did it mean to embrace Islam in tenth-century Egypt? Are the two phenomena comparable on a social, cultural, and legal level? The chapters of the book also ask what we are able to learn from our sources, which, at times, provide a very culturally-charged and specific conversion rhetoric. Taken as a whole, the compositions in this volume set out to argue that inter-religious conversion was a process that was recognizable and comparable throughout its geographical and chronological purview.

This is a collection of original essays on the settlement of disputes in the early middle ages, a subject of central importance for social and political history. Case material, from the evidence of charters, is used to reveal the realities of the settlement process in the behaviour and interactions of people - instead of the prescriptive and idealised models of law-codes and edicts. The book is not therefore a technical study of charters evidence. The geographical range across Europe is unusually wide, which allows comparison across differing societies. Frankish material is inevitably prominent, but the contributors have sought to integrate Celtic, Greek, Italian and Spanish material into the mainstream of the subject. Above all, the book aims to 'demystify' the study of early medieval law, and to present a radical reappraisal of established assumptions about law and society.

Debating medieval Europe serves as an entry point for studying and teaching medieval history. Rather than simply presenting foundational knowledge or introducing sources, it provides the reader with frameworks for understanding the distinctive historiography of the period, digging beneath the historical accounts provided by other textbooks to expose the contested foundations of apparently settled narratives. It opens a space for discussion and debate, as well as providing essential context for the sometimes overwhelming abundance of specialist scholarship. Volume I addresses the early Middle Ages, covering the period c. 450–c. 1050. The chapters are organised chronologically, and cover such topics as the Carolingian Order, England and the ‘Atlantic Archipelago’, the Vikings and Ottonian Germany. It features a highly distinguished selection of medieval historians, including Paul Fouracre and Janet L. Nelson.

The pervasiveness of the Christian religion has long been treated as one of the key features of medieval society. Indeed, Europe in the Middle Ages is often described simply as a Christian culture. Yet what do we mean when we say that medieval Europe was a Christian society, and what did it mean to be a Christian in the Middle Ages? These questions are fundamental to any understanding of the Middle Ages, yet the variety of theoretical approaches and conclusions represented in this carefully selected and provocative collection of key works in the field highlights the complexity of the answers. Introducing students to medieval Christianity, James L. Halverson presents a rich array of readings that offers a variety of ways to study the history of religion within a chronological setting. His opening chapter and introductions to each section and selection frame the essays and provide a strong conceptual framework to build upon. Making it clear that scholars have approached religion from many perspectives and used many different methodologies, this collection presents some of the best scholarship of religion as culture and practice, emphasizing the ongoing attempt to understand the social and cultural aspects of medieval Christianity. Contributions by: Rudolf Bell, Constance Brittain Bouchard, Peter Brown, Marcus Bull, Caroline Walker Bynum, Mark R. Cohen, Georges Duby, Eamon Duffy, Joan Ferrante, Richard Fletcher, Katherine L. French, Thomas A. Fudge, Herbert Grundmann, James L. Halverson, Karen Louise Jolly, Lester Little, Rob Means, Bernd Moeller, Andrew P. Roach, Jane Tibbets Schulenburg, Keith Thomas, and Ian Wood.

In Scandinavia the study of disputes is still a relatively new topic: The papers offered here discuss how conflicts were handled in Scandinavian societies in the Middle Ages before the emergence of strong centralized states. What strategies did people use to contest power, property, rights, honour, and other kinds of material or symbolic assets? Seven essays by Scandinavian scholars are supplemented by contributions from Stephen White, John Hudson and Gerd Althoff, to provide a new baseline for discussing both the strategies pursued in the political game and those used to settle local disputes. Using practice and process as key analytical concepts, these authors explore formal law and litigation in conjunction with non-formal legal proceedings such as out-of-court mediation, rituals, emotional posturing, and feuding. Their insights place the Northern medieval world in a European context of dispute studies. With introductory sections on social structure, sources materials, and the historiography of Scandinavian dispute studies. Contributors are Gerd Althoff, Catharina Andersson, Kim Esmark, Lars Ivar Hansen, Lars Hermanson, John Hudson, Auður G. Magnúsdóttir, Hans Jacob Orning, Helle Vogt and Stephen D. White.