Society And Culture In Medieval Rouen 911 1300

"This book presents exciting new research on the society and culture of medieval Rouen by British and Continental historians. Divided into three sections, addressing space and representation, religious culture, and social networks, the volume is both wide-ranging and tightly focused. The key themes include Rouen's relationship with its environs, image and identity, social and political relationships, and Rouen's status as the 'capital' of Normandy. The essays discuss topics ranging from urban development and charity, to the city's aristocratic and ecclesiastical elites, the Jewish community, and the relationship of the Angevin kings with sRouen."--Page 4 of cover.

An investigation into the effects of leprosy in one of the major towns in medieval France, illuminating urban, religious and medical culture at the time.

A magisterial survey of Normandy from its origins in the tenth century to its conquest some two hundred years later.

This study offers the first extensive analysis of the function and significance of urban panegyric in the Central Middle Ages, a flexible literary genre which enjoyed a marked and renewed popularity in the period 1100 to 1300. In doing so, it connects the production of urban panegyric to major underlying transformations in the medieval city and explores praise of cities primarily in England, Flanders, France, Germany, Iberia, and Italy (including the South and Sicily). The volume demonstrates how laudatory ideas on the city appeared in extremely diverse textual formats which had the potential to interact with a wide audience via multiple textual and material sources. When contextualized within the developments of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries these ideas could reflect more than formulaic, rhetorical outputs for an educated elite, they were instead integral to the process of urbanisation. In Urban Panegyric and the Transformation of the Medieval City, 1100-1300, Paul Oldfield assesses the generation of ideas on the Holy City, on counter-narratives associated with the Evil City, on the inter-relationship between the City and abundance (primarily through discourses on commercial productivity, hinterlands and population size), on landscapes and sites of power, and on knowledge generation and the construction of urban histories. Urban panegyric can enable us to comprehend more deeply material, functional, and ideological change associated with the city during a period of notable urbanization, and, importantly, how this change might have been experienced by contemporaries. This study therefore highlights the importance of urban panegyric as a product of, and witness to, a period of substantial urban change. In examining the laudatory depiction of medieval cities in a thematic analysis it can contribute to a deeper understanding of civic identity and its important connection to urban transformation.

An exploration of the relations between medical and religious discourse and practice in medieval culture, focussing on how they are affected by gender.

A thriving port, a frontier base for the lords of Gower and a multi-cultural urban community, the south Wales town of Swansea was an important centre in the Middle Ages, at a nexus of multiple identities, cultural practices and configurations of power. As the principal town of the Marcher lordship of Gower and seat of the Marcher lord's rule, Swansea was a site of contested authority, colonial control and complex interactions – and collisions – between different cultures, languages and traditions. Swansea also features in the miracle collection prepared for the canonisation of Thomas Cantilupe, Bishop of Hereford (d. 1282), as the setting for the intriguing case of the hanging and strange revival of the Welsh rebel, William Cragh. Taking medieval Swansea and Wales as its starting point, this volume brings into focus questions of place, power, identity and belief, bringing together inter-disciplinary perspectives which span History, Literary Studies and Geography / Archaeology, and engaging with current debates in the fields of medieval frontier studies, urban history, manuscript studies and hagiography. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Medieval History.

Law | Book | Culture in the Middle Ages takes a detailed view on the role of manuscripts and the written word in legal cultures, spanning the medieval period across western and central Europe.

Winner of the 2020 PROSE Award for Multivolume Reference/Humanities Work was central to medieval life. Religious and secular authorities generally expected almost everyone to work. Artistic and literary depictions underlined work's cultural value. The vast majority of medieval people engaged in agriculture because it was the only way they could obtain food. Yet their work led to innovations in technology and production and allowed others to engage in specialized labor, helping to drive the growth of cities. Many workers moved to seek employment and to improve their living conditions. For those who could not work, charity was often available, and many individuals and institutions provided forms of social welfare. Guilds protected their members and created means for the transmission of skills. When they were not at work, medieval Christians were to meet their religious obligations yet many also enjoyed various pastimes. A consideration of medieval work is therefore one of medieval society in all its creativity and complexity and that is precisely what this volume provides. A Cultural History of Work in the Medieval Age presents an overview of the period with essays on economies, representations of work, workplaces, work cultures, technology, mobility, society, politics and leisure.