Duke William of Normandy (1027-1087) is best known for his conquest of England but his eventful and chaotic youth is often forgotten. William inherited the Dukedom at the age of eight when his father, Robert the Magnificent, died in 1035 on his return from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. However, many of the barons who had sworn allegiance to the young Duke before his father had left, now refused to obey a bastard. They dragged Normandy into civil war, immersing the province in blood and fire. The young Duke himself narrowly escaped death a number of times and had to go into hiding. He reappeared in 1040 resulting in further revolts increasing in intensity in 1046. It becomes imperative that the young Duke imposes his authority on his Dukedom. William now enters an episode which will determine the rest of his life at the battle of Val es dunes. The result of this battle will not only determine the future of Normandy but also that of England and France itself.

Twenty-three contributions by leading archaeologists from across Europe explore the varied forms, functions and significances of fortified settlements in the 8th to 10th centuries AD. These could be sites of strongly martial nature, upland retreats, monastic enclosures, rural seats, island bases, or urban nuclei. But they were all expressions of control - of states, frontiers, lands, materials, communities - and ones defined by walls, ramparts or enclosing banks. Papers run from Irish cashels to Welsh and Pictish strongholds, Saxon burhs, Viking fortresses, Byzantine castra, Carolingian creations, Venetian barricades, Slavic strongholds, and Bulgarian central places, and coverage extends fully from north-west Europe, to central Europe, the northern Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Strongly informed by recent fieldwork and excavations, but drawing also where available on the documentary record, this important collection provides fully up-to-date reviews and analyses of the archaeologies of the distinctive settlement forms that characterised Europe in the Early Middle Ages.

Quests for cod, herring and other sea fish had profound impacts on medieval Europe. This interdisciplinary book combines history, archaeology and zooarchaeology to discover the chronology, causes and consequences of these fisheries. It crosscuts traditional temporal and geographical boundaries, ranging from the Migration Period through the Middle Ages into early modern times, and from Iceland to Estonia, Arctic Norway to Belgium. It addresses evidence for human impacts on aquatic ecosystems in some instances and for a negligible medieval footprint on superabundant marine species in others (in contrast with industrial fisheries of the 19th–21st centuries). The book explores both incremental and punctuated changes in marine fishing, providing a unique perspective on the rhythm of Europe’s environmental, demographic, political and social history. The 21 chapters – by experts in their respective fields – cover a range of regions and methodological approaches, but come together to tell a coherent story of long-term change. Regional differences are clear, yet communities of the North Atlantic Ocean and the Baltic, North and Irish Seas also followed trajectories with many resonances. Ultimately they were linked by a pan-European trade network that turned preserved fish into wine, grain and cloth. At the close of the Middle Ages this nascent global network crossed the Atlantic, but its earlier implications were no less pivotal for those who harvested the sea or profited from its abundance.

The mosques of the Djebel Nafūsa, little known and under threat, personify the continuity of traditions and faith of the Ibadites, who have retained their grip over the centuries on this rugged landscape, despite their many trials and tribulations. This book is the result of a mission carried out in 2010 with the photographer Axel Derriks and examines twenty or so mosques, bringing to light their architectural features and linking them to medieval Ibadite texts.

In 1066, William, Duke of Normandy, raised an army to invade England and to seize the throne. Maixent, a young boy from a poor family, became the unexpected companion of a nobleman named Tancrède de Hautmesnil on his way to join the Norman chief on the coast. From there, on the 28th of September and taking advantage of favourable winds, the fleet set off to launch the assault on England. Aboard the many ships, men feared the capricious seas, but, as soon as dawn broke, the enemy coast was already in sight. They would soon be in Hastings for the decisive battle.

Mary Magdalene and the Virgin Mary continue to intrigue and fascinate us to this day. Their appearances in the Bible are brief, piquing our curiosity and compelling speculation about the unknown years of their lives. This volume contains modern translations of plays performed during the late Middle Ages in England about the lives of the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene. These plays provide a link between canonical Scripture, apocryphal and gnostic materials from the first centuries of Christianity that survived secreted or in oral tradition, legendary materials that developed over the ensuing centuries, and contemporary medieval religious belief and practices. Materials from the N-Town Mary and other plays contain episodes about the childhood of the Virgin, her betrothal and marriage to Joseph, and her time after the death of Christ. The Digby Mary Magdalene begins with an account of the death of Mary Magdalene’s father, her subsequent fall into promiscuity, her redemption, her journey to convert Marseille and thus christianize France, her later years as a hermit and her death. These plays illustrate one way in which Biblical materials were available to lay people before the printing of the Bible. Reading these plays of the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene from the late Middle Ages increases our understanding of the history of the Marian and Magdalene traditions practiced in earlier centuries, as well as our understanding of what these women have come to represent today, shedding light on how their images have shaped the roles for women in the Church.

In 1882 the Berlin Kupferstichkabinett (Prints and Drawings Museum) acquired, from the collection of the Duke of Hamilton, Sandro Botticelli’s spectacular series of drawings on parchment illustrating scenes from Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy’. It also acquired nearly all the items in the duke’s priceless collection of illuminated manuscripts. The wider British public only became aware of these masterpieces when rumours of the Berlin museum’s attempts to woo the Scottish duke started circulating in the press. No less than Queen Victoria and her daughter, wife of the German crown prince, appealed for these treasures to remain in the UK. In spite of their efforts, the Berlin museum pulled off a sensational coup in acquiring the Hamilton collection. Since then the Botticelli drawings and the splendid Hamilton manuscripts have formed the cornerstone of the Kupferstichkabinett’s collection and are regarded as amongst the very greatest treasures of the Berlin State Museums.Accompanying an exhibition that brings back to the UK some of the greatest of the former Hamilton treasures, this book includes no less than thirty of Botticelli’s exquisite ‘Dante drawings’. The series is of the highest order of importance and rarity, and this book will be an exceptional opportunity to explore the great Renaissance master’s interpretation of one of the canonical texts of world literature. Ten drawings will be included from each of the three ‘books’ or realms of the Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. The drawings will be accompanied by an extraordinary selection of illuminated manuscripts from the time of Botticelli, including the monumental ‘Hamilton Bible’. Acknowledged to be one of the most important illuminated manuscripts in the world, this splendid princely volume is depicted in Raphael’s portrait of Pope Leo X. It has not been lent anywhere for 17 years and has never returned to the UK since it left in 1882. The Dante series will be further enhanced by the Courtauld Gallery’s own collection, which includes the master’s large altarpiece of The Holy Trinity with Saints John and Mary Magdalene, dating to the same years as the Dante series.Bibliophile treasures of the highest calibre, all the works in this dazzling group are created by the best artists of their day for illustrious patrons, members of the leading families of Italy – the Medici, the Sforza and the kings of Naples. The manuscripts’ splendid variety and luminous colours exemplify what Dante termed the “smiling pages” when describing, in his Commedia, the art of manuscript illumination which so captured the public imagination in 19th century.

This PhD thesis discusses the practices of wealth depositing in the 1st–9th century AD eastern Baltic (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania). Wealth deposits are one or more valued object/s that is/are hidden deliberately as an intended separate deposition in a selected place in a specific, distinguishable manner. Wealth depositing is regarded as an important cultural practice which relates to and derives from various past social phenomena and changes respectively in spatial and temporal terms. It is emphasised that wealth deposits should be analysed as a cohesive corpus of material, regardless of specific artefact types, functional groups, production material, environment of concealment, and most importantly without any predetermined interpretation categorisations.The dissertation presents different patterned practices of concealing valuables in the 1st–9th century AD eastern Baltic through a detailed contextual analysis of their main material characteristics: artefacts, their assemblages and appearance, environment of concealment, chronology and location in the cultural landscape. The study demonstrates how depositional practices change in time and space, and analyses relations between specific depositional practices and developments on a wider social scale. A comparative analysis of wealth deposits and important social changes in contemporary society based on overall archaeological material is presented. The key regional and cross-regional practices of wealth depositing in the 1st–9th century AD eastern Baltic are identified. Additionally, further comparisons are drawn between depositional practices in the eastern Baltic and other parts of the Baltic Sea region, especially Scandinavia.This thesis contributes to the discussions of concepts of value and depositional practices in a long-term and cross-regional perspective. A further aim is to look beyond the problematic ‘why?’-questions posed in the studies of wealth deposits, and move instead to more comprehensible questions of ‘how?’: how do depositional practices change in time and space, and how are these processes related to developments in a broader social context?The book contains a catalogue of all the 1st-9th century AD Eastern Baltic deposits analysed in the dissertation with descriptions of objects, environments of concealment, find circumstances, illustrations/photos and further references.

Prompted by the recent discovery of an impressive three-metre tall late Gothic drawing of a soaring tower and spire, this book offers a rare insight into the processes of designing and building a major gothic project. The drawing’s place and date of creation are unknown, and it corresponds to no surviving Gothic tower. Equally mysterious is the three-quarter, top-down perspective from which the tower is represented, without parallel in any other medieval drawings. Who drew this? When? And what did he hope to convey with his choice of a top-down representation of the tower? Building a Crossing Tower explores these questions, and uncovers the dramatic circumstances in which this drawing was created. The first part of the book links the drawing to an early 16th-century building project in the city of Rouen in Normandy, France. Rouen was then a thriving port, one of the most populous cities in France, and a vibrant construction site, where dazzling, flamboyant creations were erected side by side with Renaissance buildings. At the centre of this intense building activity was Roulland le Roux, the city’s leading master mason, most likely the author of the newly discovered drawing. Given the scarcity of French gothic drawing, the discovery of this impressive piece and its attribution to a known artist are significant events in themselves. Moreover, in this exceptional case it is also possible to recreate the social context of the drawing’s production, explored in the second part of the book. Previously unpublished minutes of the cathedral chapter reveal that the drawing was realised following the dramatic fire which destroyed the cathedral’s crossing tower in 1514. The fire sparked fierce disputes among the cathedral’s canons, who divided into two factions: one hoping to see the crossing tower reconstructed in stone, the other lobbying for a safer and cheaper wooden spire. The differences between the two parties and the changing fortunes of artists employed in the reconstruction project are documented in gripping detail in the chapter’s minutes, which reveal how the new drawing was commissioned and realised. But the minutes also reveal that this drawing ultimately failed to convince the chapter to support and authorise the project, despite its impressive size, perspective and skilful representation of virtuoso carving. The flamboyant gothic tower never was erected, and the worksite came to a standstill until 1542, when a Renaissance tower was eventually built by Robert Becquet. This drawing then represents a failed design proposal. Yet, for this very reason, it offers a unique insight into the politics of building a great late gothic project, shedding light on an ever-changing landscape of contrasts and collaborations. If drawings are often interpreted as a direct window into a master’s mind, graced by the touch of his hand, this drawing is unexpectedly revealed as a mirror of the social life of a key late Gothic building site.

There has been a lot of new data discovered on Medieval Dutch cities in recent decades. This has provided new insights on the develeopment, topography, material culture and the functioning of cities. This study combines and synthesizes data from several Dutch Medieval cities. The focus of this data is an analysis of data retrieved from cesspools. Cesspools have reveiled a wealth of information in the form of artefacts which can shed light in daily life in the Medieval city. Cities included in this analysis are Alkmaar, Haarlem, Leiden, Amersfoort, Dordrecht, Deventer and ‘s-Hertogenbosch.

This book, aimed at a general audience, presents the results of all archeological research performed in the Dutch city of Helmond during several decades. Starting in the early prehistory the authors present the earliest evidence of people living in the current region of Helmond, the rise of the city up until recent times.

In the mid-fourteenth century the Black Death ravaged Europe, leading to dramatic population drop and social upheavals. Recurring plague outbreaks together with social factors pushed Europe into a deep crisis that lasted for more than a century. The plague and the crisis, and in particular their short-term and long-term consequences for society, have been the matter of continuous debate. Most of the research so far has been based on the study of written sources, and the dominating perspective has been the one of economic history. A different approach is presented here by using evidence and techniques from archaeology and the natural sciences. Special focus is on environmental and social changes in the wake of the Black Death. Pollen and tree-ring data are used to gain new insights into farm abandonment and agricultural change, and to point to the important environmental and ecological consequences of the crisis. The archaeological record shows that the crisis was not only characterised by abandonment and decline, but also how families and households survived by swiftly developing new strategies during these uncertain times. Finally, stature and isotope studies are applied to human skeletons from medieval churchyards to reveal changes in health and living conditions during the crisis. The conclusions are put in wider perspective that highlights the close relationship between society and the environment and the historical importance of past epidemics.

The popular romances of medieval England are fantasy stories of love at first sight; brave knights seeking adventure; evil stewards; passionate, lusty women; hand-to-hand combat; angry dragons; and miracles. They are not only fun but indicate a great deal about the ideals and values of the society they were written in. Yet the genre of Middle English romance has only recently begun to attain critical respectability, dismissed as "vayn carpynge" in its own age and generally treated by twentieth-century critics as a junk-food form of medieval literature. Chaucer's Tale of Sir Thopas has been assumed to be a satire of the romances' clichéd formulas and unskilled authors. But the romances evidently enjoyed popularity among all English classes, and the genre itself continued to flourish and evolve down to present-day novels and movies. Whatever Chaucer and his contemporaries thought of romances, they would have needed some personal familiarity with the stories and texts for comic tales such as Sir Thopas to be understood. A century ago, Beowulf faced the same problem that the Middle English romances still face: no modern translations were published because few had heard of the poem- because there were no modern translations published. Where the romances have been printed, they have normally been reproduced as critical editions in their original language, or translated into heavily abridged children's versions, but few have been published as scholarly close line translations with notes. This book is an attempt to remedy this by making some of these romances available to the student or lay reader who lacks specialized knowledge of Middle English, with the hope that a clearer understanding of the poems will encourage not only enjoyment but also further study.

The aim of this book is to provide an informed introduction to the subjects so that the reader will be able to confidently recognise Anglo-Saxon church architectural features and Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Scandinavian stone sculpture. The contents, including illustrations and photographs, all meticulously checked on site, are drawn from the author’s extensive research and travels over many years. Especially useful is the gazetteer section offering a selection of 127 sites providing excellent examples of the features described.

The original circumstances in which archaeological remains came into being are crucial for the interpretation of the material record. Burials are first and foremost a result of a very traumatic event in a society – the death of one of its members. It is due to this context that burials represent a primary source for understanding past societies’ attitudes towards death. Barbara Hausmair traces death concepts and their influence on mortuary rituals in early medieval communities in what is today known as southwest Germany. Using the cemeteries of Bad Mingolsheim, Horb-Altheim and Weingarten as case studies, the author compares archaeological patterns based on grave goods and grave arrangements with anthropological data on age, sex, pathologies, trauma and migration patterns of the deceased. By connecting the observed patterns with social theories on human death behaviour, Hausmair dissects the complex network of the burial communities’ social structures, death concepts and the newly constructed identities of the dead in the afterlife. Her thanatological approach provides original insights into the relationships between burial practices and ideas about death in Merovingian-period Alamannia by sensibly combining theoretical considerations with a thorough analysis of archaeological material. TEXT IN GERMAN.

The Southampton brokage books are the best source for English inland trade before modern times . Internal trade always matched overseas trade. Between 1430 and 1540 the brokage series records all departures through Southampton’s Bargate, the owner, carter, commodity, quantity, destination and date, and many deliveries too. Twelve such years make up the database that illuminates Southampton’s trade with its extensive region at the time when the city was at its most important as the principal point of access to England for the exotic spices and dyestuffs imported by the Genoese. If Southampton’s international traffic was particularly important, the town’s commerce was representative also of the commonplace trade that occurred throughout England. Seventeen papers investigate Southampton’s interaction with Salisbury, London, Winchester, and many other places, long-term trends and short-term fluctuations. The rise and decline of the Italian trade, the dominance of Salisbury and emergence of Jack of Newbury, the recycling of wealth and metals from the dissolved monasteries all feature here. Underpinning the book are 32 computer-generated maps and numerous tables, charts, and graphs, with guidance provided as to how best to exploit and extend this remarkable resource.An accompanying web-mounted database (http://www.overlandtrade.org) enables the changing commerce to be mapped and visualised through maps and trade to be tracked week by week and over a century. Together the book and database provide a unique resource for Southampton, its trading partners, traders and carters, freight traffic and the genealogies of the middling sort.