Bücher der Reihe Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture

The contributors to this new volume explore the wide gamut of characteristic features determining the rise of the city as a central living space since the high Middle Ages, and extend the investigation up to the eighteenth century. Historians, literary historians, and art historians reflect upon the meaning of urban space as it evolved since ca.

Despite popular opinions of the 'dark Middle Ages' and a 'gloomy early modern age', many people laughed, smiled, giggled, chuckled, entertained and ridiculed each other. This title demonstrates how important laughter had been at times and how diverse the situations proved to be in which people laughed.

Although it seems that erotic love generally was the prevailing topic in the medieval world and the Early Modern Age, parallel to this the Ciceronian ideal of friendship also dominated the public discourse. This title explores the functions and the character of friendship from Late Antiquity (Augustine) to the 17th century.

Medieval historians and literary scholars have not ignored the topic of sexual violence and rape, but the primary focus has regularly rested on English, French, or Italian documents. Here we have the first book-length study that investigates the treatment of sexual crimes in medieval and early modern German and Latin literature, making great efforts to shed light on often ignored scenes and episodes even in some of the classical' works such as Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival or the anonymous Nibelungenlied. As this monograph reveals, many times we face situations where we cannot easily determine whether rape has occurred or not. Consequently, we recognize an important discourse in these literary examples concerning the question of how to view and deal with sexual violence, which could also involve men as victims. This critical examination extends toward sixteenth-century jest narratives (Schwanke) where the issue of rape continued to occupy the authors' minds. Moreover, as numerous side glances to contemporary European literature indicate, the theme of sexual violence was of universal concern and critical importance during the entire premodern era.

War and Peace

Authorities in the Middle Ages investigates the definition, establishment, and collapse of medieval authority from antiquity to the mid-fifteenth century. The interdisciplinary approach resonates with the multi-faceted field of medieval culture, its social structures, and various forms of communication, in various disciplines.

The articles in this volume study medieval laws and documents reflecting on vices, crimes, and wrongdoings and thus give a profound analysis of the premodern world in its development in social, economic, legal, moral, and ethical terms.

Features studies that explore the phenomenon of sexuality in a variety of medieval and early-modern literatures, including Old English texts, Middle-High German narratives, medieval Spanish and early-modern French literature, and also eighteenth-century English novels.

In the wake of the Spatial Turn and the emergence of ecocritical theory, rural space proves to be a highly fertile ground for the reexamination of medieval and early modern literature, history, and art history.

More than a mere pastime, chess was an important pedagogical tool and thought paradigm in the Middle Ages. In this collection of essays, scholars investigate chess texts from various European traditions and make the case for seeing chess as an important key to understanding medieval culture.

This volume treats old age and old people as reflected in medieval and early modern literature, historical documents, and visual products, offering innovative perspectives, examining hitherto neglected texts and art works, and taking stock of previous research.

The study takes the received view among scholars that women in the Middle Ages were faced with sustained misogyny and that their voices were seldom heard in public and subjects it to a critical analysis. The ten chapters deal with various aspects of the question, and the voices of a variety of authors - both female and male - are heard. The study opens with an enquiry into violence against women, including in texts by male writers (Hartmann von Aue, Gottfried von Straburg, Wolfram von Eschenbach) which indeed describe instances of violence, but adopt an extremely critical stance towards them. It then proceeds to show how women were able to develop an independent identity in various genres and could present themselves as authorities in the public eye. Mystic texts by Hildegard of Bingen, Marie de France and Margery Kempe, the medieval conduct poem known as Die Winsbeckin, the Devout Books of Sisters composed in convents in South-West Germany, but also quasi-historical documents such as the memoirs of Helene Kottaner or Anna Weckerin's cookery book, demonstrate that far more women were in the public gaze than had hitherto been assumed and that they possessed the self-confidence to establish their positions with their intellectual and their literary achievements.

Explores the often problematic, and also productive relationships between East and West during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age, focusing on literary and pragmatic texts, scientific exchanges, strategies to build bridges to the other culture, and on parallel cultural developments documenting contacts and communication between both worlds.

The aim of this English-language series on medieval studies is to establish a methodical, discerning connection between text analysis and cultural history. The series addresses the fundamental cultural themes of the medieval world from the perspective of literary studies and the humanities. These fundamental themes are the culture-formative conceptualizations, world views, social structures and everyday conditions of medieval life, namely, childhood and old age, sexuality, religion, medicine, rituals, work, poverty and wealth, superstition, earth and cosmos, city and country, war, emotions, communication, travel etc. Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture pursues important current discussions in the field and provides a forum for interdisciplinary medieval research. The series is open to anthologies as well as monographs. The aim of the series is to present compendium-like works on the central topics of medieval cultural history that provide a sound overview of a limited subject area from the perspective of various disciplines. On the whole, the series thus presents an encyclopedia of medieval literary and cultural history and its main topics.