Bücher der Reihe Routledge Research in Medieval Studies

This book explores symbolic means of legitimation of medieval Scandinavian elites. It maps out a wide set of cultural practices (literary, spatial, legal, ritualistic, sacral etc.), offering new perspectives to students and researchers on medieval Nordic political order and social distinction.

This study presents a compelling and provocative study of virginity, which challenges the belief that female virginity can be reliably and unambiguously defined, tested and verified.

In this interdisciplinary and boundary breaking study, Gail Ashton examines the depiction of female saints in a wide range of medieval texts.

This collection of essays examines the diversity of economic growth patterns across Europe during the late Middle Ages and debates the causes of the fourteenth century crisis which initiated profound institutional transformations.

This book explores the complexity of preaching as a phenomenon in the medieval Jewish-Christian encounter. This was not only an "encounter" as physical meeting or confrontation (such as the forced attendance of Jews at Christian sermons that took place across Europe), but also an "imaginary" or theological encounter in which Jews remained a figure from a distant constructed time and place who served only to underline and verify Christian teachings. Contributors also explore the Jewish response to Christian anti-Jewish preaching in their own preaching and religious instruction.

This book, first in a series of three, examines the social elites in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Iceland, and which social, political and cultural resources went into their creation, through questions such as: Which types of resources were at play? How did the elites acquire and exchange resources?

Nordic Elites in Transformation, c. 1050-1250, Volume II explores the structures and workings of social networks within the elites of medieval Scandinavia to reveal the intricate relationship between power and status.

This book explores the practical and symbolic resources of legitimacy which the elites of medieval Scandinavia employed to establish, justify, and reproduce their social and political standing between the end of the Viking Age and the rise of kingdoms in the thirteenth century. Geographically the chapters cover the Scandinavian realms and Free State Iceland. Thematically the authors cover a wide palette of cultural practices and historical sources: hagiography, historiography, spaces and palaces, literature, and international connections, which rulers, magnates or ecclesiastics used to compete for status and to reserve haloing glory for themselves. The volume is divided in three sections. The first looks at the sacral, legal, and acclamatory means through which privilege was conferred onto kings and ruling families. Section Two explores the spaces such as aristocratic halls, palaces, churches in which the social elevation of elites took place. Section Three explores the traditional and novel means of domestic distinction and international cultural capital which different orders of elites - knights, powerful clerics, ruling families etc. - wrought to assure their dominance and set themselves apart vis-à-vis their peers and subjects. A concluding chapter discusses how the use of symbolic capital in the North compared to wider European contexts.

This book, first in a series of three, examines the social elites in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Iceland, and which social, political and cultural resources went into their creation, through questions such as: Which types of resources were at play? How did the elites acquire and exchange resources?

This volume explores the issues of taking, using and being hostages in the Middle Ages. It brings together recent research in the areas of hostages and hostageships, looking at the act of hostage-taking and the hostages themselves through the lenses of political and social history. Building upon previous work, this volume in particular

New Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Gdansk, Poland and Prussia draws together the latest reseach on the important port town of Gdansk and its impact on the surrounding region of Pomerania and Poland as a whole. The twelve chapters explore various political, social, and socio-cultural historical questions and explain s