This interdisciplinary handbook provides extensive information about research in medieval studies and its most important results over the last decades. The handbook is a reference work which enables the readers to quickly and purposely gain insight into the important research discussions and to inform themselves about the current status of research in the field. The handbook consists of four parts. The first, large section offers articles on all of the main disciplines and discussions of the field. The second section presents articles on the key concepts of modern medieval studies and the debates therein. The third section is a lexicon of the most important text genres of the Middle Ages. The fourth section provides an international bio-bibliographical lexicon of the most prominent medievalists in all disciplines. A comprehensive bibliography rounds off the compendium. The result is a reference work which exhaustively documents the current status of research in medieval studies and brings the disciplines and experts of the field together.

A follow-up publication to the Handbook of Medieval Studies, this new reference work turns to a different focus: medieval culture. Medieval research has grown tremendously in depth and breadth over the last decades. Particularly our understanding of medieval culture, of the basic living conditions, and the specific value system prevalent at that time has considerably expanded, to a point where we are in danger of no longer seeing the proverbial forest for the trees. The present, innovative handbook offers compact articles on essential topics, ideals, specific knowledge, and concepts defining the medieval world as comprehensively as possible. The topics covered in this new handbook pertain to issues such as love and marriage, belief in God, hell, and the devil, education, lordship and servitude, Christianity versus Judaism and Islam, health, medicine, the rural world, the rise of the urban class, travel, roads and bridges, entertainment, games, and sport activities, numbers, measuring, the education system, the papacy, saints, the senses, death, and money.

Difference in medieval France was not solely a marker for social exclusion, provoking feelings of disgust and disaffection, but it could also create solidarity and sympathy among groups. Contributors to this volume address inclusion and exclusion from a variety of perspectives, ranging from ethnic and linguistic difference in Charlemagne's court, to lewd sculpture in Béarn, to prostitution and destitution in Paris. Arranged thematically, the sections progress from the discussion of tolerance and intolerance, through the clearly defined notion of foreignness, to the complex study of stranger identity in the medieval period. As a whole the volume presents a fresh, intriguing perspective on questions of exclusion and belonging in the medieval world.

Surveying the development of medieval scholarship through biography, this volume contains 23 original essays on scholars whose work shaped medieval historiography for the past 300 years. Their subject was Europe between 500 and 1500, and they labored to define that protean and multinational culture. Each of them pioneered or revolutionized traditional views on fields such as diplomatics (Mabillon); economic, social, and constitutional history (Power, Pirenne, Bloch, Stubbs, Waitz, Whitelock, Maitland); manuscript and archival studies (Delisle, Muratori); Jewish history and the history of Islam and Byzantium (von Grunebaum, Ostrogorsky); symbology and intellectual history (Kantorowicz, Schramm, Smalley); general and cultural history (Gibbon, Adams, Haskins, S nchez-Albornoz); and ecclesiastical history (Bolland, Lea) and the history of magic and science (Thorndike). Some of the scholars pioneered comparative and interdisciplinary studies; all published work that is still essential to our understanding of the past and, more important, the present.

While most people today take hygiene and medicine for granted, they both have had their own history. We can gain deep insights into the pre-modern world by studying its health-care system, its approaches to medicine, and concept of hygiene. Already the early Middle Ages witnessed great interest in bathing (hot and cold), swimming, and good personal hygiene. Medical activities grew over time, but even early medieval monks were already great experts in treating the sick. The contributions examine literary, medical, historical texts and images and probe the information we can glean from them. The interdisciplinary approach of this volume makes it possible to view this large field in a complex and diversified manner, taking into account both early medieval and early modern treatises on medicine, water, bathing, and health. Such a cultural-historical perspective creates a most valuable bridge connecting literary and scientific documents under the umbrella of the history of mentality and history of everyday life. The volume does not aim at idealizing the past, but it definitely intends to deconstruct modern myths about the 'dirty' and 'unhealthy' Middle Ages and early modern age.

During the medieval period, people invested heavily in looking good. The finest fashions demanded careful chemistry and compounds imported from great distances and at considerable risk to merchants; the Church became a major consumer of both the richest and humblest varieties of cloth, shoes, and adornment; and vernacular poets began to embroider their stories with hundreds of verses describing a plethora of dress styles, fabrics, and shopping experiences. Drawing on a wealth of pictorial, textual and object sources, the volume examines how dress cultures developed – often to a degree of dazzling sophistication – between the years 800 to 1450. Beautifully illustrated with 100 images, A Cultural History of Dress and Fashion in the Medieval Age presents an overview of the period with essays on textiles, production and distribution, the body, belief, gender and sexuality, status, ethnicity, visual representations, and literary representations.

In all six of its volumes The Broadview Anthology of British Literature presents British literature in a truly distinctive light. Fully grounded in sound literary and historical scholarship, the anthology takes a fresh approach to many canonical authors, and includes a wide selection of work by lesser-known writers. The anthology also provides wide-ranging coverage of the worldwide connections of British literature, and it pays attention throughout to issues of race, gender, class, and sexual orientation. It includes comprehensive introductions to each period, providing in each case an overview of the historical and cultural as well as the literary background. It features accessible and engaging headnotes for all authors, extensive explanatory annotations throughout, and an unparalleled number of illustrations and contextual materials, offering additional perspectives both on individual texts and on larger social and cultural developments. Innovative, authoritative, and comprehensive, The Broadview Anthology of British Literature embodies a consistently fresh approach to the study of literature and literary history. The second edition of volume one of The Broadview Anthology of British Literature includes considerably more of Langland's Pier’s Plowman than appears in the first edition, and includes for the first time the work of John Gower. Also new to the bound book component of the anthology is the York Crucifixion Play, and additional work by Chaucer. With this volume as with the others, material continues to be added on an ongoing basis to the website component of the anthology.

Originally published in 1985. Frederic C. Lane and Reinhold C. Mueller, in the first volume of Money and Banking in Medieval and Renaissance Venice, discuss Venice's economic achievement in terms of the complex system the city's inhabitants developed to manage moneys of account and coins. Money merchants of Venice developed a system whereby a premium attached to moneys of account acted as a stabilizing force and allowed merchants to engage in long-term trade. This system, according to the authors, helped establish Venice as a dominant city-state in international trade and exchange. This book outlines the development and success of this system through 1508. At the time it was first published, this book made a significant contribution to the history of money and economics by underscoring the large role that Venice played in the economic history of the West and the ascendance of capitalism as a structuring force of society.

In Culture and Society in Medieval Galicia, twenty-three international authors examine Galicia’s changing place in Iberia, Europe, and the Mediterranean and Atlantic worlds from late antiquity through the thirteenth century. With articles on art and architecture; religion and the church; law and society; politics and historiography; language and literature; and learning and textual culture, the authors introduce medieval Galicia and current research on the region to medievalists, Hispanists, and students of regional culture and society. The cult of St. James, Santiago Cathedral, and the pilgrimage to Compostela are highlighted and contextualized to show how Galicia’s remoteness became the basis for a paradoxical centrality in medieval art, culture, and religion. Contributors are Jeffrey A. Bowman, Manuel Castiñeiras, James D'Emilio, Thomas Deswarte, Pablo C. Díaz, Emma Falque, Amélia P. Hutchinson, Amancio Isla, Henrik Karge, Melissa R. Katz, Michael Kulikowski, Fernando López Sánchez, Luis R. Menéndez Bueyes, William D. Paden, Francisco Javier Pérez Rodríguez, Ermelindo Portela, Rocío Sánchez Ameijeiras, Adeline Rucquoi, Ana Suárez González, Purificación Ubric, Ramón Villares, John Williams †, and Roger Wright.