More than sixty friends and colleagues pay tribute to the distinguised professor Janos M. Bak's 70th birthday."

Knochenartefakte - Beinartefakte - Bein.

This book gives a definite contribution to a wide-ranging reflection on the medieval parish and the secular clergy, considered within a long-term chronological framework and a wide geographical scope that allows the analysis and confrontation of case studies from the Iberian kingdoms, Northern France, Italian Piedmont, Lombardy, Flanders, Transylvania, and North of the Holy Roman Empire. The chapters published in this book tells of dynamics of social, religious, and cultural exclusion and inclusion within lay communities, of the constitution of family elites and parish confraternities; it shows the composition and the recruitment rationales of the parish clergy and of some ecclesiastical chapters with a duty of Cura animarum; it examines the relations of the churches and parochial clergy with more prominent – secular and regular – ecclesiastical institutions in the context of the establishment and exercise of the right of patronage; finally, it explores the role of the secular clergy in the application of justice, based on the characterization of their cultural and juridical formation.

Nils Blomkvist discusses how the Baltic Rim was initially Europeanized between 1075 and 1225 AD. He compares the indigenous civilisations to the prevailing western European one. After the expansive Viking period, European penetration became a process of discovery. The importance of the Catholic Reform movement and its unintentional ties to the formation of an endurable commodity market are outlined. Clashes and compromises are investigated in case studies of the Kalmarsund region, Gotland and the Daugava valley. Dissimilar cases of state formation are compared: those of Sweden and Livonia. Many classical scholarly problems are revisited. A new approach to the period's narrative sources brings to life Scandinavian, German, Russian, Finno-Ugrian and Baltic attitudes and day-to-day concern in the midst of a change of epic dimensions.

Medieval Buda in Context discusses the character and development of Buda and its surroundings between the thirteenth and the sixteenth centuries, particularly its role as a royal center and capital city of the medieval Kingdom of Hungary. The twenty-one articles written by Hungarian and international scholars draw on a variety of primary sources: texts, both legal and literary; archaeological discoveries; architectural history; art history; and other studies of material culture. The essays also place Buda in the political, social, cultural and economic context of other contemporary central and eastern European cities. By bringing together the results of research undertaken in recent decades for an English-language readership, this volume offers new insights into urban history and the culture of Europe as a whole. Contributors are János M. Bak, Zoltán Bencze, Judit Benda, István Draskóczy, Antonín Kalous, István Kenyeres, Gábor Klaniczay, András Kubinyi, József Laszlovszky, Károly Magyar, Balázs Nagy, Szilárd Papp, James Plumtree, Martyn Rady, Valery Rees, Orsolya Réthelyi, Beatrix F. Romhányi, Enikő Spekner, Péter Szabó, Katalin Szende, András Vadas, András Végh, and László Veszprémy.

Ecclesia et Violentia is an interdisciplinary anthology that explores the phenomenon of violence in relation to the medieval Church, as well as within the structures of that institution. The volume provides a clearer understanding of hostile and violent acts against both religious institutions and clergy, and explores the interpersonal aggression between clergymen or forms of violent behaviour of medieval clerics. It investigates, furthermore, the role of violence in maintaining discipline within religious communities, as well as religious, legal and cultural interpretations of the aforementioned issues. However, despite the many points of view expressed here, the central question the authors reconcile is how the phenomenon of violence interacted with the most important medieval institution, and official Church thinking regarding concepts such as power, rank, feudal loyalty and protection and ownership. Through the geographical diversity of the contributions and the variety of disciplinary perspectives, this book highlights how important violence was in the life of the clergy and how it formed an integral part of the legal culture and social bonds in many regions of medieval Europe.

This volume examines the practice of memory in early modern Europe, showing that this was already a multimedia affair with many political uses, and affecting people at all levels of society; many pre-modern memory practices persist until today.

This collection of essays re-examines the dynamics of Jewish indentity and Jewish-Christian relations in the Middle Ages and Early Modern period, from the perspective of visual culture, especially manuscript illustration.

The Persians triumph at Marathon and proceed to conquer Greece. Hannibal annihilates the Roman army at Zama, paving the way for a magnificent Carthaginian empire that dominates the Western Mediterranean for centuries. The Spanish Armada obliterates the forces of Queen Elizabeth I, who is taken captive and sent to Spain, while a Spanish-occupied England endures a brutal second Counter-Reformation. This book delves into the alternative outcomes of a dozen of the most pivotal battles in Western history, examining the cultural and political forces that shaped their aftermath—often more decisive in the course of history than the battles themselves. Alongside meticulously researched accounts, the author presents contemporary texts that illuminate these historical episodes from unexpected and often quirky angles. Counterfactual history, once dismissed as a pastime for amateurs, has recently garnered serious scholarly attention. This book combines rigorous historical analysis with meticulously presented details, offering thought-provoking and entertaining perspectives on the alternative outcomes of Europe's twelve most crucial battles. It invites readers to uncover and evaluate the insights from these carefully constructed thought experiments. The Unwritten Chronicles sets a high standard. While not intended for beginners, history enthusiasts and students alike will find immense enjoyment in this breathtaking and intellectually stimulating journey through two-and-a-half millennia of Western civilization. One literary agent aptly described the book as "wonderfully ludic and erudite." The daring blend of richly detailed narratives and deep historical analysis provides an intellectual pleasure that few other history books can match. By engaging the reader's imagination, it playfully explores some of history’s most fascinating 'what-ifs.'

Material Mystery considers three apparently anthropocentric myths that are central to Abrahamic religions—those of the primal human, the incarnated and possibly divine redeemer, and the resurrected body. At first glance, these stories reinforce a human-centered theology and point to a very anthropomorphic God. Taking them seriously seems to ignore the material turn in the humanities entirely, with the same sort of willful ignorance that some of our politicians show in declaring that their myths count as facts, or that the point of the rest of the world is to further human consumption. But it is possible, Karmen MacKendrick shows, to read these figures through a particular tradition that emerges from the Hebrew Bible, the tradition of Wisdom as a creative force. Wisdom texts are common across the ancient Near East. As the idea of creative Wisdom develops from antiquity into the middle ages, it gathers philosophical influences from a range of philosophical traditions. This exuberantly promiscuous impurity—intellectual, artistic, and theological—generates new interpretive possibilities. In these interpretations, each human-like figure opens up onto the world''s matter, as an interdependent part of it, and matter is thoroughly mixed with divinity. Such mythic readings complement our factual, scientific understanding of the material world, to engage wider kinds of knowing and affective attention—particularly Wisdom''s combination of care and delight.