Romanland

ethnicity and empire in Byzantium

A leading historian argues that in the empire we know as Byzantium, the Greek-speaking population was actually Roman, and scholars have deliberately mislabeled their ethnicity for the past two centuries for political reasons. Was there ever such a thing as Byzantium? Certainly no emperor ever ...

Sailing to the Holy Land

Crusader ships, seamanship, logistics and landing operations

Unlike most studies dealing with the Crusaders' voyages by sea across the Mediterranean and their arrival at the shores of the Levant, looks at this feat from a seaman's point of view. To this end, it examines the types of ships, the sails and ...

Medieval latin lives of Muhammad

(Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library; 51)

Throughout the Middle Ages, Christians wrote about Islam and the life of Muhammad. These stories, ranging from the humorous to the vitriolic, both informed and warned audiences about what was regarded as a schismatic form of Christianity. Medieval Latin Lives of Muhammad covers nearly five ...

Two works on Trebizond

(Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library; 52)

In 1204, brothers Alexios and David Komnenos became the unwitting founders of the Empire of Trebizond, a successor state to the Byzantine Empire that emerged after Crusaders sacked Constantinople. Trebizond, which stretched along the coast of the Black Sea, outlasted numerous rivals and invaders until ...

The poems of Christopher of Mytilene and John Mauropous

(Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library; 50)

The witty and self-assertive poetry of Christopher of Mytilene and John Mauropous provides unique snapshots of eleventh-century Constantinople at the height of its splendor and elegance. Their collections, aptly called "various verses," greatly range in length and style-including epigrams, polemics, encomia, and more-and their poems ...

Tria sunt: an art of poetry and prose

(Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library; 53)

The Tria sunt, named for its opening words, was a widely used and highly ambitious book composed in England in the late fourteenth century during a revival of interest in the art of poetry and prose. The backbone of this comprehensive guide to writing Latin ...

Urban panegyric and the transformation of the medieval city, 1100-1300

This study offers the first extensive analysis of the function and significance of urban panegyric in the Central Middle Ages, a flexible literary genre which enjoyed a marked and renewed popularity in the period 1100 to 1300. In doing so, it connects the production of ...

Nebuchadnezzar's dream

the Crusades, apocalyptic prophecy, and the end of history

In 1099, the soldiers of the First Crusade, summoned by the Pope and gathered from throughout Christendom, took Jerusalem. As the news of this victory spread throughout Medieval Europe, it felt nothing less than miraculous and dream-like, to such an extent that many believed history ...

Persecution and toleration

the long road to religious freedom

Religious freedom has become an emblematic value in the West. Embedded in constitutions and championed by politicians and thinkers across the political spectrum, it is to many an absolute value, something beyond question. Yet how it emerged, and why, remains widely misunderstood. Tracing the history ...

Figuring racism in Medieval Christianity

In Figuring Racism in Medieval Christianity, M. Lindsay Kaplan expands the study of the history of racism through an analysis of the Christian concept of Jewish hereditary inferiority. Imagined as a figural slavery, this idea anticipates modern racial ideologies in creating a status of permanent ...

Married life in the Middle Ages, 900-1300

Married Life in the Middle Ages, 900-1300 contains an analysis of the experience of married life by men and women in Christian medieval Europe, c. 900-1300. The study focusses on the social and emotional life of the married couple rather than on the institutional history ...

Los Templarios y el secreto de las catedrales

La Historia asegura que en 1118 un noble procedente de la Champaña francesa llamado Hugo de Payns se presentó ante el rey Balduino II de Jerusalén junto a otros caballeros francos y flamencos con el propósito de velar por la seguridad de los peregrinos que ...

Revolución en el burgo

movimientos comunales en la Edad Media. España y Europa

En esta abrumadora y definitiva monografía, el historiador Carlos Astarita ilumina uno de los más determinantes problemas historiográficos del siglo pasado, el de las revoluciones comunales de la Edad Media, con el objetivo de aflorar las raíces de lo que Gramsci denominara la «sociedad civil ...

Historia medieval de Portugal

(1096-1495)

Este libro es una síntesis didáctica de la historia medieval portuguesa, desde los remotos tempos de la fundación del condado Portucalense hasta el inicio de la gran aventura de los descubrimientos geográficos. Por abarcar una cronología tan amplia (1096-1495), se consideró preferible centrar la narración ...

Guillermo el Mariscal

Héroe a la vez histórico y legendario, nacido de un modesto linaje a mediados del siglo XII, Guillermo el Mariscal (1145?-1219) fue ascendido en rango y honores a lo largo de los tres cuartos de siglo durante los cuales la aristocracia anglonormanda estuvo vinculada ...

Matilda

empress queen warrior

A life of Matilda-empress, skilled military leader, and one of the greatest figures of the English Middle Ages Matilda was a daughter, wife, and mother. But she was also empress, heir to the English crown-the first woman ever to hold the position-and an able military ...

Trabajar en la ciudad medieval europea

El estudio sobre el "trabajo en la Edad Media" es un objeto histórico de difícil análisis, ya que en la Europa medieval no había un término específico que designara el trabajo tal como lo concebimos en la actualidad; sin embargo, a lo largo del Medievo ...

Cnut the Great

A seminal biography of the underappreciated eleventh-century Scandinavian warlord-turned-Anglo-Saxon monarch who united the English and Danish crowns to forge a North Sea empire Historian Timothy Bolton offers a fascinating reappraisal of one of the most misunderstood of the Anglo-Saxon kings: Cnut, the powerful Danish warlord ...

Europa: jerarquía y revuelta

1320-1450

Pocos periodos condensan más cambios que el otoño de la Edad Media. Lo que eran certezas y convicciones en las postrimerías del siglo xiv apenas si eran reseñables como tales a mediados del xv. Tan es así que entre 1320 y 1450 no hubo institución ...

I Bizantini in Italia

Cinque secoli di una storia che inizia nel 535, con lo sbarco in Sicilia delle truppe di Costantinopoli e l’avvio di una guerra che condusse alla conquista bizantina dell’intera penisola. Ma già con l’invasione dei Longobardi nel 568 quella presenza comincia a ...