Author: Verena Krebs
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030649342
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 319
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Book Description
This book explores why Ethiopian kings pursued long-distance diplomatic contacts with Latin Europe in the late Middle Ages. It traces the history of more than a dozen embassies dispatched to the Latin West by the kings of Solomonic Ethiopia, a powerful Christian kingdom in the medieval Horn of Africa. Drawing on sources from Europe, Ethiopia, and Egypt, it examines the Ethiopian kings’ motivations for sending out their missions in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries – and argues that a desire to acquire religious treasures and foreign artisans drove this early intercontinental diplomacy. Moreover, the Ethiopian initiation of contacts with the distant Christian sphere of Latin Europe appears to have been intimately connected to a local political agenda of building monumental ecclesiastical architecture in the North-East African highlands, and asserted the Ethiopian rulers’ claim of universal kingship and rightful descent from the biblical king Solomon. Shedding new light on the self-identity of a late medieval African dynasty at the height of its power, this book challenges conventional narratives of African-European encounters on the eve of the so-called ‘Age of Exploration'.
Author: Björn Weiler
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009006223
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 493
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Book Description
Medieval Europe was a world of kings, but what did this mean to those who did not themselves wear a crown? How could they prevent corrupt and evil men from seizing the throne? How could they ensure that rulers would not turn into tyrants? Drawing on a rich array of remarkable sources, this engaging study explores how the fears and hopes of a ruler's subjects shaped both the idea and the practice of power. It traces the inherent uncertainty of royal rule from the creation of kingship and the recurring crises of royal successions, through the education of heirs and the intrigue of medieval elections, to the splendour of a king's coronation, and the pivotal early years of his reign. Monks, crusaders, knights, kings (and those who wanted to be kings) are among a rich cast of characters who sought to make sense of and benefit from an institution that was an object of both desire and fear.
Author: Robert Alan MacDonald
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 530
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Book Description
Author: Joseph F. O'Callaghan
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801468728
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 737
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Book Description
Medieval Spain is brilliantly recreated, in all its variety and richness, in this comprehensive survey. Likely to become the standard work in English, the book treats the entire Iberian Peninsula and all the people who inhabited it, from the coming of the Visigoths in the fifth century to the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella. Integrating a wealth of information about the diverse peoples, institutions, religions, and customs that flourished in the states that are now Spain and Portugal, Joseph F. O'Callaghan focuses on the continuing attempts to impose political unity on the peninsula. O'Callaghan divides his story into five compact historical periods and discusses political, social, economic, and cultural developments in each period. By treating states together, he is able to put into proper perspective the relationships among them, their similarities and differences, and the continuity of development from one period to the next. He gives proper attention to Spain's contacts with the rest of the medieval world, but his main concern is with the events and institutions on the peninsula itself. Illustrations, genealogical charts, maps, and an extensive bibliography round out a book that will be welcomed by scholars and student of Spanish and Portuguese history and literature, as well as by medievalists, as the fullest account to date of Spanish history in the Middle Ages.
Author: P. H. Sawyer
Publisher: Editors
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 210
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Book Description
Author: Fernando Arias Guillén
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000287203
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 220
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Book Description
The Triumph of an Accursed Lineage analyses kingship in Castile between 1252 and 1350, with a particular focus on the pivotal reign of Alfonso XI (r. 1312–1350). This century witnessed significant changes in the ways in which the Castilian monarchy constructed and represented its power in this period. The ideas and motifs used to extoll royal authority, the territorial conceptualisation of the kingdom, the role queens and the royal family played, and the interpersonal relationship between the kings and the nobility were all integral to this process. Ultimately, this book addresses how Alfonso XI, a member of an accursed lineage who rose to the throne when he was an infant, was able to end the internal turmoil which plagued Castile since the 1270s and become a paradigm of successful kingship. This book will appeal to scholars and students of medieval Spain, as well as those interested in the history of kingship.
Author: A. Azfar Moin
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231555407
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 653
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Book Description
Sacred kingship has been the core political form, in small-scale societies and in vast empires, for much of world history. This collaborative and interdisciplinary book recasts the relationship between religion and politics by exploring this institution in long-term and global comparative perspective. Editors A. Azfar Moin and Alan Strathern present a theoretical framework for understanding sacred kingship, which leading scholars reflect on and respond to in a series of essays. They distinguish between two separate but complementary religious tendencies, immanentism and transcendentalism, which mold kings into divinized or righteous rulers, respectively. Whereas immanence demands priestly and cosmic rites from kings to sustain the flourishing of life, transcendence turns the focus to salvation and subordinates rulers to higher ethical objectives. Secular modernity does not end the struggle between immanence and transcendence—flourishing and righteousness—but only displaces it from kings onto nations and individuals. After an essay by Marshall Sahlins that ranges from the Pacific to the Arctic, the book contains chapters on religion and kingship in settings as far-flung as ancient Egypt, classical Greece, medieval Islam, Mughal India, modern European drama, and ISIS. Sacred Kingship in World History sheds new light on how religion has constructed rulership, with implications spanning global history, religious studies, political theory, and anthropology.
Author: Steven Boardman
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1783277165
Category : Great Britain
Languages : en
Pages : 338
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Book Description
Essays reconsidering key topics in the history of late medieval Scotland and northern England.
Author: Kenneth Baxter Wolf
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
ISBN: 9780853235545
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 228
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Book Description
Chronicle / John of Biclaro -- History of the Kings of the Goths / Isidore of Seville -- The Chronicle of 754 -- The Chronicle of Alfonso III.
Author: Simon R. DOUBLEDAY
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674034295
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 209
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Book Description
For much of the Middle Ages, the Lara family was among the most powerful aristocratic lineages in Spain. Proteges of the monarchy at the time of El Cid, their influence reached extraordinary heights during the struggle against the Moors. Hand-in-glove with successive kings, they gathered an impressive array of military and political positions across the Iberian Peninsula. But cooperation gave way to confrontation, as the family was pitted against the crown in a series of civil wars. This book, the first modern study of the Laras, explores the causes of change in the dynamics of power, and narrates the dramatic story of the events that overtook the family. The Laras' militant quest for territorial strength and the conflict with the monarchy led toward a fatal end, but anticipated a form of aristocratic power that long outlived the family. The noble elite would come to dominate Spanish society in the coming centuries, and the Lara family provides important lessons for students of the history of nobility, monarchy, and power in the medieval and early modern world.
