Author: David Pratt
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139463551
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 437
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Book Description
This book is a comprehensive study of political thought at the court of King Alfred the Great (871–99). It explains the extraordinary burst of royal learned activity focused on inventive translations from Latin into Old English attributed to Alfred's own authorship. A full exploration of context establishes these texts as part of a single discourse which placed Alfred himself at the heart of all rightful power and authority. A major theme is the relevance of Frankish and other European experiences, as sources of expertise and shared concerns, and for important contrasts with Alfredian thought and behaviour. Part I assesses Alfred's rule against West Saxon structures, showing the centrality of the royal household in the operation of power. Part II offers an intimate analysis of the royal texts, developing far-reaching implications for Alfredian kingship, communication and court culture. Comparative in approach, the book places Alfred's reign at the forefront of wider European trends in aristocratic life.
Author: Eleanor Shipley Duckett
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022622919X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 241
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Book Description
From the author of The Gateway to the Middle Ages, “a fascinating portrait of an enlightened monarch against a background of darkness and ignorance” (Kirkus Reviews). Filled with drama and action, here is the story of the ninth-century life and times of Alfred—warrior, conqueror, lawmaker, scholar, and the only king whom England has ever called “The Great.” Based on up-to-date information on ninth-century history, geography, philosophy, literature, and social life, it vividly presents exciting views of Alfred in every stage of his long career and leaves the reader with a sharply etched picture of the world of the Middle Ages.
Author: Janet L. Nelson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429516347
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 286
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Book Description
First published in 1999, the ideas and practices involved in early medieval royal family politics are the central theme of this collection of papers by Janet L. Nelson. She first examines King Alfred of Wessex (871-99) in the context of Anglo-Saxon conditions and in comparison with his Carolingian contemporaries. When tension and conflict within the royal family are highlighted, she argues that Alfred’s talents and political thought emerge the more impressively. A second group of papers deals with the reign of Charles the Bald (840-77): his patronage of learning and his interest in Spanish martyrs are set in political context, while contemporary historiography is considered as a form of counsel and critique. The third section reflects Nelson’s growing interest in the political importance and gendered roles of royal women. Consecration rites are analysed as ritual expressions and factors in the shaping of the queenship, while two final papers also examine the making and unmaking of Frankish kings and princes.
Author: Rory Naismith
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1786724863
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 354
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Book Description
With a past as deep and sinewy as the famous River Thames that twists like an eel around the jutting peninsula of Mudchute and the Isle of Dogs, London is one of the world's greatest and most resilient cities. Born beside the sludge and the silt of the meandering waterway that has always been its lifeblood, it has weathered invasion, flood, abandonment, fire and bombing. The modern story of London is well known. Much has been written about the later history of this megalopolis which, like a seductive dark star, has drawn incomers perpetually into its orbit. Yet, as Rory Naismith reveals – in his zesty evocation of the nascent medieval city – much less has been said about how close it came to earlier obliteration. Following the collapse of Roman civilization in fifth-century Britannia, darkness fell over the former province. Villas crumbled to ruin; vital commodities became scarce; cities decayed; and Londinium, the capital, was all but abandoned. Yet despite its demise as a living city, memories of its greatness endured like the moss and bindweed which now ensnared its toppled columns and pilasters. By the 600s a new settlement, Lundenwic, was established on the banks of the River Thames by enterprising traders who braved the North Sea in their precarious small boats. The history of the city's phoenix-like resurrection, as it was transformed from an empty shell into a court of kings – and favoured setting for church councils from across the land – is still virtually unknown. The author here vividly evokes the forgotten Lundenwic and the later fortress on the Thames – Lundenburgh – of desperate Anglo-Saxon defenders who retreated inside their Roman walls to stand fast against menacing Viking incursions. Recalling the lost cities which laid the foundations of today's great capital, this book tells the stirring story of how dead Londinium was reborn, against the odds, as a bulwark against the Danes and a pivotal English citadel. It recounts how Anglo-Saxon London survived to become the most important town in England – and a vital stronghold in later campaigns against the Normans in 1066. Revealing the remarkable extent to which London was at the centre of things, from the very beginning, this volume at last gives the vibrant early medieval city its due.
Author: Donna Beth Ellard
Publisher: punctum books
ISBN: 1950192393
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 425
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Book Description
"Over the past several years, Anglo-Saxon studies-alongside the larger field of medieval studies-has undergone a reckoning. Outcries against the misogyny and sexism of prominent figures in the field have quickly turned to issues of racism, prompting Anglo-Saxonists to recognize an institutional, structural whiteness that not only bars the door to people of color but also prohibits scholars from confronting the very idea that race and racism operate within the field's scholarship, scholarly practices, and intellectual history. Anglo-Saxon(ist) Pasts, postSaxon Futures traces the integral role that colonialism and racism play in Anglo-Saxon studies by tracking the development of the "Anglo-Saxonist," an overtly racialized term that describes a person whose affinities point towards white nationalism. That scholars continue to call themselves "Anglo-Saxonists," despite urgent calls to combat racism within the field, suggests that this term is much more than just a professional appellative. It is, this book argues, a ghost in the machine of Anglo-Saxon studies-a spectral figure created by a group of nineteenth-century historians, archaeologists, and philologists responsible for not only framing the interdisciplinary field of Anglo-Saxon studies but for also encoding ideologies of British colonialism and Anglo-American racism within the field's methods and pedagogies. Anglo-Saxon(ist) pasts, postSaxon Futures is at once a historiography of Anglo-Saxon studies, a mourning of its Anglo-Saxonist "fathers," and an exorcism of the colonial-racial ghosts that lurk within the field's scholarly methods and pedagogies. Part intellectual history, part grief work, this book leverages the genres of literary criticism, auto-ethnography, and creative nonfiction in order to confront Anglo-Saxonist pasts in order to imagine speculative postSaxon futures inclusive of voices and bodies heretofore excluded from the field of Anglo-Saxon studies"--
Author: Jonathan Hill
Publisher: James Clarke & Company
ISBN: 0227179064
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 591
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Book Description
An exhaustive guide to every significant Christian theologian who lived from the first century to 1308, the year in which John Duns Scotus died. The dictionary encompasses the Catholic, Orthodox, Nestorian and Monophysite traditions, including information not previously available in English. Thoroughly indexed, the dictionary incorporates common variants of names and concepts which will help and direct the reader. The main criterion for inclusion has been contribution to the development of Christian theology. Sub-criteria by which that is measured include, above all, originality and influence on later figures. With over 290 entries, the dictionary provides a handy summary of theologiansi lives and writings together with recent scholarship,as well as an up-to-date, definitive bibliography listing primary texts, translations and secondary literature in the major western European languages. Useful for all levels of academia; no other text matches the depth of the dictionaryis bibliographies. The unprecedented thoroughness of Hill's compilation provides an essential resource for studies at all levels on such a large and varied range of Church thinkers.
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004283765
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 483
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Book Description
Eleven major scholars of the Anglo-Saxon period consider Alfred the Great, his cultural milieu, and his achievements. With revised or revived views of the Alfredian revival, the contributors help set the agenda for future work on a most challenging period. The collection features the methods of history, art history, and literature in a newer key and with an interdisciplinary view on a period that offers less evidence than inference. Major themes linking the essays include authorship, translation practice and theory, patristic influence, Continental connections, and advances in textual criticism. The Alfredian moment has always surprised scholars because of its intellectual reach and its ambition. The contributors to this collection describe how we must now understand that ambition.
Author: Jean Shepherd Hamm
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313359687
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 389
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Book Description
Help students get the most out of studying medieval history with this comprehensive and practical research guide to topics and resources. Term Paper Resource Guide to Medieval History brings key historic events and individuals alive to enrich and stimulate students in challenging and enjoyable ways. Students from high school to college will be able to get a jump start on assignments with the hundreds of term paper projects and research information offered here. The book transforms and elevates the research experience and will prove an invaluable resource for motivating and educating students. Each event entry begins with a brief summary to pique interest and then offers original and thought-provoking term paper ideas in both standard and alternative formats that often incorporate the latest in electronic media, such as the iPod and iMovie. The best primary and secondary sources for further research are annotated, followed by vetted, stable website suggestions and multimedia resources, usually films, for further viewing and listening.
Author: Noel Harold Kaylor
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004225382
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 684
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Book Description
The articles in this volume focus upon Boethius's extant works: his De arithmetica and a fragmentary De musica, his translations and commentaries on logic, his five theological texts, and, of course, his Consolation of Philosophy. They examine the effects that Boethian thought has exercised upon the learning of later generations of scholars.
Author: Alfred P. Smyth
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 816
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Book Description
Soldier, statesman, and scholar, Alfred the Great was a fascinating and highly successful king, pushing back the Vikings to command what is now thought of as the heart of England as ruler of Wessex from 871-899. In this, the first major biography of King Alfred since 1902, his life, career and enduring legacy are given a radical new interpretation, putting into question most of our assumptions about this singular monarch. Alfred P. Smyth's portrait of King Alfred rejects the image of a neurotic and invalid king who supposedly remained a pious illiterate until he was almost 40. Instead, we are shown a man of remarkable energy and intelligence who took necessary steps to defend his people from the Norsemen. We see, too, a king who had been a scholar all his life and who used his great knowledge to bolster the powers of his own kingship. Smyth also provides a detailed examination of the much-disputed medieval biography of King Alfred, attributed to the King's tutor, Asser. Alfred Smyth argues that Asser's Life may, in fact, have been a late medieval forgery--a revelation with profound implications for our understanding of the whole of Anglo-Saxon history. Smyth's King Alfred also contains major studies on the writings of this gifted king, on the controversial charters of his reign, and on the origins of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. (Smyth shows this work to have been much more closely connected with the court of King Alfred than previously realized and suggests a new date for the completion of the earliest Alfredian section of the Chronicle.) A monumental and intriguing work of historical scholarship, King Alfred the Great will dramatically change the way we understand this early period of western civilization.
