See the table below for a list of the current titles within the Studies in the Early Middle Ages series. Click on a title for a description.
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SEM 2. Cultures in Contact. Scandinavian Settlement in England in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries |
| D. Hadley, J. Richards (eds.) | |
| This volume examines the Scandinavian impact on England in the ninth and tenth centuries, with particular reference to Scandinavian settlement and the diverse ways in which the Scandinavians and the native populations responded to each other. Many previous studies have described the settlement as involving a rapid assimilation of the settlers with native society and culture, and a swift process of integration. This volume challenges that view and shows that the processes of assimilation, integration and accommodation were gradual and complex, displaying important regional variations. Where did the Scandinavians come from? What type of society did they eventually settle into? What were the implications of the drawing of different cultures in contact, and how is this portrayed in the surviving material? An important aim of this volume is to open up new interdisciplinary dialogue in Viking Studies, and it analyses documentary, archaeological, artefactual and linguistic evidence. The volume also seeks to develop more theoretically sophisticated accounts of Scandinavian settlement, and brings the study of this subject up-to-date in terms of developments in other branches of history, archaeology and linguistics. Recent discussion in other fields concerning, for example, material culture and language have shown that they did not simply reflect changes in society but were also active, constituent elements in creating and re-creating social and cultural identities. The volume focuses on the creation of local and regional identities and affinities, and moves on from the traditional depiction of the issues in terms of a simple dichotomy of 'Scandinavian' and 'English'. It takes a more rigorously contextual approach than has hitherto been the case in the study of Scandinavian settlement, and seeks to throw new light on the consequences of cultures in contact. | |
| VIII+331 p., 26 b/w ill., 155 x 240 mm, 2000, Hbk,
ISBN 978-2-503-50978-5, € 55.00 Click here to view Brepols Publishers page |
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SEM 3. Court Culture in the Early Middle Ages. The Proceedings of the First Alcuin Conference |
| C. Cubitt (ed.) | |
| The role of the court in early medieval polities has long been recognised as an essential force in the running of the kingdom. The court was not only an organ of central government but a sociological community with its own ideology and culture, and a place where royal power was both displayed and negotiated. The studies within this volume reflect the diversity of modern court studies, considering the court as a social body and considering its educative and ideological activities. The contributors to this volume bring together historical, archaeological, art historical and literary approaches to the topic as they consider aspects of court life in England, Francia, Rome, and Byzantium from the eighth to the tenth centuries. The volume therefore looks at court life in the round, emphasizes and invites connections between early medieval courts, and opens new perspectives for the understanding of early medieval courts. | |
| XIV+290 p., 47 b/w ill., 160 x 245 mm, 2003, Hbk,
ISBN 978-2-503-51164-1, € 75.00 Click here to view Brepols Publishers page |
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SEM 4. On Barbarian Identity. Critical Approaches to Ethnicity in the Early Middle Ages |
| A. Gillett (ed.) | |
| Ethnicity has been central to medieval studies since the Goths, Franks, Alamanni and other barbarian settlers of the Roman empire were first seen as part of Germanic antiquity. Today, two paradigms dominate interpretation of barbarian Europe. In history, theories of how tribes formed ('ethnogenesis') assert the continuity of Germanic identities from prehistory through the Middle Ages, and see cultural rather than biological factors as the means of preserving these identities. In archaeology, the 'culture history' approach has long claimed to be able to trace movements of peoples not attested in the historical record, by identifying ethnically-specific material goods. The papers in this volume challenge the concepts and methodologies of these two models. The authors explore new ways to understand barbarians in the early Middle Ages, and to analyse the images of the period constructed by modern scholarship. Two responses, one by a leading exponent of the 'ethnogenesis' approach, the other by a leading critic, continue this important debate. | |
| XXIV+265 p., +plus 8 unnumbered colour plates, but incl. 12 b/w illustrations, 155 x 240 mm, 2002, Hbk, ISBN 978-2-503-51168-9, € 60.00 Click here to view Brepols Publishers page |
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SEM 5. Contact, Continuity, and Collapse. The Norse Colonization of the North Atlantic |
| J. H. Barrett (ed.) | |
| This collection of ten papers investigates the Norse colonization of the North Atlantic region, starting with Viking expansion in Arctic Norway and ending with a discussion of the longterm implications of medieval Scandinavian exploration of the New World. Each chapter provides a short regional synthesis of the archaeological evidence and, where appropriate, addresses three interrelated themes: the relationship between native and newcomer; the creation of local identities in the settlement period; the relationship between archaeology, history and the construction of modern national identities. In sequence, the chapters focus on North Norway, the Faeroes, Scotland, Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, the Inuits of Smith Sound, L'Anse aux Meadows and Vinland, together with introductory and concluding chapters. | |
| XVI+254 p., 47 b/w ill., 160 x 245 mm, 2003, Hbk,
ISBN 978-2-503-51291-4, € 60.00 Click here to view Brepols Publishers page |
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SEM 6. Language and History in Viking Age England. Linguistic Relations between Speakers of Old Norse and Old English |
| M. Townend | |
| This is the first ever book-length study for the nature and significance of the linguistic contact between speakers of Old Norse and Old English in Viking Age England. It investigates in a wide-ranging and systematic fashion a foundational but under-considered factor in the history and culture of the Vikings in England. The subject is important for late Anglo-Saxon and Viking Age history; for language and literature in the late Anglo-Saxon period; and for the history and development of the English language. The work's primary focus is on Anglo-Norse language contact, with a particular emphasis on the question of possible mutual intelligibility between speakers of the two languages; but since language contact is an emphatically sociolinguistic phenomenon, the work's methodology combines linguistic, literary and historical approaches, and draws for its evidence on texts in Old English, Old Norse and Anglo-Latin, and other forms of linguistic and onomastic material. 'Matthew Townend's interdisciplinary study is a stimulating and in many ways ground breaking research work. It offers a profound analysis of one of the central issues of Viking Age England: the linguistic relations between and mutual intelligibility of speakers of Old Norse and Old English.' [Susanne Kries, Universitaet Potsdam] | |
| 2005, Paperback, ISBN
978-2-503-51841-1, EUR 25.00 XVI+248 p., 155 x 240 mm, 2002, Hardback, ISBN 978-2-503-51292-1, € 60.00 Click here to view Brepols Publishers page |
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SEM 7. Political Assemblies in the Earlier Middle Ages |
| P. S. Barnwell, M. Mostert (eds.) | |
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Assembly is a central feature of the European political process between the demise of the Roman Empire and the rise of the bureaucratic state in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Historians have often neglected the crucial rule of political assemblies in their own right, concentrating instead on exceptional or extraordinary attention-catching events which occurred at assemblies. Earlier generations of scholars tried to discern in such assemblies the forerunners of later medieval parliaments and other forms of representative government. By contrast, the contributors to this volume present medieval assemblies in their own terms. Were political assemblies in the earlier Middle Ages convened to confirm decisions already taken elsewhere or were they genuinely deliberative? How, if at all, did political assemblies create consensus? At what level(s) of the political and administrative hierarchy were assemblies held, who attended such gatherings, how were they conducted, and where were they held? The main focus is on assemblies of emperors, kings, and princes, and on those of townsfolk, those some more local assemblies are also discussed. The over-arching thematic structure relates to the purposes of assemblies and how they worked, their practical and ritual or symbolic aspects, and the degree to which they were stage-managed, and by whom. The contributors bring archaeological, as well as historical, evidence to bear and present a range of geographical, political and historiographical approaches and traditions. The papers offer a coherent thread of analysis running from the immediate successor states of the Roman Empire to the High Middle Ages and range in geographic coverage from Scandinavia to Catalonia, and from Ireland to Russia. |
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| X+213 p., 10 b/w ill., 160 x 240 mm, 2003, Hbk,
ISBN 978-2-503-51341-6, € 60.00 Click here to view Brepols Publishers page |
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SEM 8. Teaching and Learning in Northern Europe, 1000-1200 |
| Sally N. Vaughn and Jay Rubenstein (eds.) | |
| The essays in this collection focus not on texts but on people, specifically on teachers and their students, beginning with the late Carolingian era and continuing through the creation of monastic and secular schools in the centuries before the first universities. Central to the articles in this volume are the schools and communities of Northern France and England, including Reims, Bec, Soissons, and Canterbury, whose patterns of thought and learning gave shape to intellectual endeavours throughout medieval Europe. In addition to some of the most prominent personalities of the day (among them Gerbert of Reims, Lanfranc and Anselm of Bec, Ivo of Chatres, and John of Salisbury), the contributors examine those teachers and students who worked in the shadows: figures like the biblical exegete Richard of Préaux and the musical innovator Theinred of Dover. The focus throughout the volume is on personalities and personal relationships, thus recreating the human connections that lay behind medieval humanism and the Twelfth-Century Renaissance. Taken together, the essays here create a coherent and compelling picture of the tumultuous time before the universities came to organize and take control of teaching and learning-a seminal period when teaching methods and curricula grew out of the particular experience of specific teachers and their interactions with their students. | |
| 160 x 240 mm, 2006, Hbk, ISBN 2-503-51419-7, approx. € 60.00 Click here to view Brepols Publishers page |
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SEM 10. Wulfstan, Archbishop of York. The Proceedings of the Second Alcuin Conference |
| M. Townend (ed.) | |
| Most famous for his harrowing ‘Sermon of the Wolf to the English’, Archbishop Wulfstan II of York (1002-23) has emerged in recent decades as one of the most important and influential figures in the late Anglo-Saxon church and state. This volume, which arises from a conference held in 2002 to mark the millennial anniversary of Wulfstan’s appointment as archbishop, is the first collection of essays to be devoted to this crucial figure. Its twenty contributors address the whole range of Wulfstan’s activities and writings, and supply not only an up-to-date survey of Wulfstan studies but also many new directions, discoveries, and insights. The studies within this volume variously explore Wulfstan’s preaching and law-making; his position in the late Anglo-Saxon church; the places and contexts in which he lived and worked; and, more generally, his learning, concerns, and ideas. The contributors, drawn from a variety of disciplines, bring together literary, historical, and art historical approaches to the study of Wulfstan, and a recurrent focus is on the extant manuscripts associated with him. Altogether, therefore, this volume provides a thorough and wide-ranging exploration of the life, works, and contexts of one of the most important of all Anglo-Saxons. | |
| XIV+554 p., 36 b/w ill., 160 x 240 mm, 2004, Hbk,
ISBN 978-2-503-52224-1, € 85.00 Click here to view Brepols Publishers page |
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SEM 12. Borders, Barriers, and Ethnogenesis. Frontiers in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages |
| Florin Curta (ed.) | |
| This collection addresses an audience of early medievalists with an interest in material culture and its use in building ethnic boundaries. The traditional concept of frontier is one of current debate by historians and archaeologists alike, but sometimes without reference to each other. For instance, the social and cultural construction of (political) frontiers remains outside the current focus of post-processualist archaeology, despite the significance of borders for the representation of power, one of the most popular topics with archaeologists interested in symbols and ideology. Similarly, historians of the early Middle Ages have only recently developed an interest in the political manipulation of cultural difference across state frontiers. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this new direction of research is the emphasis on political frontiers as crucial for the creation, rather than separation, of ethnic configurations. Recent work on the relation between monastic communities and political frontiers has shown the potential for a study of frontier symbolism. The idea of the present volume grew out of the realization that there was a great deal of new work being done in this direction which deserved a wider audience. This was true both of studies of late antique frontiers and of more recent research on medieval frontier societies. In addition, several authors address the issue of religious identities and their relations with ethnicity and state ideology. In that respect, the book is directed to a large audience, particularly because of its wide geographical range, from Iberia and the Balkans to Cilicia and Iran. | |
| vi + 265 pp., 160 x 240 mm, 2006, Hbk, ISBN 2-503-51529-0, € 60.00 Click here to view Brepols Publishers page |
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SEM 13. Old English Enigmatic Poems and the Play of the Texts |
| John D. Niles | |
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This book consists of a close study of a number of verse texts chiefly drawn from the Exeter Book of Old English poetry. All of these texts are enigmatic. Some are outright riddles, while others (such as the elegies) are riddle-like in their manner of simultaneously giving and withholding information. The author approaches these poems as microcosms of the art of Old English poetry in general, which (particularly in its more lyrical forms) relies on its audience's ability to decipher metaphorical language and to fill out details that remain unexpressed. The chief claim advanced is that Old English poetry is a good deal more playful than is often acknowledged, so that the art of interpreting it can require a kind of 'game strategy' whereby riddling authors match their wits against adventurous readers. Innovative readings of a number of poems are offered, while the whole collection of Exeter Book riddles is given a set of answers posed in the language of the riddler. The literary use of runes in The Rune Poem, The Husband's Message, and Cynewulf's runic signatures comes under close scrutiny, and the thesis is advanced that Anglo-Saxon runes (particularly those that lacked stable conventional names) were sometimes used as initialisms. The book combines the methods of rigorous philology and imaginative literary analysis. |
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| approx. xvi + 328 pp., 160 x 240 mm, 2006, Hbk, ISBN 2-503-51530-4, approx. € 80.00 Click here to view Brepols Publishers page |
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SEM 14. The Crisis of the Oikoumene. The 'Three Chapters' and the Failed Quest for Unity in the Sixth-Century Mediterranean |
| Celia Chazelle and Katy Cubitt (eds.) | |
| The sixth-century theological controversy over the 'Three Chapters', which centred on the nature of Christ, provoked one of the most serious and long-lived religious schisms of the early Middle Ages. The fault lines ran not only between the Byzantine imperial court and the papacy, but between Rome and the churches in the former western empire’s successor states. In Italy, the schism endured into the seventh century, and the repercussions were felt long thereafter. Though rooted in the complexities of christological debate, the tensions reveal the growing political as well as cultural divide between Byzantium, Rome, and the West. Thus the controversy is critical for our understanding of the late-antique and early-medieval Mediterranean world, and of the inheritance of empire in western Europe and North Africa. This book presents ten chapters by an international group of scholars who examine different facets of the Three Chapters Controversy and its profound impact on these regions. | |
| approx. x + 250 pp., 160 x 240 mm, 2006, Hbk, ISBN 2-503-51520-7, approx. € 60.00 Click here to view Brepols Publishers page |
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SEM 15. People and Space in the Middle Ages, 300-1300 |
| Wendy Davies, Guy Halsall, and Andrew Reynolds (eds.) | |
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This book compares community definition and change in the temperate zones of southern Britain and northern France with the starkly contrasting regions of the Spanish meseta and Iceland. Local communities were fundamental to human societies in the pre-industrial world; crucial in supporting their members and regulating their relationships, as well as in wider society. While geographical and biological work on territoriality is very good, existing archaeological literature is rarely time-specific and lacks wider social context; most of its premises are too simple for the interdependencies of the early medieval world. Historical work, by contrast, has a weak sense of territory and no sense of scale; like much archaeological work, there is confusion about distinctions - and relationships - between kin groups, neighbourhood groups, collections of tenants and small polities. The contributors to this book address what determined the size and shape of communities in the early historic past and the ways that communities delineated themselves in physical terms. The roles of the environment, labour patterns, the church and the physical proximity of residences in determining community identity are also examined. Additional themes include social exclusion, the community as an elite body, and the various stimuli for change in community structure. Major issues surrounding relationships between the local and the governmental are investigated: did larger polities exploit pre-existing communities, or did developments in governance call local communities into being? |
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| approx. xvi + 400 pp., 160 x 240 mm, 2006, Hbk, ISBN 2-503-51526-6, approx. € 90.00 | |
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SEM 16. Narrative and History in the Early Medieval West |
| Elizabeth M. Tyler and Ross Balzaretti (eds.) | |
| This collection deliberately brings together work which is chronologically, geographically and generically diverse. Texts studied include traditional narrative historiography, alongside poetry, chronicles, charters, dispute settlements and hagiography. The essays range from Italy and Frankia to Scandinavia and England as they examine texts produced from the seventh to the early twelfth century. In exploring the nature and function of narrative in texts which modern scholars use to study the Middle Ages, the contributors to this interdisciplinary volume integrate social, political, intellectual and literary history. Each essay and the volume as a whole illustrate that narrative form offers both new vantage points on the Middle Ages and new opportunities for collaborative study. | |
| approx. xii + 250 pp., 160 x 240 mm, 2006, Hbk, ISBN 2-503-51828-1, approx. € 60.00 Click here to view Brepols Publishers page |
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| SEM 17. The Old English Homily: Precedent, Practice, and Appropriation |
| Aaron J. Kleist (ed.) |
| Publication date scheduled for December 2007 |
| approx. X+517 p., 160 x 240 mm, 2007, Hardback
ISBN 978-2-503-51792-6, approx. € 90.00 Click here to view Brepols Publishers page |
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| SEM 18. Text, Image, Interpretation: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Literature and its Insular Context in Honour of Éamonn Ó Carragáin |
| Alastair Minnis and Jane Roberts (eds.) |
| In emulation of Professor Éamonn Ó Carragáin, who has, over the last few decades, demonstrated how words and images together join in that extraordinary cultural achievement which is the Ruthwell Cross, the volume seeks to transcend the established methods of the single discipline. The twenty-six essays draw together insights from fields as diverse as archaeology, art history, and liturgy to reflect on the literature and material culture of the Anglo-Saxons. The first section looks outwards from the insular context, to medieval Rome, more generally to western Europe, and backwards to the world-geography of the ancient world; its illustrations include colour plates to illumine the hangings, clothing and vestments extant from Anglo-Saxon England. A range of texts is considered in the central section, Latin, English, and Old Norse. The third section focuses on sculpture, buildings and the insular landscape, juxtaposing the sculptured stonework of Northern Britain with early Christian monuments and remains from Ireland; among the illustrations are striking coloured photographs of Irish ecclesiastical sites. The contributors are from Canada, the United States, Italy, Britain, and Ireland. |
| XXIV+574 p., 51 b/w ill.+18 colour ill., 1 b/w line art, 160 x 240 mm, 2007, Hardback ISBN 978-2-503-51819-0, approx. € 120.00 Click here to view Brepols Publishers page |
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SEM 20. Old English Heroic Poems and the Social Life of Texts |
| John D. Niles | |
| Old English Heroic Poems and the Social Life of Texts develops the theme that all stories- all 'beautiful lies', if one considers them as such- have a potentially myth-like function as they enter and re-enter the stream of human consciousness. In particular, the volume assesses the place of heroic poetry (including Beowulf, Widsith, and The Battle of Maldon) in the evolving society of Anglo-Saxon England during the tenth-century period of nation-building. Poetry, Niles argues, was a great collective medium through which the Anglo-Saxons conceived of their changing social world and made mental adjustments to it. Old English 'heroic geography' is examined as an aspect of the mentality of that era. So too is the idea of the oral poet (or bard) as a means by which the people of this time continued to conceive of themselves, in defiance of reality, as members of a tribe-like community knit by close personal bonds. The volume is rounded off by the identification of Bede's story of the poet Cædmon as the earliest known example of a modern folktale type, and by a spirited defense of Seamus Heaney's recent verse translation of Beowulf. | |
| approx. x + 440 pp., 160 x 240 mm, 2007, Hbk, ISBN 2-503-52080-4, approx. € 80.00 Click here to view Brepols Publishers page |
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