Suchergebnisse

This volume is the result of a conference at University College London in 2007 which addressed the scale and form of civil defences in early medieval Europe, c. 800-1000. Previous work has largely focussed on individual sites or specific categories of evidence. These papers offer new interdisciplinary perspectives driven by a landscape approach. Several contributions focus on civil defence in England around the time of King Alfred the Great, and together provide a new agenda for the study of Anglo-Saxon military landscapes. European case-studies facilitate a comparative approach to local and regional defensive structures and interpretive paradigms. Topics and themes covered include civil defence landscapes, the organization and form of defensive structures, and the relationships and dynamics between social complexity, militarization, and external threats. With papers ranging from England to Spain and Germany to Scandinavia the volume is of relevance to a range of disciplines including archaeology, history, onomastics, geography, and anthropology

In medieval legal transactions the use of the written word was only one of many ways of conducting business. Important roles were played by the spoken word and by the 'action' of ritual. The relationship between 'rituals' and literacy has been the focus of much recent research. Medieval societies which made extensive use of written instruments in legal transactions have been shown to employ rituals as well. This has ledto investigation of the respective functions of written instruments and legal rituals. What is the nature of legal rituals? If they included oral verbalization, how did the spoken words relate to those of the written instruments that played a role in the same legal transactions? Usually, we only have the written documents to answer these questions, and they are often silent about the rituals and oral elements of the transactions they document

The Low Countries in the early Middle Ages. Christianity is on the rise, partly due to the efforts of missionaries such as Willibrord and Boniface. Yet the process of Christianisation is laborious. This is well illustrated in Vita Radbodi, a tenth-century Latin biography of bishop Radboud of Utrecht (c. 850-917).
In it, Radboud is depicted as a pious, serious and studious young man, who is called to the episcopate after many years of study. As bishop, he encounters problems with unbelieving Frisians and ferocious Normans. Thus, he is forced to move his seat from Utrecht to the safer Deventer.
The text offers a positive portrait of Radboud as a holy role model figure. He acts energetically, performs miracles and, of course, also possesses prophetic gifts. For instance, he predicts his own end well in time. The text ends with a vision of the Mother of God and Radboud's death and burial.
Some twenty years after the first edition by Peter Nissen and Vincent Hunink, the text is now being reissued on the occasion of Radboud University's centenary.

What makes a happy city? How can a city respond adequately and resiliently to a crisis disrupting civic society? Answers to these timeless questions differ through time. A Miracle of St Martin – Utrecht a Happy City tells the story of Utrecht and St Martin. At the occasion of Utrecht's 900th anniversary as a free city, the book elucidates how the bond between Utrecht and its patron saint since the early Middle Ages inspired people to contribute to a happy city.
The book is designed as a diptych, focusing first on St Martin's Utrecht patronage around the year 900, when the settlement built within the walls of the former Roman castellum endured difficult times due to political and climatological troubles. Bishop Radbod (899/900-917) calls upon his fellow citizens to cultivate the commemoration of St Martin and to appeal to the saintly figure in times of hardship. The book includes a translation of Radbod's Miracle Story of St Martin and unravels the secrets of his Gregorian office for the summer feast of St Martin's Translation on July 4th.
The second part of the book focuses on St Martin's role in the multicultural twenty-first-century city of Utrecht. The popular St Martin's Parade establishes a new celebration of the saint with music, street art and a parade of lights. Reflecting on this newly (re-)invented tradition we discover St Martin anew as a symbolic figure representing values of the inclusive city in past and present.
The book is lavishly illustrated with images of St Martin and his cult in medieval and modern-day Utrecht.

Lange tijd werd het zo voorgesteld dat middeleeuwse kooplieden verdoemd waren omdat zij winst nastreefden. Pas met de Italiaanse Renaissance en het protestantisme zou er bevrijding gekomen zijn en zou men volop winst hebben mogen maken zonder zich schuldig te moeten voelen. In werkelijkheid hadden theologen al tijdens de volle middeleeuwen alles in het werk gesteld om de rol van handelaars positief te herwaarderen en het winststreven uit de sfeer van het turpe lucrum te halen. Voorwaarde was enkel dat er eerlijke prijzen tot stand kwamen die - bij afwezigheid van bedrog en marktmanipulatie - w