Sons and Mothers: Family Politics in the Early Middle Ages

1978 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 79-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pauline Stafford
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
Social Maturity ◽  
First Marriage ◽  
Family Politics ◽  
Second Year

In this year (975) Edgar, king of the English, reached the end of earthly joys, chose for him the other light, beautiful and happy and left this wretched and fleeting life’ (ASC MS A). Edgar died in his thirty-second year. He had ruled the whole of England for sixteen years, since the age of sixteen, and the northern parts of it at least since the age of fourteen. He left three known surviving children, each by a different mother. Eadgyth, his daughter, was abbess of the nunnery at Wilton, appropriately enough since she was the daughter of the nun Wulfthryth. He left two sons. The eldest Edward the martyr was the son of his first marriage to a lady named Aethelflaed. Edward’s mother was dead or otherwise disposed of by 975. She had disappeared early in the reign, before Edgar took as his wife and queen the lady Aelfthryth in 964. Aelfthryth was the mother of two sons: Edmund, who pre-deceased his father in 972, and Aethelred, better known to history as Aethelred Unraed. The reputation which has attached to the mild Aethelred would hardly apply to his mother, who involved herself with great purpose in the advancement of her two sons. Aethelred was at most nine years old in 975, making all possible allowance for the speedy consummation of his mother’s marriage and the birth of his elder brother. We do not know the age of Edward, but he is called a ‘child ungrown’ in MS C of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which should make him no more than twelve, the age of social maturity in tenth century England. These two children, or more accurately their supporters, immediately flung themselves into a battle for the throne.

Lapidary traditions in Anglo-Saxon England: part II, Bede's Explanatio Apocalypsis and related works

1983 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 73-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Kitson
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Old English ◽  
Critical Edition ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
Medical Traditions

Part I of this article1 treated the three main streams of lapidary knowledge current in the early Middle Ages (the classical encyclopaedists, the patristic2 and the medical traditions, with particular attention, in the last-named, to the lapidary of Damigeron and its recensions);3 gloss traditions, terminology and popular beliefs about jewels in Anglo-Saxon England; and the origin and content of the Old English Lapidary, with a new edition of it. This part II treats the lapidary passage in Bede's Explanatio Apocalypsis; a Hiberno-Latin tract De Duodecim Lapidibus (henceforth DDL) used by Bede; and (with a critical edition) a tenth-century Latin hymn Cives celestis patrie, quite likely composed in Anglo-Saxon England, and closely based on Bede's work.4

Bastard Feudalism and the Framing of Thirteenth-Century England

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Coss
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Great Work ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

In the introduction to his great work of 2005, Framing the Early Middle Ages, Chris Wickham urged not only the necessity of carefully framing our studies at the outset but also the importance of closely defining the words and concepts that we employ, the avoidance ‘cultural sollipsism’ wherever possible and the need to pay particular attention to continuities and discontinuities. Chris has, of course, followed these precepts on a vast scale. My aim in this chapter is a modest one. I aim to review the framing of thirteenth-century England in terms of two only of Chris’s themes: the aristocracy and the state—and even then primarily in terms of the relationship between the two. By the thirteenth century I mean a long thirteenth century stretching from the period of the Angevin reforms of the later twelfth century on the one hand to the early to mid-fourteenth on the other; the reasons for taking this span will, I hope, become clearer during the course of the chapter, but few would doubt that it has a validity.

scholarly journals In the Iconographer's studio. The fashioning of the new motif types in Pre-Iconoclastic art.

1970 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 95-110
Author(s):  
Per Jonas Nordhagen
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
New Testament ◽  
The Other ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
Byzantine Art ◽  
Image Creation ◽  
Pictorial Form

What was the part played by the artists (the craftsmen/painters) in the making of new iconographical types in the Early Middle Ages? Were have they given the design of what was to be illustrated all drawn up and ready for the hands of the program-makers? Or did they participate also in the work of selection from Scripture of the episode destined to be given pictorial form? This problem is rarely reflected upon in the literature on the period, yet it calls for a clarification. A cluster of newly created or revised New Testament scenes occurs in the art of Rome shortly after the year 700 A.D., a phenomenon which opens for a study of the collaboration which took place between the artists/craftsmen and the other partakers in the process of image-creation. This is the rationale for a renewed inspection of this extraordinary series of iconographical innovations, which as must be accentuated, were o leave their imprint on Byzantine art of the successive centuries.

scholarly journals Herrscherschaft and herrschersuffix in Central-East European languages

Linguistica ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-18
Author(s):  
Sorin Paliga
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Unknown Origin ◽  
The Other ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
East European ◽  
Slavic Languages ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Local Leader ◽  
Core Elements ◽  
Large Distribution

The paper resumes a topic the author approached in severa[ instances beginning with 1987: some specific terms referring to the semantic sphere Herrscherschafi. In Romanian, ban, jupîn, stăpîn and probably also cioban reflect the indigenous Thracian substratum; these forms also reflect the archaic Indo-European Herrschersujfzx -n-. In Slavic, their equivalent forms ban, župan and stopan reflect either a Late Thracian or (Proto-)Romanian influence. Equally Rom. vătaf reflects the substratum influence, whereas Slavic vatah, vatak, vataš reflects the same borrowing. On the other hand, Slavic gospodƄ, belongs to the archaic Proto-Slavic core elements, while cěsaŕƄ, reflect a Germanic influence. Finally, Rom. boier is an East-Romance innovation derived from bou 'ox' and initially meant 'owner of cattle = rich man', a traditional association between cattle-owners and richness. The word had a large distribution from the early Middle Ages until late in the 20th century.In a paper written some 15 years ago (Paliga 1987, in Linguistica, Ljubljana) 1 dared suggest that a series of Romanian and Slavic terms referring to social and political organisation, specifically ban (1) 'master, local leader' and (2) 'coin, money' (2nd sense derived from the lst one),jupîn (formerly giupîn) 'a master', 'a master, a lord', cioban 'a shepherd', rather reflect a compact etymological group of Pre-Romance and Pre-Slavic origin (including cioban, incorrectly considered a Turkish influence, seemingly starting from the erroneous, but largely spread hypothesis that intervocalic -b- in Romanian would rather suggest a newer origin 1 ). To these, on another occasion, I added the form vătaf,vătah (also with parallels in some Slavic languages, Paliga 1996: 34-36) and on another occasion 1 analysed the form boier, also spread in many neighbouring languages, which has often been considered either of unknown origin or again of Turkic (not Turkish, i.e. Ottoman) origin (Paliga 1990; see also our main studies gathered together in a single volume, Paliga 1999).

The Jellinge Stone: from prehistoric monument to petrified ‘book’

2018 ◽  
pp. 235-251
Author(s):  
Michelle P. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Burial Ground ◽  
Medieval Art ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Early Middle Ages

Like the previous chapter, Michelle Brown’s contribution represents an instance of the integration of Christian and pre-Christian Germanic knowledge in the early Middle Ages. Brown explores the context and meaning of the distinctive late-tenth-century rune-stone carved at the royal burial ground of Jellinge in Denmark, viewing the monument as a book in stone and a symbol of conversion and of changing political agendas in Scandinavia in the tenth century. Ranging widely across early medieval art, Brown explains that the stone (like the Auzon/Franks Casket, to which she also alludes) draws upon both Christian and pagan Norse traditions ‘to form a new, integrated iconography that formed a distinctive expression of the Scandinavian experience of cultural synthesis and conversion’.

An unknown English Benedictine gradual of the eleventh century

1975 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 131-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. D. Hartzell
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
Medieval Music ◽  
Early English ◽  
High Degree ◽  
Polyphonic Music

The most famous manuscripts with music of the early Middle Ages in England are the Winchester ‘Tropers’ at Oxford and Cambridge. More has been written about them than about all the lesser known sources put together, and it is right that this should have been so, for the troper at Cambridge preserves one of the oldest repertories of polyphonic music while the other, the so-called ‘Æthelred troper’, has provided generations of scholars with the task of establishing its relationship to the other manuscript. This activity has resulted in a high degree of clarification, but the Winchester ‘Tropers’ are not the whole of early English medieval music – even though a study of their combined trope repertories would be a welcome contribution – and we must begin to turn our attention to other sources of the period.

scholarly journals Glossa do enigm biskupa Aldhema (ok. 639-709)

2011 ◽  
Vol 48 ◽  
pp. 275-289
Author(s):  
Małgorzata Chudzikowska-Wołoszyn
Keyword(s):  
Original Writing ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
Latin Language ◽  
Roman Culture ◽  
Celtic Culture ◽  
Latin Culture ◽  
The Church

Though the Latin language appeared on British Island in common with Roman Invasion, exactly after 55 AD, yet his real popularization had become until after 597 AD, in which the Romans missionary gets to the Anglo-Saxon Canterbury and started great evangelization on this lands. The British Clergy and Aristocracy were very quickly mastered the arcana of Latin language which in this days was a synonym of a culture and a imperial traditions. Anglo-Saxon like any another nation managed to subordinate to themselves the Church language and not resign at the same time about an old traditions and fondness. Remarkable thing is that the anglo-saxon literature was creating on the spur of the three abnormally valuable inspiration source – the Roman, Irish and nativ influence – settled in Celtic culture. Creativeness of an Adhelm who was writing about VII and VIII AD was perfectly mirrored the colour of medieval culture of British Island. His corpus of a hundred riddles display over the reader unprecedented in early middle ages universal. In Sherborne bishop enigmas we can find an Irish boldness which didn’t want to fight with the Greek and Roman paganism but on the contrary it foster an advancement of Christian latin culture. In riddles we can find an Irish culture as well which cherish the bard tradition, attached attention to art of word and found an likes in that what is mannerism and vivid. And finally the Roman culture along with latin alphabet and monastery scholarship contribute to final combined all of drifts forming the original writing of Adhelm.

scholarly journals Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos on Croats in Early Medieval Southern Pannonia (DAI, c. 30, 75–78): A Note on Concept and Method of Byzantine History Writing

2021 ◽  
pp. 24-43
Author(s):  
Hrvoje Gračanin
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
The Other ◽  
History Writing ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
The Past ◽  
Literary Device ◽  
C 30 ◽  
The One

The paper endeavours to discuss anew a scholarly puzzle related to the Croatian early Middle Ages and centred on a few lines from Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos’s De administrando imperio, which in English translation are as follows: And of the Croats who arrived to Dalmatia one part separated and ruled Illyricum and Pannonia. And they also had an independent ruler who was sending envoys, though only to the ruler of Croatia from friendship. Taking a different approach from the complete dismissal of the two sentences as a pure fiction or a mere literary device, the paper instead attempts to trace the concept behind this account as well as its underlying meaning. On the one hand, it seeks to detect the methods or strategies used by the royal compiler in trying to elucidate the past. On the other hand, it aims to provide a thorough historical analysis and offer a possible interpretation in opposition to the view, still largely extant in the Croatian scholarship, that this account is an evidence for an early presence of the group called Croats in southern Pannonia.

The Mission to Constantinople in 968 and Liudprand of Cremona

Traditio ◽  
1975 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 55-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon N. Sutherland
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Detailed Record ◽  
East West

Of the documents that concern the relationship between Byzantium and Western Europe in the early Middle Ages, none is more famous or more frequently read than Relatio de Legatione Constantinopolitana, Liudprand of Cremona's description of his mission to Constantinople in 968 for Otto I. Much has been learned from his vivid if acid narrative about the Byzantine court of Nicephorus II Phocas and about East-West relations in the tenth century. Over the last forty years research has reached beneath the vivid prose in search of the true significance of that mission. But since Liudprand's is the only first-hand, detailed record of an embassy to Constantinople of that era, some scholars have given it more contemporary importance than it actually had, and, by extension, they have turned Liudprand's thoughts into subtle expressions of official Western policy. The danger in these inquiries has been to divorce the mind and moods of the creator from his creation and bestow on Relatio undeserved exaltation. The problem is to keep the document in its perspective while draining every sentence of its implications.

Wood Tar Production Without the Use of Ceramic Vessels: Experimental Archaeology in Grodzisko Żmijowiska

2021 ◽  
pp. 135-139
Author(s):  
Paweł Lis ◽  
Krzysztof Wasilczyk
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Experimental Archaeology ◽  
The Other ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Birch Bark ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
Product Ratio ◽  
Ceramic Vessels ◽  
The Right ◽  
Wood Tar

Several pits, the remains of wood tar production using the so-called ‘vessel-less method’, were discovered in the Lublin region. They contained objects related to the early Middle Ages. These discoveries were used as the base for experiments run in 2013 in the experimental archaeology centre at Grodzisko Żmijowiska. The first experiment involved the acquisition of wood tar from birch bark, while the other attempts were aimed at extracting tar from pine stumpwood. The experiments were conducted in a shallow pit that was plastered with clay and had a small depression at its bottom used as a container for the tar, separated from the pit by a clay strainer. The raw material gathered in the pit was covered with a clay dome. When the dome was dry, it was slowly heated up with burning wood to the right temperature which was checked inside the dome with a thermocouple. Both processes were conducted successfully. The results were compared with experiments focused on the production of wood tar using the two-vessel method known in the early Middle Ages. The comparison showed that the vessel-less method is less economical due to the amount of fuel used and almost three times less efficient in terms of the raw material to final product ratio. However, it is very simple technically and allows the effective production of wood tar.

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