Women, Posthumous Benefaction, and Family Strategy in Pre-Conquest England

1999 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 399-422 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Crick
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Land Transfer ◽  
Medieval Europe ◽  
The Family ◽  
Family And Marriage ◽  
Complex Relationships ◽  
Family Strategy ◽  
The Church

In the early Middle Ages it was men who, with their resort to armed might, were the plunderers of church property, though some among them did contribute to its increase. Women, and especially widows, were more positively involved with the church, as givers rather than as receivers.When Jack Goody put more than a thousand years into the few hundred pages of his Development of the Family and Marriage in Europe, he could be allowed a little judgmental rhetoric. The documentation from early medieval Europe, unevenly distributed across very diverse situations, may indeed yield fewer examples of female than male predation, and perhaps more examples of female than male benefaction. But, since Goody wrote, historians have been increasingly alerted to complex relationships among individuals, property, and the church, which may extend far beyond the scope of individual documents, across several generations. Goody's female “givers” take on a new complexion in an environment in which donations can be more apparent than real, where a land transfer may prove no more than a social gesture. In such circumstances, identifying the originators of grants, let alone separating male and female action, becomes a delicate process. In the following article, female involvement is considered in the context of pre-Conquest wills, a body of documents that could be interpreted as classic evidence that female “givers” literally as well as morally stood in credit with the church.The prominence of women in pre-Conquest wills has long been noted.

Slavery

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sally McKee
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Sexual Exploitation ◽  
Physical Appearance ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Domestic Servants ◽  
Medieval Europe ◽  
Sexual Service ◽  
The Common ◽  
Female Slaves

The potential for sexual service played a key role in the changing demand for slaves in medieval Europe. From the early Middle Ages on, the demand for male slaves declined while the market for female slaves rose. Although male and female slaves were vulnerable to sexual exploitation, only enslaved women's sexual service was tacitly sanctioned in the parts of Christian Europe where slavery was practiced. Their suitability for sexual service factored into their prices, in contrast to free domestic servants, whose wages were not influenced by their physical appearance. As a consequence of the common practice of slaves' sexual service in the cities where slavery was still practiced, the presence of children of slaves and masters in households gave rise to social pressures that diminished the demand for slaves within European households at the same time that slavery in European colonies was on the rise.

scholarly journals Religious Poverty, Mendicancy, and Reform in the Late Middle Ages

2003 ◽  
Vol 72 (3) ◽  
pp. 457-482 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael D. Bailey
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Kingdom Of God ◽  
Reform Movements ◽  
Material Wealth ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Medieval Europe ◽  
Urban Spirituality ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Ideal

The idea and the ideal of religious poverty exerted a powerful force throughout the Middle Ages. “Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff,” Christ had commanded his apostles. He had sternly warned, “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for someone who is rich to enter into the kingdom of God.” And he had instructed one of the faithful, who had asked what he needed to do to live the most holy sort of life, “if you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give your money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.” Beginning with these biblical injunctions, voluntary poverty, the casting off of wealth and worldly goods for the sake of Christ, dominated much of medieval religious thought. The desire for a more perfect poverty impelled devout men and women to new heights of piety, while disgust with the material wealth of the church fueled reform movements and more radical heresies alike. Often, as so clearly illustrated by the case of the Spiritual Franciscans andfraticelliin the later thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the lines separating devout believer from condemned heretic shifted and even reversed themselves entirely depending on how one understood the religious call to poverty. Moreover, the Christian ideal of poverty interacted powerfully with and helped to shape many major economic, social, and cultural trends in medieval Europe. As Lester Little demonstrated over two decades ago, for example, developing ideals of religious poverty were deeply intermeshed with the revitalizing European economy of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries and did much to shape the emerging urban spirituality of that period.

ARCHITECTURE AND CHURCH POWER IN LATE ANTIQUITY: CANOSA AND SAN GIUSTO (APULIA)

2006 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-168
Author(s):  
Giuliano Volpe
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Transitional Period ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
Rural Landscapes ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The City ◽  
The Church

Two Early Christian complexes will be presented here: one urban (San Pietro in Canosa), and one rural (San Giusto in the territory of Lucera). Both cases represent clear evidence of the Christianising policy promoted by the Church in the cities and countryside, especially during the 5th and 6th centuries A.D., which led to a new definition of urban and rural landscapes. The Early Christian complex of San Pietro in Canosa—the most important city in Apulia et Calabria in Late Antiquity—and the Early Christian complex of San Giusto, most likely the seat of a rural diocese, are notable expressions of ecclesiastical power in the city and the countryside during the transitional period between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages.

scholarly journals The Water-Supply of Rome from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages

1970 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 165-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Coats-Stephens
Keyword(s):  
Water Supply ◽  
Ground Water ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Scaling Down ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Middle Ages

The article collates the textual and archaeological evidence for Rome’s water-supply in the period c.300-1000. Whilst there is now sufficient archaeological evidence for the rebuilding of the city’s aqueducts after the Gothic Wars, it is clear that the uses to which the water was put in the middle ages were very different from those of Late Antiquity. There was a massive scaling-down of the overall system, with the thermae falling immediately out of use, to be replaced to a certain extent by church baths for the clergy and poor. The Janiculum mills were maintained, and smaller watermills continued to function off the aqueducts, as well as from the Tiber. Baptisteries used both aqueduct and non-aqueduct-supplied water. There was an extensive network of wells and subterranean conduits utilizing ground-water. The system as a whole was organized centrally, by the Church – although the extent of private patronage (wells, smallscale mills and domestic baths) should not be overlooked.

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 Kościół katolicki i neopogaństwo niemieckie w myśli Leona Halbana

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 109-125
Author(s):  
Ryszard Polak
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Critical Assessment ◽  
Academic Achievements ◽  
European Culture ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Catholic Church

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND GERMAN NEOPAGANISM IN LEON HALBAN’S THOUGHTThis article presents the views of Leon Halban referring to the problems of German religiosity. In the first part of the article, the family and the character and the academic achievements of this scholar were characterized. In the next part of the article, his views on the role of the Catholic Church in European culture were analyzed and his position in which he made a critical assessment of German religiosity was presented. Halban assumed that the Christianity practiced by Germans since the Middle Ages did not result from their authentic conversion. The Germans were often religiously indifferent and tended to fall into various heresies and deviations from faith. They also sought to achieve supremacy of the state over the Church in public life and law. Halban argued that a renewal of morality can only be achieved in the Catholic Church, whose ethical principles and doctrine should be propagated and applied in everyday life.

The Julian Calendar and the Problem of the Equinoxes in the Early Middle Ages

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Philipp E. Nothaft
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Medieval Literature ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Observational Methods ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
Julian Calendar ◽  
Medieval Europe ◽  
Solar Astronomy

This chapter familiarizes readers with the ancient back-story of the Julian calendar and describes how one of the central problems inherent in this calendar—the drift of the equinoxes and solstices caused by an overestimation of the length of the tropical year—manifested itself in medieval literature until the end of the eleventh century. It also explores how the development of the computus genre in seventh-century Ireland was instrumental in preserving knowledge of the Western calendar’s Roman-pagan roots. The final two sections show how the existence of diverging traditions for the dates of the equinoxes and solstices in the Julian calendar created an important context for the practice of solar astronomy in early medieval Europe, which included the use of observational methods.

The Baptism of Relics of Oleg and Yaropolk: Ethical, Theological and Political Aspects

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 272-286
Author(s):  
Roman Dodonov ◽  
◽  
Vira Dodonova ◽  
Oleksandr Konotopenko ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Historical Event ◽  
Ethical Point ◽  
Stereoscopic View ◽  
The Family ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Church

A stereoscopic view on a particular historical event, in which contemporary assessments are combined with mental stereotypes of a medieval man, allows a slightly different assessment of the chronicle plot about the posthumous “baptism of bones” of Oleg and Yaropolk, Princes of Kyivan Rus, in 1044. While from theological positions it is perceived as an absurdity and a direct violation of the rules of the church, in the Middle Ages this act did not contradict the mass religious beliefs. From an ethical point of view, the action of Yaroslav the Wise was regarded as concern for the souls of the ancestors who died pagans and therefore did not claim for the salvation. The soteriological optimism that prevailed in the eleventh century in countries of the late Christianization, including Kyivan Rus, gave hope that living people were able to influence the fate of the souls of the dead. From a political point of view, the baptism of the ashes of the ancestors and their reburial in the family tomb of the Princes of Kyiv in the Church of the Tithes was aimed at expanding the circle of heavenly patrons and protectors of the princely dynasty, expanding the period of the Christian history of Kyivan Rus, and, as a result, legitimizing the power of Yaroslav the Wise.

Educated Wandering Jews, 800–1250

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maristella Botticini ◽  
Zvi Eckstein
Keyword(s):  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Byzantine Empire ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
Jewish Diaspora ◽  
Medieval Europe ◽  
Business Opportunities ◽  
Vast Territory

This chapter shows that once the Jews became literate, urban, and engaged in skilled occupations, they began migrating within the vast territory under Muslim rule—stretching from the Iberian Peninsula to India during the eighth through the twelfth centuries, and from the Byzantine Empire to western Europe via Italy and within western Europe in the ninth through the thirteenth centuries. In early medieval Europe, the revival of trade concomitant with the Commercial Revolution and the growth of an urban and commercial economy paralleled the vast urbanization and the growth of trade that had occurred in the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates four to five centuries earlier. The Jewish diaspora during the early Middle Ages was mainly the outcome of literate Jewish craftsmen, shopkeepers, traders, scholars, teachers, physicians, and moneylenders migrating in search of business opportunities to reap returns on their investment in literacy and education.

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