Outside the Law in the Middle Ages

2020 ◽  
pp. 21-54
Author(s):  
Conor McCarthy
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Medieval England ◽  
Territorial Expansion ◽  
Historical Texts ◽  
Homo Sacer ◽  
Sovereign Authority ◽  
English Law ◽  
Legal Sense ◽  
The Middle Ages

This chapter begins by looking at what outlawry means in a legal sense in medieval England, drawing comparisons between the characterisation of the outlaw as an excluded figure and Agamben's portrayal of the homo sacer. The representation of the outlaw in the literature of the period, however, gives us a very different picture, akin to Hobsbawm's 'social bandit.' Different again from these representations in both legal and literary texts are the actions of the real outlaw gangs of medieval England, whose behaviour is perhaps more complex than either Agamben or Hobsbawm's archetypal constructions may allow for. Following this discussion of the outlaw in legal, literary, and historical texts, this chapter proceeds to highlight three phenomena. Firstly, it notes the extent of additional forms of exclusion from law within the 'palimpsest of jurisdictions' found in later medieval England. Secondly, it discusses outlawry and its literature as a location where tensions around sovereign authority may be examined. Finally, it considers the use of exclusion from or inclusion within English law as a tactic linked to territorial expansion in later medieval Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, and the application of outlawry to the English state’s archipelagic opponents, such as Robert Bruce and William Wallace.

Allegra Iafrate, The Long Life of Magical Objects: A Study in the Solomonic Tradition. The Magic in History Series. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2019, xi, 235 pp., 19 b/w images, 2 tables.

Mediaevistik ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 252-254
Author(s):  
Albrecht Classen
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Modern World ◽  
State University ◽  
Eastern Culture ◽  
Historical Objects ◽  
History Of ◽  
Religious Objects ◽  
The Middle Ages

Throughout times, magic and magicians have exerted a tremendous influence, and this even in our (post)modern world (see now the contributions to Magic and Magicians in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Time, ed. Albrecht Classen, 2017; here not mentioned). Allegra Iafrate here presents a fourth monograph dedicated to magical objects, primarily those associated with the biblical King Solomon, especially the ring, the bottle which holds a demon, knots, and the flying carpet. She is especially interested in the reception history of those symbolic objects, both in antiquity and in the Middle Ages, both in western and in eastern culture, that is, above all, in the Arabic world, and also pursues the afterlife of those objects in the early modern age. Iafrate pursues not only the actual history of King Solomon and those religious objects associated with him, but the metaphorical objects as they made their presence felt throughout time, and this especially in literary texts and in art-historical objects.

The greatest health problem of the Middle Ages? Estimating the burden of disease in medieval England

2021 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
pp. 101-112
Author(s):  
John Robb ◽  
Craig Cessford ◽  
Jenna Dittmar ◽  
Sarah A. Inskip ◽  
Piers D. Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Health Problem ◽  
Burden Of Disease ◽  
Medieval England ◽  
The Middle Ages

Conclusion

2019 ◽  
pp. 191-200
Author(s):  
Jacqueline de Romilly
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Greek Culture ◽  
The Middle Ages

This concluding chapter discusses how the story of Alcibiades' life requires consulting both historical and literary texts. The honors bestowed on his tomb by the emperor Hadrian have served as the epilogue of Alcibiades' death. This is not surprising since Hadrian was known to be an admirer of Greek culture. Nor is it surprising that cultivated Romans knew about Alcibiades. They read Plato, the Greek historians, and later Plutarch. And in addition to the biography written by Cornelius Nepos, one encounters Alcibiades in all the scholars of the imperial age. After that, a heavy veil of silence fell. There is no mention of Alcibiades through the Middle Ages until the reappearance of Greek texts. The chapter then offers an analogy between Alcibiades' life and the unification of Europe. When one looks back at his life, the crisis in democracy is what is most striking and moving today.

The Coronation in Medieval England: The Evolution of the Office and the Oath

Traditio ◽  
1960 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 111-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. G. Richardson
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Medieval England ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Middle Ages

An explanatory foreword seems to be demanded by the studies in the English coronation ceremony here presented. I am conscious that on a number of points, views are now put forward incompatible with those I have expressed on other occasions since first I began to write on the subject. Further scrutiny of the evidence and the redating of some of the more important documents have, however, led me inevitably to conclusions at variance not only with those of other scholars, but with some that seemed plausible to me at the time of writing. What is principally in question is the history of the English coronation before 1308; but I have revised and elaborated the story of the evolution of the Fourth Recension of the English coronation office as it was presented by Professor Sayles and myself a good many years ago. It would be presumptuous on my part to pretend that I have given final answers to the many questions the tangled history of the English coronation provokes. I have changed my own mind too often to permit me to imagine that there may not be answers to those questions more satisfying than mine. But what I have written will, I trust, advance the study of obscure and complicated problems which have an important bearing upon the history of kingship in the Middle Ages and therefore upon medieval polity.

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