Embracing disciplinary approaches ranging from the archaeological to the historical, the sociological to the literary, this collection offers new insights into key texts and interpretive problems in the history of England and the continent between the eighth and thirteenth centuries. Topics range from Bede's use and revision of the anonymous Life of St Cuthbert and the redeployment of patristic texts in later continental and Anglo-Saxon ascetic and hagiographical texts, to Robert Curthose's interaction with the Norman episcopate and the revival of Roman legal studies, to the dynamics of aristocratic friendship in the Anglo-Norman realm, and much more. The volume also includes two methodologically rich studies of vital aspects of the historical landscape of medieval England: rivers and forests. --From publisher's description.

Recent research on the Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, Viking and Angevin worlds of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The latest volume of the Haskins Society Journal presents recent research on the Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, Viking and Angevin worlds of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and includes topics ranging from emotional communities in the middle ages, English identity, and the artistic construction of sacred space to the organization of royal estates, Jewish credit operations, the English colonization of Wales, and more. This volume of the Haskins Society Journal includes papers read at the 21st Annual Conference of the Charles Homer Haskins Society at Cornell University in October 2002 as well as other submissions. Contributors include Barbara Rosenwein, Kate Rambridge, Nicholas Brooks, Ryan Lavelle, Robin Mundill, Diane Korngiebel, Ryan Crisp, Philadelphia Ricketts, Louis Hamilton, and Brigitte Bedos-Rezak.

The Haskins Society, named after the celebrated American medievalist Charles Homer Haskins, was founded in 1982 to provide a forum for the discussion and study of English and related continental history in the middle ages.

New perspectives on the central middle ages in western Europe cover a wide range of issues. Six papers reassess how "feudalism" is to be understood after Susan Reynolds's Fiefs and Vassals; in addition to her own response to reviews of her book, these are: consideration of the Germanic comitatus; "feudal" vocabulary in Dudo of Saint-Quentin; the titles of the early rulers of Normandy; the rise of territorial lordships in the principality of Salerno; and a broad comparative study of "military lands" in the early and central middle ages. The other five papers range over early Anglo-Saxon reuse of Roman artefacts; the exploitation of whales in early medieval Britain; Edward the Confessor's clerks; Abbot Faricius of Abingdon; and wage-rates in late twelfth- and early thirteenth-century England. Dr C.P. LEWIS is a lecturer in the School of History at the University of Liverpool. Contributors SUSAN REYNOLDS, STEVEN FANNING, FELICE LIFSHITZ, ROBERT HELMERICHS, VALERIE RAMSEYER, BERNARD S. BACHRACH, CAROL NEUMAN DE VEGVAR, VICKI ELLEN SZABO, MARY FRANCES SMITH, KEVIN SHIRLEY, PAUL LATIMER.

This volume of the Haskins Society Journal furthers the Society's commitment to historical and interdisciplinary research on the early and central Middle Ages, especially in the Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, and Angevin worlds but also on the continent. The topics of the essays it contains range from the curious place of Francia in the historiography of medieval Europe to strategies of royal land distribution in tenth-century Anglo-Saxon England to the representation of men and masculinity in the works of Anglo-Norman historians. Essays on the place of polemical literature in Frutolf of Michelsberg's Chronicle, exploration of the relationship between chivalry and crusading in Baudry of Bourgeuil's History, and Cosmas of Prague's manipulation of historical memory in the service of ecclesiastical privilege and priority each extend the volume's engagement with medieval historiography, employing rich continental examples to do so. Investigations of comital personnel in Anjou and Henry II's management of royal forests and his foresters shed new light on the evolving nature of secular governance in the twelfth centuries and challenge and refine important aspects of our view of medieval rule in this period. The volume ends with a wide-ranging reflection on the continuing importance of the art object itself in medieval history and visual studies. Contributors: H.F. Doherty, Kathryn Dutton, Kirsten Fenton, Paul Fouracre, Herbert Kessler, Ryan Lavelle, Thomas J.H. McCarthy, Lisa Wolverton, Simon Yarrow.