First comprehensive study of four important medieval saints' lives, setting them in their political and ecclesiastical context.

The Highlander has never enjoyed a good press, and has been usually characterised as peripheral and barbaric in comparison to his Lowland neighbour, more inclined to fighting than serving God. In Clerics and Clansmen Iain MacDonald examines how the medieval Church in Gaelic Scotland, often regarded as isolated and irrelevant, continued to function in the face of poverty, periodic warfare, and the formidable powers of the clan chiefs. Focusing upon the diocese of Argyll, the study analyses the life of the bishopric, before broadening to consider the parochial clergy – in particular origins, celibacy, education, and pastoral care. Far from being superficial, it reveals a Church deeply embedded within its host society while remaining plugged into the mainstream of Latin Christendom.

Margaret, saint and 11th-century Queen of the Scots, remains an often-cited yet little-understood historical figure. Keene's analysis of sources in terms of both time and place – including her Life of Saint Margaret , translated for the first time – allows for an informed understanding of the forces that shaped this captivating woman.

This volume offers translations of the twelfth-century Latin vitae of four monks of the Monastery of Savigny: Abbot Vitalis, Abbot Godfrey, Peter of Avranches, and Blessed Hamo. Founded in 1113 by Vitalis of Mortain, an influential hermit-preacher, Savigny expanded to a congregation of thirty monasteries under his successor Godfrey (1122-1138). In 1147, the entire congregation joined the Cistercian Order. Around 1172, two monks of Savigny, Peter of Avranches and Hamo, friends but very different personalities, died. Their stories were told in two further vitae. The vitae of these four men exemplify the variety of people and movements found in the monastic ferment of the twelfth century.

This is Volume One of a two-volume collection that brings together contributions from cultural and military history to offer an examination of religious rites employed in connection with warfare as well as their transformative and power- and identity-building potential across political communities of medieval Northern, Central, and Eastern Europe. Covering the period ca. 900 and 1500, the work takes theoretical, textual and practical approaches to the research on religious warfare, and investigates the connections between, and significance and function of crucial war rituals such as pre-, intra- and postbellum rites, as well as various activities surrounding the military life of individuals, polities, and corporates. Contributors are Robert Antonín, Robert Bubczyk, Dariusz Dąbrowski, Jesse Harrington, Carsten Selch Jensen, Sini Kangas, Radosław Kotecki, Gregory Leighton, Kyle C. Lincoln, Jacek Maciejewski, Yulia Mikhailova, Max Naderer, László Veszprémy, and Dušan Zupka.

This Palgrave Pivot explores the representation of sea kings, sinners, and saints in the mid-thirteenth century Chronicles of the Kings of Man and the Isles, the single most important text for the history of the kingdoms of Man and the Isles, c.1066-1300. The focus of the Chronicles on the power struggles, plots and intrigues within the ruling dynasties of Man and the Isles offers an impressive array of heroes and villains. The depiction of the activities of heroic sea kings like Godred Crovan, tyrannical usurpers like Harald son of Godred Don, and their concubines and wives, as well as local heroes like Saint Maughold, raises important questions concerning the dynamic interactions of power, gender and historical writing in the medieval Kingdoms of Man and the Isles, and provide new insights into the significance of the text that is our most important source of information on these ‘Forgotten Kingdoms’ of the medieval British Isles.

Wide-ranging and current research into the Anglo-Norman and Angevin worlds.