Studies of the uses of literacy for the exercise of political and economic power, in Latin Christendom and the wider world. This pioneering collection of studies is concerned with the way in which increasing literacy interacted with the desire of thirteenth-century rulers to keep fuller records of their government's activities, and the manner in whichthis literacy could be used to safeguard or increase authority. In Europe the keeping of archives became an increasingly normal part of everyday administrative routines, and much has survived, owing to the prolonged preference forparchment rather than paper; in the Eastern civilisations material is more scarce. Papers discuss pragmatic literacy and record keeping in both West and East, through the medium of both literary and official texts. Thelate Professor RICHARD BRITNELL taught in the Department of History at the University of Durham. Contributors: RICHARD BRITNELL, THOMAS BEHRMANN, MANUEL RIU, OLIVER GUYOTJEANNIN, GÉRARD SIVÉRY, MANFRED GROTEN, MICHAELNORTH, MICHAEL PRESTWICH, PAUL HARVEY, GEOFFREY MARTIN, GEOFFREY BARROW, ROBERT SWANSON, NICHOLAS OIKONOMIDES, ELIZABETH ZACHARIADOU, I.H. SIDDIQUI, TIMOTHY BROOK, YOSHIYASU KAWANE

Drawing on the expertise of 26 distinguished scholars, this important volume covers the major issues in the study of medieval Europe, highlighting the significant impact the time period had on cultural forms and institutions central to European identity. Examines changing approaches to the study of medieval Europe, its periodization, and central themes Includes coverage of important questions such as identity and the self, sexuality and gender, emotionality and ethnicity, as well as more traditional topics such as economic and demographic expansion; kingship; and the rise of the West Explores Europe’s understanding of the wider world to place the study of the medieval society in a global context

A comparative study of the power and limits of bureaucracy in historical empires from ancient Rome to the twentieth century.

During the first half of the twentieth century, European countries witnessed the arrival of hundreds of thousands of colonial soldiers fighting in European territory (First and Second World War and Spanish Civil War) and coming into contact with European society and culture. For many Europeans, these were the first instances in which they met Asians or Africans, and the presence of Indian, Indo-Chinese, Moluccan, Senegalese, Moroccan or Algerian soldiers in Europe did not go unnoticed. This book explores this experience as it relates to the returning soldiers - who often had difficulties re-adapting to their subordinate status at home - and on European authorities who for the first time had to accommodate large numbers of foreigners in their own territories, which in some ways would help shape later immigration policies.

Sheds light on the skills and techniques of the medieval military engineer, over a thousand year sweep.

Archives are considered to be collections of administrative, legal, commercial and other records or the actual place where they are located. They have become ubiquitous in the modern world, but emerged not much later than the invention of writing. Following Foucault, who first used the word archive in a metaphorical sense as "the general system of the formation and transformation of statements" in his "Archaeology of Knowledge" (1969), postmodern theorists have tried to exploit the potential of this concept and initiated the "archival turn". In recent years, however, archives have attracted the attention of anthropologists and historians of different denominations regarding them as historical objects and "grounding" them again in real institutions. The papers in this volume explore the complex topic of the archive in a historical, systematic and comparative context and view it in the broader context of manuscript cultures by addressing questions like how, by whom and for which purpose were archival records produced, and if they differ from literary manuscripts regarding materials, formats, and producers (scribes).

The essays in this volume form a new cultural history focused round, but not confined to, the presence and interactions of francophone speakers, writers, readers, texts and documents in England from the 11th to the later 15th century.