The surviving documents of the Marshals, the most powerful magnate dynasty in thirteenth-century England, Ireland and Wales.

Although King John is remembered for his political and military failures, he also resided over a magnificent court. This book uses records of his reign to reconstruct his life at court, and explore how it produced both pleasure and soft power for the king.

The Chivalric Turn examines the medieval obsession with defining and practising superior conduct, and the social consequences that followed from it. Historians since the seventeenth century have tended to understand medieval conduct through the eyes of the writers of the Enlightenment, viewing superior conduct as 'knightly' behaviour, and categorising it as chivalry. Using, for the first time, the full range of the considerable twelfth- and thirteenth-century literature on conduct in the European vernaculars and in Latin, The Chivalric Turn describes and defines what superior lay conduct was in European society before chivalry, and maps how and why chivalry emerged and redefined superior conduct in the last generation of the twelfth century. The emergence of chivalry was only one part of a major social change, because it changed how people understood the concept of nobility, which had consequences for the medieval understanding of gender, social class, violence, and the limits of law.

This volume examines the aristocracy in Tuscany and in England in the years 1000-1250, offering a new way of studying English aristocracy in this period by tracing Italian aristocratic history, and then employing the same historiographic tools within English history.

The thousand years explored in this book witnessed developments in the history of Ireland that resonate to this day. Interspersing narrative with detailed analysis of key themes, the first volume in The Cambridge History of Ireland presents the latest thinking on key aspects of the medieval Irish experience. The contributors are leading experts in their fields, and present their original interpretations in a fresh and accessible manner. New perspectives are offered on the politics, artistic culture, religious beliefs and practices, social organisation and economic activity that prevailed on the island in these centuries. At each turn the question is asked: to what extent were these developments unique to Ireland? The openness of Ireland to outside influences, and its capacity to influence the world beyond its shores, are recurring themes. Underpinning the book is a comparative, outward-looking approach that sees Ireland as an integral but exceptional component of medieval Christian Europe.

From New York Times bestselling author of medieval fiction, Elizabeth Chadwick, comes a gripping and romantic novel about William Marshal and the Knights Templar. To save his soul, William Marshal, medieval England's greatest knight, begins a pilgrimage to the Holy Land with his brother—a perilous experience that will impact him for the rest of his life. The brothers are quickly enveloped by the turmoil in Jerusalem, the devious scheming and lusts of the powerful men and women who rule the kingdom. Soon, William becomes entangled with the mercurial Pascia de Riveri, concubine of the highest churchman in the land, treading a path so dangerous that there seems no way back for him. He and his brother will pay a terrible price in the Holy Land, and their only chance to see home again after the experience depends upon the Knights Templar and two silk shrouds. In this glorious adventure perfect for fans of Ken Follett and Philippa Gregory, bestselling author Elizabeth Chadwick sweeps the reader to the dramatic courts and crusades of medieval Jerusalem. More Novels of Elizabeth Chadwick's William Marshal: The Greatest Knight The Scarlet Lion For the King's Favor Templar Silks To Defy a King

For decades, medieval scholarship has been dominated by the paradigm that women who wielded power after c. 1100 were exceptions to the “rule” of female exclusion from governance and the public sphere. This collection makes a powerful case for a new paradigm. Building on the premise that elite women in positions of authority were expected, accepted, and routine, these essays traverse the cities and kingdoms of France, England, Germany, Portugal, and the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem in order to illuminate women’s roles in medieval power structures. Without losing sight of the predominance of patriarchy and misogyny, contributors lay the groundwork for the acceptance of female public authority as normal in medieval society, fostering a new framework for understanding medieval elite women and power.