This is the first comprehensive study of the role of women in the Polish Piast dynasty from 965 until c.1144, comparing them with female members of other contemporary medieval dynasties.

"This book analyses the role of women in the Polish Piast dynasty from c. 965 to c.1144. It discusses gender expectations and the literary topoi employed to describe rulers' wives and daughters as well as showing their importance in religious donations, the creation of dynastic memory, and naming patterns, as well as examining Piast women's involvement in female monasticism. Pac takes a comparative approach to these themes, analysing Polish sources alongside sources from other areas of early and high medieval Europe"--

Between the middle of the 10th century and the middle of the 12th century both the cultural and the national identities of the Poles were formed. They were determined by political decisions made by the rulers from the Piast ruling house and built on a framework consisting of stories focused on the Piasts’ past. In all of this a dynastic tradition supported by the current ruler and his entourage was created and re-created. Tradition was understood as communication, the aim of which was to transmit values which define ways of perceiving the world by those people who accept this tradition as their own – by the Poles. The aim of the work is to seek traces of these traditions and values still alive in Polish culture.

This is the first major piece of scholarship to provide an overview of the lives of Sweden’s earliest documented queens, together with some of their most influential female relatives, who lived between 970 and 1330. Spanning a period over 350 years, approximately 40 biographies are included from the semi-legendary Viking queen Sigrid Storråda to Duchess Ingeborg of Norway, the first female de jure and de facto ruler of Sweden. Rather than merely summarising previous research, this study offers new perspectives on the evolution of queenship in medieval Sweden. It tracks the different religious, political, and socio-economic trends which defined and shaped the office of queen and identifies three main phases of development which led to royal women’s economic and political emancipation by the mid-fourteenth century. The study’s main strength lies in its close reading and novel interpretation of the surviving primary sources, enabling readers to understand the importance of these women and wider themes such as state formation, Christianisation, and international politics. The Queens and Royal Women of Sweden, c. 970–1330 is of interest to scholars of queenship and gender studies, medieval historians in general, those with an interest in ecclesiastical history, and anyone studying medieval Scandinavia.

The best new research on medieval clothing and textiles, drawing from a range of disciplines. The studies collected here range through art, artifacts, documentary text, and poetry, addressing both real and symbolic functions of dress and textiles. John Block Friedman breaks new ground with his article on clothing for pets and other animals, while Grzegorz Pac compares depictions of sacred and royal female dress and evaluates attempts to link them together. Jonathan C. Cooper describes the clothing of scholars in Scotland's three pre-Reformation universities and the effects of the Reformation upon it. Camilla Luise Dahl examines references to women's garments in probates and what they reveal about early modern fashions. Megan Cavell focuses on the treatment of textiles associated with the Holy of Holies in Old English biblical poetry. Frances Pritchard examines the iconography, heraldry, and inscriptions on a worn and repaired set of embroidered fifteenth-century orphreys to determine their origin.Finally, Thomas M. Izbicki summarizes evidence for the choice of white linen for the altar and the responsibilities of priests for keeping it clean and in good repair.

The decades between ca 1280 and ca 1380 were marked by a striking affinity to the Mendicant orders on the part of many female members of royal and princely courts. And yet, "Queens, Princesses and Mendicants" is both an innovative and comparatively neglected juxtaposition in medieval studies, for historical research has generally tended to neglect the relationship between Mendicants and aristocratic women. This volume unites twelve articles written by experts from seven European countries. The contributions cover a wide array of medieval European kingdoms in order to facilitate direct comparisons. Was affinity towards the Mendicants a prevalent phenomenon in the late Middle Ages? Can one even term "philomendicantism" a late medieval European movement? The collection of essays provides answers to these and other questions within the field of gender, religious and cultural history.