Ignatios the Deacon was a key figure in the revival of literary culture that took place at Constantinople in the first half of the ninth century. He is best known for his hagiographical works, but he also wrote poems, compiled an anthology of ancient proverbs, and edited textbooks. For some time he served as bishop of Nicaea under an Iconoclastic regime, but later repented of his errors and moved into the “orthodox” camp.
Preserved in a single manuscript, Ignatios’s correspondence has remained practically unknown to scholars. Some of the letters deal with literary trifles, while others contain valuable information on the social and economic history of the period. Taken together, they afford a unique glimpse into the activity of a Byzantine intellectual, struggling to survive in a time of bitter doctrinal strife.
This book traces changing gender relations in China from the tenth to fourteenth centuries by examining three critical categories of women: courtesans, concubines, and faithful wives. It shows how the intersection and mutual influence of these groups—and of male discourses about them—transformed ideas about family relations and the proper roles of men and women.
Courtesan culture had a profound effect on Song social and family life, as entertainment skills became a defining feature of a new model of concubinage, and as entertainer-concubines increasingly became mothers of literati sons. Neo-Confucianism, the new moral learning of the Song, was significantly shaped by this entertainment culture and by the new markets—in women—that it created. Responding to a broad social consensus, Neo-Confucians called for enhanced recognition of concubine mothers in ritual and expressed increasing concern about wifely jealousy. The book also details the surprising origins of the Late Imperial cult of fidelity, showing that from inception, the drive to celebrate female loyalty was rooted in a complex amalgam of political, social, and moral agendas. By taking women—and men’s relationships with women—seriously, this book makes a case for the centrality of gender relations in the social, political, and intellectual life of the Song and Yuan dynasties.
The Complete Story of a Legendary Weapon
"Spendidly enthusiastic. . . . Soar's book is indispensable."—Bernard Cornwell
"A fascinating study of a forgotten weapon. . . . For centuries the longbow dominated battle, affecting the fates of nations" —Wall Street Journal
"Bowyers, bowhunters, target archers and students of archery history should all find cause for celebration with Hugh Soar's concise but authoritative text." —Traditional BowhunterOn a clear July morning in 1346, a small force approached the walls of Caen for battle. The attackers rode to the field on horseback, banners and pennants fluttering in the light breeze. Behind them marched bowmen in tightly ranked units. At the sound of a crisp battle horn, they halted. A twinge of apprehension rippled through the thousands of Norman defenders as they looked down at the opposing army, for precision archery formation had long since disappeared as a military concept in medieval France. Here was not the expected rabble of unrated bucolics cowed by the might of France; confronting them was a quietly determined group of trained soldiers armed not with the familiar arbalest but with a new and strange weapon of great length. The defenders of Caen were about to meet the English war bow and its deadly battle shaft. For the next 100 years, this weapon, the "crooked stick," would command continental battlefields, etching its fearsome reputation at Crécy, Poitiers, Agincourt, and Verneuil, while establishing England as an international power for the first time.
Although the longbow is best known for its deployment during the Hundred Years' War, its origins lie with ancient Saxon seafighters and Welsh craftsmen, while today the bow is a vibrant part of the traditional archery scene. In The Crooked Stick: A History of the Longbow, historian Hugh D. H. Soar pulls together all of these strings, presenting the engaging story of this most charismatic standoff weapon. After a careful consideration of Neolithic bows and arrows, the author describes the bow's use in the medieval hunt and its associated customs. The longbow made its deepest mark in warfare, however, and the author follows the weapon's development and tactical deployment from the hand-bow of William the Conqueror's campaigns to the continental set-piece battles between England and France. Although soldiers reluctantly gave up the longbow for firearms, its recreational use became immensely popular, particularly during the Regency and Victorian periods. In the twentieth century it appeared as if the longbow would disappear into the fog of legend, but a new interest in traditional craft and expertise gained hold, and the pleasure of using this ancient instrument is now firmly part of archery around the world.
Through a remarkable command of manuscript and printed sources and a judicious use of material evidence, including his own important collection of rare longbows, Hugh Soar establishes the deep connections of this bow to England, Scotland, and Wales. Figures in the past like William Wallace, Edward III, and Henry V appear alongside detailed descriptions of bows, strings, arrows, and arrowheads, while the rise of institutions and craftsmen devoted to the longbow are presented to show how knowledge of this weapon was carried forward across the centuries. Today, those in the sport of archery and military historians will find that The Crooked Stick will enhance their own interests in a weapon of legendary status.
In addition to the illustrated text, the book contains appendices detailing the history and design of bracers, tabs and tips, quivers, and arrowheads associated with the longbow.Cross and Cruciform in the Anglo-Saxon World: Studies to Honor the Memory of Timothy Reuter is edited by Sarah Larratt Keefer, Karen Louise Jolly, and Catherine E. Karkov and is the third and final volume of an ambitious research initiative begun in 1999 concerned with the image of the cross, showing how its very material form cuts across both the culture of a society and the boundaries of academic disciplines—history, archaeology, art history, literature, philosophy, and religion—providing vital insights into how symbols function within society. The flexibility, portability, and adaptability of the Anglo-Saxon understanding of the cross suggest that, in pre-Conquest England, at least, the linking of word, image, and performance joined the physical and spiritual, the temporal and eternal, and the earthly and heavenly in the Anglo-Saxon imaginative landscape.
This volume is divided into three sections. The first section of the collection focuses on representations of “The Cross: Image and Emblem,” with contributions by Michelle P. Brown, David A. E. Pelteret, and Catherine E. Karkov. The second section, “The Cross: Meaning and Word,” deals in semantics and semeology with essays by Éamonn Ó Carragáin, Helen Damico, Rolf Bremmer, and Ursula Lenker. The third section of the book, “The Cross: Gesture and Structure,” employs methodologies drawn from archaeology, new media, and theories of rulership to develop new insights into subjects as varied as cereal production, the little-known Nunburnholme Cross, and early medieval concepts of political power.
Cross and Cruciform in the Anglo-Saxon World: Studies to Honor the Memory of Timothy Reuter is a major collection of new research, completing the publication series of the Sancta Crux/Halig Rod project. Cross and Culture in Anglo-Saxon England: Studies in Honor of George Hardin Brown, Volume 2 in this series, remains available from West Virginia University Press.
As Volume One in the Sancta Crux/Halig Rod series, this collection of new research offers fascinating glimpses into how the way the cross, the central image of Christianity in the Anglo-Saxon period, was textualized, reified, visualized, and performed. The cross in early medieval England was so ubiquitous it became invisible to the modern eye, and yet it played an innovative role in Anglo-Saxon culture, medicine, and popular practice. It represented one of the most powerful relics, emblems, and images in medieval culture because it could be duplicated in many forms and was accessible to every layer of society. The volume speaks to critical issues of cultural interpretation for Anglo-Saxonists, medievalists of all disciplines, and those interested in cultural studies in general.
Crossing Borders tells the intriguing but largely unfamiliar story of the exchange of culture and knowledge between Jews and non-Jews in the Muslim and Christian worlds during the late Middle Ages as part of the preparation of Hebrew manuscripts. The book is composed of ten narratives, each of which brings to light a different aspect of Jewish life in a non-Jewish medieval society—highlighting the practical cooperation, social interaction, and religious toleration that was surprisingly common between the groups involved in the early enterprise of book production.
Alongside the narratives, Crossing Borders is beautifully illustrated with images from the Hebrew holdings at the Bodleian Library—one of the largest and most important collections of Hebrew manuscripts worldwide. The art includes Christian codex fragments from the third century, a copy of Moses Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah signed by Maimonides himself, a thirteenth century German Jewish prayer book, and lavishly illuminated Spanish Bible manuscripts from the fifteenth century. This exquisitely illustrated book takes a fascinating look at the often-ignored role of Jews in the written transmission of culture and science throughout medieval Europe.
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