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Walter de Gray Birch (1842-1924) worked in the Department of Manuscripts at the British Museum from 1864 to 1902. His acclaimed collection of Anglo-Saxon charters, published between 1883 and 1893, is still consulted by scholars of pre-conquest Britain as the fullest chronological compilation for the period to 975 CE.

Otto Seeck (1850-1921) was a student of Theodor Mommsen, to whom he dedicated this, his first major work, published in 1876. The 'Notitia dignitatum' edited here is an unparalleled source of data about the administrative structure of the later Roman empire, east and west.

First published in 1938 and reprinted many times, this book by the distinguished medievalist G. G. Coulton (1858-1947) was described by The Times Literary Supplement as 'a triumph of presentation ... This survey is in short an achievement notable alike for its erudition and also for the grace with which such learning is here so lightly carried. ... it would be hard to discover a better introduction to the everyday life of England during those pregnant centuries between the Norman Conquest and the Reformation'. Fifty-two chapters based on a lifetime of research cover every aspect of medieval life, from the emergence of feudalism to 'the bursting of the dykes' at the Reformation. The focus is largely on England, but the European context is also clearly defined in this remarkable synthesis: as a review in The Observer said at first publication, 'There is no one else like Dr Coulton.'

First published in 1933 as part of the Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought series, Coulton's Scottish Abbeys and Social Life was an expanded version of his Rhind Lectures given to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 1931. Although a rigorous academic, who stressed the importance of using primary sources, Coulton was skilled at making medieval history accessible to a wider audience. He played an important role in encouraging interest in the study of social and economic, rather than political and military, history of the Middle Ages among younger scholars. In the present work, he used his wide reading of the evidence to examine how monasticism developed in Scotland, from the early Celtic period to the Reformation. Much of the material reveals a complex relationship between the monks of the various orders and the world in which they lived, and teaches the reader about the Church and Scottish society.

First published in 1918, and re-issued with forty pages of illustrations in 1919, Social Life in Britain marked a turning point in Coulton's writings. Although a rigorous academic who stressed the importance of using primary sources, Coulton was skilled at making medieval history accessible to a wider audience, by dealing with ordinary lives. He played an important role in encouraging interest in the study of social and economic, rather than political and military, history of the Middle Ages among younger scholars. In the present work, he used his extraordinarily wide reading of historical and literary sources to cover all aspects of ordinary life in medieval Britain. These include birth and childhood, education, town life, food and drink, the Church and medical methods. He also deals with aspects of women's lives, travelling, and bizarre superstitions which were widely held. A fascinating book to dip into, with a wealth of material.

This 1930 edition includes essays from both the first and second series of Coulton's Medieval Studies, together with appendices. Although an academic who stressed the importance of using primary sources, Coulton was skilled at making medieval history accessible to a wider audience. He played an important role in encouraging interest in the study of social and economic history of the Middle Ages among younger scholars. These ten essays, all on aspects of religion, were somewhat controversial in their day. Coulton believed that sectarian bias frequently caused a distorted view of history, and he was highly critical of Roman Catholic interpretations of the medieval church. In the appendices he gives a detailed critique of Cardinal Francis Gasquet's historical writings, listing what Coulton regards as errors or deliberate falsifications. Even where Coulton himself appears guilty of bias, his wide knowledge of sources makes his writings still valuable to modern readers.

First published in 1905, H. Munro Chadwick's Studies on Anglo-Saxon Institutions applied his study of philology to a re-analysis of the historical evidence for early English law and administration. In the first part he examines the development of the monetary and social systems, coming to some controversial interpretations. The second part of the book looks at the administration at national and local levels, land tenure and the origin of the nobility. He shows that there was considerable variation between different Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and their legal and social organisation. Chadwick combined his knowledge of languages, history and archaeology to highlight new areas for further research, and he had considerable influence on the development of the study of Anglo-Saxon and related subjects at Cambridge.

In this 1907 work, H. Munro Chadwick (1870-1947) re-examines the early history of the English nation from a new perspective. By training a philologist, he uses the tools of ethnology, history, tradition, language, customs, religion and archaeology, to understand how the various Germanic tribes established themselves in Britain, founding new kingdoms. Despite an almost total lack of English historical documents from the period, Chadwick uses a range of historical and literary sources, from both sides of the English Channel, which relied on oral traditions. By close linguistic analysis he shows how the Saxon and other invaders retained close cultural ties with their continental kinsmen. He shows that although the Dark Ages may be obscure due to lack of contemporary sources, careful scholarly analysis of later texts can reveal a great deal about the history, culture and society of the earlier period.

First published in 1926, G. R. Owst's Preaching in Medieval England has remained a seminal work on the topic of English sermons of the period 1350-1450. In studying a largely neglected but important aspect of the medieval religious experience, the author adds considerably to our understanding of the pre-Reformation church. The book is in three parts - the preachers, the circumstances of the preaching and reception, and the sermons themselves. In the first section Owst discusses the different classes of preacher, the secular clergy, monks and particularly the wandering friars, famous for their preaching. In the second part he studies the experience of sermons, how, where and when they were delivered, and to whom. The examination of the sermons covers not only their content and language, but also the surviving manuals on preaching and eloquence, and advice to preachers. This wide ranging and scholarly book remains a crucial work on medieval preaching.

This 1913 book was considered ground-breaking on first publication. While there are few documentary sources for Anglo-Saxon history, Major uses his intimate knowledge of the geography of the West County to re-interpret the surviving records. By examining physical and archaeological evidence, he sheds new light on the foundation and development of the kingdom of Wessex. He also uses modern boundaries, place names and local traditions, previously overlooked by scholars, to understand how Wessex history was shaped. He shows how the kingdom was first established, and its boundaries extended through warfare with its neighbours, between the late fifth to eighth centuries. Thereafter, famously led by Alfred the Great, Wessex fought and survived Viking invasions; but eventually fell to the Normans in 1066. Although much new archaeological evidence has been uncovered since the book was written, it continues to demonstrate the significance of landscape and folklore study to history.

Studies in Church Life in England under Edward III was first published in 1934 as part of the Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought series. Wood-Legh has chosen five topics of church history which frequently occur in the Patent Rolls of Edward III. Chancery documents were valuable sources of information on aspects of the medieval church, but had seldom been systematically studied by church historians before this. The five essays cover royal administration of religious houses, the visitation of hospitals, the application of the Statute of Mortmain, chantry chapels, and the appropriation of parish churches by religious houses. All of these topics are then related to three themes, public opinion of the church, the effects of the Black Death on the church, and the relationship between the church and central government. The book is a splendid example of how administrative sources can shed light on all aspects of history.

J. R. H. Moorman was one of the foremost Anglican scholars of the English church in the middle ages, and especially of the Franciscan order. First published in 1945, Church Life in England in the Thirteenth Century provides a social history of the medieval English church. Two per cent of the population were then in religious orders of some kind, and church authority was at least as powerful as that of the state for the rest of the population. In the first part of the book, Moorman uses original sources to give a picture of the life of the secular clergy, their organisation, finances, training, and the different roles they filled with regard to the laity. The second part concentrates on the monastic orders, arguing that, with the exception of the friars, the great days of the monasteries were over, and that they had entered a period of consolidation and inevitable decline.

Eileen Power, best known for her posthumously published Medieval Women, was one of the foremost scholars of medieval economic and social history in the first half of the twentieth century. This 1922 work is a substantial study of medieval English nunneries between 1275 and 1535. Power examines in depth who entered the convents, how they were organised, their finances, activities and problems. Although medieval nunneries were significantly poorer and less well documented than the monastic houses, Power uses the available sources to build up a multifaceted picture of medieval life. Her arguments are firmly rooted in documentary evidence, but are presented in an extremely accessible and engaging style. The book reveals that convent life was not particularly ascetic or learned, and that in poorer houses the nuns had to find additional sources of income. Power's account of their methods of coping makes fascinating reading.

One of the original disciples of Saint Francis, Blessed Giles of Assisi preached a message of poverty and penance throughout Italy, the Holy Land, and North Africa before turning to a life of contemplation. His Life, here edited and translated by Walter Seton, offers valuable perspectives on this devout man, who strove not just to follow but to embody the Franciscan Rule. Seton analyses the sources for the short and long versions of the Life, arguing influentially that the Short Life represents the earlier, more authentic recension. His 1918 edition was based upon a previously unnoticed version of the Short Life contained in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Canonici Misc. 528. Facing-page Latin and English make the text accessible to students and experts alike. A vital addition to Franciscan studies when first published, this important work is now available to a new generation of scholars.

Walter Seton's 1915 book focuses on one of the key, understudied figures of the early Franciscan movement. Abbess of the Convent of Prague, Blessed Agnes was central to the establishment of the Order of Saint Clare. She presented persuasive arguments to convince the Holy See to permit female Franciscans to live according to their Rule and practise voluntary poverty. Seton's edition, drawn from manuscripts in German libraries, includes the oldest extant Latin version of Agnes' Life together with a fifteenth-century German version and German copies of four letters she received from Saint Clare. Praised in 1916 for its 'admirable thoroughness', this edition sheds new light on Blessed Agnes, whose importance was long overshadowed by her more prominent contemporaries, Saint Clare and Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, her cousin. This reissue makes this valuable primary material accessible again to scholars working on Franciscan history and medieval women's spirituality.

Around 1820, several manuscripts went missing from the archives of Maine-et-Loire in Angers, among them two of the region's most valued cartularies, Le Livre Noir de Saint-Florent, pres Saumur and La Grande Pancarte de Fontevrauld. These volumes were later discovered to have been purchased by the famed book collector Thomas Phillipps, and, in 1850, the Angers archivist Paul Marchegay travelled to England to document these and other French cartularies in English collections. The result of his efforts is Cartulaires Francais en Angleterre (1855). This important bibliography provides full descriptions of seven French cartulary manuscripts held at the British Museum, lists by geographic location twenty-two documents pertaining to French foundations, and describes the two manuscripts held in the Phillipps collection. It both represents an important contribution to the history of Angers and reveals a fascinating story of diplomatic co-operation among the archivists of France and England.

Gilbert Crispin (c. 1045-1117/18), fourth abbot of Westminster Abbey, was a scion of an important Norman family. Trained at Bec under St Anselm, later archbishop of Canterbury, he was a noted scholar and theologian. Under his rule, Westminster Abbey began to expand physically and grow in importance, making full play of its position as the chosen burial site of Edward the Confessor. The necessity to raise funds for the building work probably led to Crispin's association with the London Jewish community, and this was to inspire his most important theological work, Disputation with a Jew. In this 1911 book, J. Robinson Armitage, then dean of Westminster, mines the abbey archives to write both a biography and a discussion of Crispin's thirty-year administration of Westminster. He also includes the texts of all Crispin's known writings, together with a selection of charters. A significant work on a hitherto neglected Anglo-Norman churchman.

One of the most detailed works describing the walls of this renowned city, Alexander Van Milligen's Byzantine Constantinople: The Walls of the City and Adjoining Historical Sites (1899) is of use to anyone interested in Byzantine architecture, the Byzantine Empire, and medieval history more generally. Van Milligen uses his expertise as a historian who had lived and taught in Constantinople to provide a detailed account of the Byzantine capital before it fell in 1453. Complete with meticulous verbal descriptions, illustrations, maps and plans, Van Milligen combines historical accounts with physical surveys, tracing Constantinople's expansion. He describes how the city spread and how the walls adapted, pausing to outline the importance of certain structures within the city, and of the hierarchy of gates within the walls. He also includes a table of emperors to assist the general reader, while his painstaking detail makes the book useful to professional scholars as well.

John Horace Round (1854-1928) published Feudal England in 1895. The volume is a collection of Round's articles on feudalism, most of which had been previously published in the English Historical Review. The essays cover the period 1050-1200. They are linked by Round's overarching argument that it was the Norman Conquest that transplanted feudalism to England and that during the Anglo-Saxon period England had no real feudal institutions. The volume includes Round's groundbreaking article 'The Introduction of Knight Service into England', first published in the English Historical Review for 1891-1892; a number of his important essays on the Domesday Book, a topic on which he was long regarded as the leading expert; and several essays challenging the historical methods of Professor Freeman, the main opponent of Round's ideas. Feudal England was highly influential in medieval scholarship, and is still an important resource for researchers.

M. R. James (1862-1936) is probably best remembered as a writer of chilling ghost stories, but he was an outstanding scholar of medieval literature and palaeography, who served both as Provost of King's College, Cambridge, and as Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, and many of his stories reflect his academic background. First published in 1930, this volume contains a guide to many historical places of interest in the counties of Suffolk and Norfolk. James concentrates mainly on the medieval history of these counties, weaving fascinating details of personalities and daily life with surviving examples of churches, monasteries and manors. In this tour around the two counties, the history of rich monastic foundations such as Bury St Edmunds and Norwich is discussed together with lesser-known historical sites in a clearly written and richly illustrated volume, which remains a valuable source for medieval scholars and historians.

Russian historian and jurist Sir Paul Vinogradoff (1854-1925) maintained throughout his life a serious scholarly interest in the history of Great Britain, his adopted country. Elected to a professorship at Oxford in 1903, to the British Academy in 1905, and knighted for services to the realm in increasing Anglo-Russian understanding during the war (1917), Vinogradoff demonstrates in this book of 1892 both his interest in feudal England and his historiographic approach, which relied on detailed research using primary sources to examine individuals, communities, and social structures. Divided into two essays - 'The Peasantry of the Feudal Age' and 'The Manor and the Village Community' - the work used England's extensive feudal records to draw a general character of the period. Villainage will interest students of English or European mediaeval history and scholars of mediaeval legal history and of developments in nineteenth-century historiography.

In 1907, Henri Stein published his Bibliographie Generale des Cartulaires Francais ou Relatifs a l'Histoire de France, a work quickly hailed by reviewers as an 'indispensable bibliographic tool' in the study of Francophone medieval history. More than 4,500 entries list extant cartularies found not just within the national boundaries of France but in medieval French-speaking and French-influenced regions - including present-day western Switzerland, Belgium, Germany west of the Rhine, and parts of Spain. Stein includes cartularies of religious as well as civic provenance, and for each entry provides detailed manuscript information, where known, and publication history, when applicable. Two extensive tables list all the foundations, ecclesiastic and civil, included. Meticulous in execution and ambitious in scope, Stein's Bibliographie Generale remains one of the most important and complete guides to the cartulary genre, and a central resource for scholars interested in the economic and political history of the region.

This collection of 48 Latin documents dating from the sixth to the ninth centuries was published anonymously in Paris in 1848, when its focus on St Denis, the burial place of the French kings, would have been highly politically sensitive. Many of the charters relate to land, revenues or rights given by Merovingian and Carolingian kings to religious institutions near Paris closely connected to their dynasty. Subjects include Childebert I's foundation of the abbey of St Vincent in 558, donating fields, meadows, forests, fisheries and mills on the River Seine, and grants to St Denis from benefactors including Chlotharus II in 527, Dagobert I in 637, Childebert III in 710 (the taxes on a market) and Chilperichus II in 716-7 (100 cows and a forest). Writings by Pope Nicholas I and a Byzantine emperor also appear. The book provides valuable information about land and power in early medieval France.

Sir Henry Holland (1788-1873), physician and travel writer, was one of the best known and sought-after doctors in nineteenth-century Britain. He was medical attendant to Queen Caroline, the wife of George IV, and was appointed physician-extraordinary to Queen Victoria on her accession in 1837. Holland also counted six British prime ministers among his patients. He received honorary degrees from Oxford and Harvard, and served as president of the Royal Society three times. First published in 1852, Holland's book on mental physiology explores the medical links between mind and body, including the ways in which sleep, insanity, memory, age, instincts, and habits affect the human body and nervous system. Parts of this work also appeared in Holland's earlier publication, Medical Notes and Reflections (1839). While many of the theories on which he writes (such as phrenology) have since been discredited, Holland's book remains an intriguing insight into Victorian medical science.

An Austrian Dominican priest, Heinrich Denifle (1844-1905) carried out painstaking research in the archives of the Vatican and in libraries throughout Europe, resulting in several major publications on medieval history and theology. In 1887 he was appointed to edit the medieval records of the University of Paris, with the assistance of the palaeographer Emile Chatelaine (1851-1933). Paris was the centre of theological learning in Europe in the Middle Ages, and the records here contain important information regarding the university's organisation, teachers, students, relations with popes and kings, religious orders, and intellectual controversies. The four volumes published between 1889 and 1897 contain the texts of some 2,700 records, with references to many more in the notes. The university came into being around 1160, and Volume 1 (1889) covers the period up to 1286, with some 55 documents dating from before 1200.

An Austrian Dominican priest, Heinrich Denifle (1844-1905) carried out painstaking research in the archives of the Vatican and in libraries throughout Europe, resulting in several major publications on medieval history and theology. In 1887 he was appointed to edit the medieval records of the University of Paris, with the assistance of the palaeographer Emile Chatelaine (1851-1933). Paris was the centre of theological learning in Europe in the Middle Ages, and the records here contain important information regarding the university's organisation, teachers, students, relations with popes and kings, religious orders, and intellectual controversies. The four volumes published between 1889 and 1897 contain the texts of some 2,700 records, with references to many more in the notes. Volume 2 (1891) contains material covering 1286-1350, when the university was growing both in size and influence internationally.

An Austrian Dominican priest, Heinrich Denifle (1844-1905) carried out painstaking research in the archives of the Vatican and in libraries throughout Europe, resulting in several major publications on medieval history and theology. In 1887 he was appointed to edit the medieval records of the University of Paris, with the assistance of the palaeographer Emile Chatelaine (1851-1933). Paris was the centre of theological learning in Europe in the Middle Ages, and the records here contain important information regarding the university's organisation, teachers, students, relations with popes and kings, religious orders, and intellectual controversies. The four volumes published between 1889 and 1897 contain the texts of some 2,700 records, with references to many more in the notes. Volume 3 (1894) covers 1350-94, as the university dealt with the aftermath of the Black Death, and with the Hundred Years War.

An Austrian Dominican priest, Heinrich Denifle (1844-1905) carried out painstaking research in the archives of the Vatican and in libraries throughout Europe, resulting in several major publications on medieval history and theology. In 1887 he was appointed to edit the medieval records of the University of Paris, with the assistance of the palaeographer Emile Chatelaine (1851-1933). Paris was the centre of theological learning in Europe in the Middle Ages, and the records here contain important information regarding the university's organisation, teachers, students, relations with popes and kings, religious orders, and intellectual controversies. The four volumes published between 1889 and 1897 contain the texts of some 2,700 records, with references to many more in the notes. Volume 4 (1897) contains almost a thousand records from the period 1394-1452, a difficult time for the university owing to the Western Schism and the Hundred Years War.

The author of this history was a member of the Byzantine Doukas family, a grandson of Michael Doukas, who had come to prominence in the civil wars of the fourteenth century, and possibly a remote descendant of the eleventh-century emperor Michael VII. His own first name and dates of birth and death are not known, but he seemed to have worked for a Genoese family or business, and after the fall of Constantinople took refuge on the island of Lesbos, then controlled by the Genoese Gattilusi dynasty. His history of the period 1341-1462, including the Ottoman conquest, survived in one manuscript: this 1834 edition by Immanuel Bekker provides, as well as a Latin translation of the original Greek text, a near-contemporary Italian version of unknown authorship discovered in a Venetian library by the historian Leopold Ranke, who supplied it to Bekker.

William Stubbs (1825-1901), one of the leading historians of his generation, pursued his academic research alongside his work as a clergyman. He was elected Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford in 1866 and appointed a bishop in 1884. Stubbs was a major figure in medieval English historiography, with special interests in legal and constitutional history. This work was first published in 1870. It begins with an outline of English constitutional history, which he urged should be part of the curriculum, and then presents documents from Roman times up to the thirteenth century. Eight editions followed in Stubbs' lifetime, and it became a core textbook. The ninth edition of 1913, revised by H. W. C. Davis (1874-1928), is reissued here, and contains better editions and translations of Anglo-Saxon and French texts than were available in Stubbs' lifetime, as well as some then newly discovered material and an updated glossary.