Books in the Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought: Fourth Series series

The general councils of the fifteenth century constituted a remarkable political experiment, which used collective decision-making to tackle important problems facing the church. This book offers a fundamental reassessment of England's relationship with these councils, revealing how political thought, heresy, and collective politics were connected.

Despite the recent renaissance in studies of the reign of Richard III, most historians have remained focussed on conventional themes, especially the character and motivation of the king and the fate of his nephews. Less attention, as a result, has been devoted to the reign's importance in the patterns of late medieval government and in the evolution of royal authority.

An examination of the gentry as land holders, pillars of society, political leaders, family members and individuals.

This is a study of landholding and alliance in England in the years 950 to 1086. It will become the standard work on the often volatile relationship between the king and the great lords in this key transitional period.

Which of the two sides of Clement prevailed the 'official' or the personal? The book attempts to answer this question by examining both his ideas and his actions in connection with some of the major issues of the reign.

This is a detailed study of the forms in which charitable giving was organised in medieval Cambridge and Cambridgeshire, unravelling the economic and demographic factors which created the need for relief as well as the forms in which the community offered it.

This is the first full-length analysis of the machinery and men of government under Henry I, which looks in much greater detail than is possible for other contemporary states at the way government worked and at the careers of royal servants.

Gregory the Great interpreted the Bible with equal emphasis on the practical living of the good Christian life and the aspiration of the soul towards God and the life to come. This study looks at his thought as a whole, and the way he arrived at a balance between the archive and the way he arrived at a balance between the active and the contemplative.

Within Anglo-Saxon England there was a strong and enduring tradition of royal sanctity - of men and women of royal birth who, in an age before the development of papal canonization, came to be venerated as saints by the regional church.

This is a detailed study of Jewish settlement and of seven different Jewish communities in England between 1262 and 1290, offering in addition a new consideration of the prelude to Edward I's expulsion of the Jews in 1290.

This book assimilates a great deal of European scholarship on the realities and structures of power. It examines an important aspect of early medieval government, itinerant kingship, and shows how monasteries and convents in tenth- and eleventh-century Germany lent it crucial economic and political support.

This is a study of the economic, social, legal and religious position of three minorities - Jews, Muslims and pagan Turkic nomads - within the medieval Christian kingdom of Hungary. It demonstrates that their status depended not simply on Christian religious tenets, and investigates the complex situation 'at the gate of Christendom'.

From 1250 to 1795 Lithuania covered a vast area of eastern and central Europe. Until 1387 the country was pagan. How this huge state came to expand, defend itself against western European crusaders and play a conspicuous part in European life are the main subjects of this book, first published in 1994.

This book studies the problem of Christianisation in southern France during the early sixth century AD, and of the transformation of the pagan Roman empire, from the perspective of the career and writings of Bishop Caesarius of Arles (470-542).

John Wyclif was the fourteenth-century English thinker responsible for the first English Bible, and for the Lollard movement. In contrast with most other commentaries, this book argues that Wyclif's political programme was based on a coherent philosophical vision ultimately consistent with his earlier reformative ideas.

This book explores the full range of social, economic, religious and cultural contacts between England and the German city of Cologne during the central Middle Ages. From beguines to English sterling, pilgrims to emigrants, crusaders and merchants to teachers, there existed a complex world of Anglo-German associations.

This is the first systematic interpretation of William Durant's remarkable project to transfer supreme legislative authority from the papacy to general councils. It suggests that the conciliar theory has a more ambivalent complexion than is sometimes recognized.

Drawing on an extensive range of original sources, this study examines the nature and role of the aristocracy in twelfth-century Spain.

This is the first full analysis of papal involvement in late medieval Britain, using local sources in conjunction with material from the Vatican archives. It deals with the Avignon papacy's relations with Scotland and northern England during a period in which papal involvement at the local level was unusually wide-ranging, but still was generally accepted.

This book is a major study in the English language on the career of Chrodegang of Metz, one of the foremost churchmen in Francia in the eighth century. It explores the programme of reform he undertook in order to transform his see into a holy city.

In this study, first published in 1988, the authors offer the first full-scale study of William of Tyre as a historian. They examine the influences which fashioned his material, and examine what he had to say about certain topics - the monarchy in Jerusalem, the Church, the papacy, the Byzantine empire and the Crusade - and why he wrote as he did.

The first study of the lives of the 'runaway religious', the monks, canons and friars who fled their monasteries and returned to a life in the world only to be pursued by the Church authorities.

This history of the English royal manor of Havering, Essex, illustrates life at one extreme of the spectrum of personal and collective freedom during the later Middle Ages, revealing the kinds of patterns which could emerge when medieval people were placed in a setting of unusual independence.

Based on extensive research this study examines the early growth of Barcelona in an effort to understand the causes of the European economic take-off. The rise, function and family structure of the city's patriciate is also examined. Many traditional assumptions about the nature of Mediterranean towns are challenged.

This is the first biography of one of the wealthiest and most influential bishops of medieval Europe. It sheds new light on on the role of aliens in English politics, Magna Carta, the loss of Normandy, and the constitutional and administrative developments of the reign of Henry III.

The least-studied state of the late medieval Italy is that of the Este family, lords (later Dukes) of the cities of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio. This book is the first modern attempt to provide a detailed analysis of the political structure of this state based on archive sources.

This is a full-scale study of the political thought of the Italian jurist, Baldus de Ubaldis (1327-1400). It examines his treatment of universal and territorial sovereignty; his contribution to the development of the idea of the state; his theory of the sovereignty of independent city-republics; his ideas of citizenship; and his discussion of kingship and signorie.

This book offers perspectives on the legal and intellectual developments of the twelfth century. Gratian's collection of Church law, the Decretum, was a key text in these developments. Compiled in around 1140, it remained a fundamental work throughout and beyond the Middle Ages. Until now, the many mysteries surrounding the creation of the Decretum have remained unsolved, thereby hampering exploration of the jurisprudential renaissance of the twelfth century. Professor Winroth has now discovered the original version of the Decretum, which has long lain unnoticed among medieval manuscripts, in a version about half as long as the final text. It is also different from the final version in many respects - for example, with regard to the use of of Roman law sources - enabling a reconsideration of the resurgence of law in the twelfth century.

This book is a study of imperialism and its consequences in the early Middle Ages. Focusing on the development of Brittany as a Carolingian principality, this book offers interpretations of the largest western empire of the medieval period.

This lively study of Muslims living under Christian rule in medieval Spain confronts questions of community relations, politics, trade and government, through a study of the common people of the era. It focuses on the evolution of an independent Islamic society into one living under Christian political domination.