The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.tandfebooks.com/doi/view/10.4324/9781351116022, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 licence. DOI https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351116022 Published with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation. This volume is an investigation of how Augustine was received in the Carolingian period, and the elements of his thought which had an impact on Carolingian ideas of ‘state’, rulership and ethics. It focuses on Alcuin of York and Hincmar of Rheims, authors and political advisers to Charlemagne and to Charles the Bald, respectively. It examines how they used Augustinian political thought and ethics, as manifested in the De civitate Dei, to give more weight to their advice. A comparative approach sheds light on the differences between Charlemagne’s reign and that of his grandson. It scrutinizes Alcuin’s and Hincmar’s discussions of empire, rulership and the moral conduct of political agents during which both drew on the De civitate Dei, although each came away with a different understanding. By means of a philological–historical approach, the book offers a deeper reading and treats the Latin texts as political discourses defined by content and language.

Why did weeds matter in the Carolingian empire? What was their special significance for writers in eighth- and ninth-century Europe and how was this connected with the growth of real weeds? In early medieval Europe, unwanted plants that persistently appeared among crops created extra work, reduced productivity, and challenged theologians who believed God had made all vegetation good. For the first time, in this book weeds emerge as protagonists in early medieval European history, driving human farming strategies and coloring people's imagination. Early medieval Europeans' effort to create agroecosystems that satisfied their needs and cosmologies that confirmed Christian accounts of vegetable creation both had to come to terms with unruly plants. Using diverse kinds of texts, fresh archaeobotanical data, and even mosaics, this interdisciplinary study reveals how early medieval Europeans interacted with their environments.

An innovative study of the pre-history of the League of Nations, tracing the pro-League movement's unexpected development.

Why devote a Companion to the "mirrors for princes", whose very existence is debated? These texts offer key insights into political thoughts of the past. Their ambiguous, problematic status further enhances their interest. And although recent research has fundamentally challenged established views of these texts, until now there has been no critical introduction to the genre. This volume therefore fills this important gap, while promoting a global historical perspective of different “mirrors for princes” traditions from antiquity to humanism, via Byzantium, Persia, Islam, and the medieval West. This Companion also proposes new avenues of reflection on the anchoring of these texts in their historical realities. Contributors are Makram Abbès, Denise Aigle, Olivier Biaggini, Hugo Bizzarri, Charles F. Briggs, Sylvène Edouard, Jean-Philippe Genet, John R. Lenz, Louise Marlow, Cary J. Nederman, Corinne Peneau, Stéphane Péquignot, Noëlle-Laetitia Perret, Günter Prinzing, Volker Reinhardt, Hans-Joachim Schmidt, Tom Stevenson, Karl Ubl, and Steven J. Williams.

Religion plays a central role in nearly every aspect in people's life of most pre-modern cultures. Especially the interconnection between religion and politics is a common fact but the details of this relation and interacting processes behind this are not substantially studied. Therefore, this volume does not aim to confirm the linkage of religion and politics in general but to investigate its functionalities in political processes. A focus is placed on the political role of religious personnel beyond their religious and cultic tasks and their influence in pre-modern societies from a cross-cultural perspective. Specialists from various disciplines present their research based on case studies. Thereby this interdisciplinary volume covers a wide geographical and chronological range from ancient Egypt in the Bronze Age until medieval England. These papers are organised according to core functions questioning the instrumentalisation of religious personnel.

A major reinterpretation of the religious superstate that came to define both Europe and Christianity itself, by one of our foremost medieval historians. In the fourth century AD, a new faith grew out of Palestine, overwhelming the paganism of Rome and resoundingly defeating a host of other rival belief systems. Almost a thousand years later, all of Europe was controlled by Christian rulers, and the religion, ingrained within culture and society, exercised a monolithic hold over its population. But how did a small sect of isolated and intensely committed congregations become a mass movement centrally directed from Rome? As Peter Heather shows in this illuminating new history, there was nothing inevitable about Christendom's rise and eventual dominance. From Constantine the Great's pivotal conversion to Christianity to the crisis that followed the collapse of the Roman empire—which left the religion teetering on the edge of extinction—to the astonishing revolution of the eleventh century and beyond, out of which the Papacy emerged as the head of a vast international corporation, Heather traces Christendom's chameleonlike capacity for self-reinvention, as it not only defined a fledgling religion but transformed it into an institution that wielded effective authority across virtually all of the disparate peoples of medieval Europe. Authoritative, vivid, and filled with new insights, this is an unparalleled history of early Christianity.

The century between c. 650 and 750 was one of major religious, social and political transformations in northwest Europe. In the Frankish kingdom, clerics from Ireland and Britain played an important role in these processes. One of the most prominent figures to emerge from this period was Willibrord – a Northumbrian educated in Ireland who became the first bishop of Utrecht and founded the monastery of Echternach in modern Luxembourg. Through his involvement in the Christianisation of Frisia, his cooperation with the eastern Frankish elite, including the ancestors of Charlemagne, and his connection with the pope, Willibrord was at the centre of the developments which led to the formation of a new ecclesiastical and political landscape between the North Sea and Thuringia on the eve of the Carolingian period. This book, which represents the first extensive study of the topic in English, extends its analysis of Willibrord’s career beyond the mission to Frisia and examines the political dimension of his activity in Merovingian Francia and its border regions. By offering a fresh look at the main sources for Willibrord’s life, the book explores how Insular clerics shaped their Frankish environment through the creation of networks between Ireland, Britain and the continent and their ability to take on a variety of different roles within Merovingian society.

This volume offers unparalleled coverage of all aspects of art and architecture from medieval Western Europe, from the 6th century to the early 16th century. Drawing upon the expansive scholarship in the celebrated 'Grove Dictionary of Art' and adding hundreds of new entries, it offers students, researchers and the general public a reliable, up-to-date, and convenient resource covering this field of major importance in the development of Western history and international art and architecture.

Der Band enthält 31 Beiträge in deutscher, französischer und englischer Sprache. Die Themenvielfalt reicht von Gregor dem Großen und der Bekämpfung von Häresien, der Nachkommenschaft König Ludwigs VI. von Frankreich, dem Königtum Mallorca zur Zeit der Sizilianischen Vesper und dem Kriegsdienst von Geistlichen im späten Mittelalter über Gedanken zum Jubiläum der Reformation, die Problematik von Grenzen und Grenzräumen, den Wohlfahrtsausschuss in der Französischen Revolution und die Rezeption des Jansenismus bis zur optischen Telegrafie im frühen 19. Jahrhundert, die feministischen Wurzeln des internationalen Sozialismus und den Maoismus in Frankreich. Mit der Rezeption von "Mein Kampf" in Frankreich befassen sich die Beiträge einer 2018 veranstalteten Tagung.