Annotations in modern books are a phenomenon that often causes disapproval: we are not supposed to draw, doodle, underline, or highlight in our books. In many medieval manuscripts, however, the pages are filled with annotations around the text and in-between the lines. In some cases, a 'white space' around the text is even laid out to contain extra text, pricked and ruled for the purpose. Just as footnotes are an approved and standard part of the modern academic book, so the flyleaves, margins, and interlinear spaces of many medieval manuscripts are an invitation to add extra text. This volume focuses on annotation in the early medieval period. In treating manuscripts as mirrors of the medieval minds who created them - reflecting their interests, their choices, their practices - the essays explore a number of key topics. Are there certain genres in which the making of annotations seems to be more appropriate or common than in others? Are there genres in which annotating is 'not done'? Are there certain monastic centres in which annotating practices flourish, and from which they spread? The volume thus investigates whether early medieval annotators used specific techniques, perhaps identifiable with their scribal communities or schools. It explores what annotators actually sought to accomplish with their annotations, and how the techniques of annotating developed over time and per region.

Early medieval manuscripts were commonly annotated not only by glosses but also by annotation symbols. These graphic signs inserted in manuscript margins provided manuscript text with layers of additional meaning and functionality. From the most common signs marking biblical quotations and passages of interest to the sophisticated systems of signs used by some of the early medieval scholars, annotation symbols represent perhaps the most common form of marginalia encountered in early medieval books. Yet, their non-verbal character proved a serious obstacle to their understanding and appreciation. This book represents the first systematic study of annotation symbols used in the Latin West between c. 400 and c. 900. Combining paleographic evidence with the evidence of written sources such as late antique and early medieval lists of signs, this book identifies the most important communities of sign users and conventions in use in the early Middle Ages. It explores some of the notable differences between regions, periods, linguistic communities and classes of users and reconstructs a fascinating history of the practice of using signs, rather than words, to annotate text. Those who work with early medieval manuscripts will, furthermore, find this book to be a practical handbook of the most common annotation symbols attested in early medieval Western manuscripts or discussed in ancient and medieval sources.

This important and overdue book examines illuminated manuscripts and other book arts of the Global Middle Ages. Illuminated manuscripts and illustrated or decorated books—like today’s museums—preserve a rich array of information about how premodern peoples conceived of and perceived the world, its many cultures, and everyone’s place in it. Often a Eurocentric field of study, manuscripts are prisms through which we can glimpse the interconnected global history of humanity. Toward a Global Middle Ages is the first publication to examine decorated books produced across the globe during the period traditionally known as medieval. Through essays and case studies, the volume’s multidisciplinary contributors expand the historiography, chronology, and geography of manuscript studies to embrace a diversity of objects, individuals, narratives, and materials from Africa, Asia, Australasia, and the Americas—an approach that both engages with and contributes to the emerging field of scholarly inquiry known as the Global Middle Ages. Featuring more than 160 color illustrations, this wide-ranging and provocative collection is intended for all who are interested in engaging in a dialogue about how books and other textual objects contributed to world-making strategies from about 400 to 1600.

In this highly illustrated book, David Hinton looks at what possessions meant to people at every level of society in Britain in the middle ages, from elaborate gold jewellery to clay pots, and provides a fascinating window into the society of the middle ages. Gold and Gilt, Pots and Pins is about things worn and used in Britain throughout the Middle Ages, from the great treasure hoards that mark the end of the Roman Empire to the new expressions of ideas promoted by the Renaissance and Reformation.

Originally published in 1993, The Medieval Charlemagne Legend is a selective bibliography for the literary scholar, of historical and literary material relating to Charlemagne. The book provides a chronological listing of sources on the legend and man is split into three distinct sections, covering the history of Charlemagne, the literature of Charlemagne and the medieval biography and chronicle of Charlemagne.

For earlier medieval Christians, the Bible was the book of guidance above all others, and the route to religious knowledge, used for all kinds of practical purposes, from divination to models of government in kingdom or household. This book's focus is on how medieval people accessed Scripture by reading, but also by hearing and memorizing sound-bites from the liturgy, chants and hymns, or sermons explicating Scripture in various vernaculars. Time, place and social class determined access to these varied forms of Scripture. Throughout the earlier medieval period, the Psalms attracted most readers and searchers for meanings. This book's contributors probe readers' motivations, intellectual resources and religious concerns. They ask for whom the readers wrote, where they expected their readers to be located and in what institutional, social and political environments they belonged; why writers chose to write about, or draw on, certain parts of the Bible rather than others, and what real-life contexts or conjunctures inspired them; why the Old Testament so often loomed so large, and how its law-books, its histories, its prophetic books and its poetry were made intelligible to readers, hearers and memorizers. This book's contributors, in raising so many questions, do justice to both uniqueness and diversity.

More than seventy documents, ranging in date from the early eleventh century to the early fourteenth century and representing both orthodox and heretical viewpoints are included.

Describes the late Middle Ages, the people, working conditions, village life, religion, and conquests.

This book is aimed at students coming to the study of western European medieval history for the first time, and also graduate students on interdisciplinary medieval studies programmes. It examines the place of the Middle Ages in modern popular culture, exploring the roots of the stereotypes that appear in films, on television and in the press, and asking why they remain so persistent. The book also asks whether 'medieval' is indeed a useful category in terms of historical periodization. It investigates some of the particular challenges posed by medieval sources and the ways in which they have survived. And it concludes with an exploration of the relevance of medieval history in today's world.