Brepols Online Books Medieval Miscellanea Collection 2025 - bob2025mime

The world of Byzantine liturgical book types is fascinating but also confusing. While they are central to the study and celebration of Byzantine Liturgy, no one work offers an overview of their history, contents, and structure. This volume offers for the first time an introduction to the major types of Byzantine liturgical books, their taxonomy, origins, development, and contents.

How did food impact social relationships in early medieval England? What cultivation practices were followed, to produce the best possible food supplies? What was the cultural significance of bread? How was the human body nourished? When sickness inevitably occurred, where did one go, and who was consulted for healing? And how was spiritual health also protected? The essays gathered together in this exciting volume draw on a range of different disciplines, from early medieval economic and social history, to experimental archaeology and medieval medicine, to offer a unique overview into day-to-day life in England nearly two millennia ago.Taking as their starting point the broad research interests of the volume’s honorand, Dr Debby Banham, contributors here offer new insights into the reproduction and ritual use of vernacular charms, examine the collation and translation of medieval medicine, elucidate monastic economies and production, and uncover the circumstances behind the production and transmission of medical manuscripts in early medieval England. Presenting new insights into agricultural practices and animal husbandry, monastic sign language and materia medica, plant knowledge and medical practices, the chapters within this volume not only offer a fitting tribute to Banham’s own groundbreaking work, but also shed new light on what it meant to nurture both body and soul in early medieval England.

This volume presents contributions by leading scholars on various topics and aspects of Islamic Archaeology, a discipline which has recently seen the development of exciting new approaches to the study of the material culture of the Muslim world. This material culture was produced by and/or for Muslims, as well as by and/or for non-Muslims living under Islamic rule from the 7th century onward, in an expanding and ultimately vast area reaching from southern Europe to West Asia.

The contributions in this book focus on Jordan, Oman, Spain, Turkey, Lebanon, as well as Israel, and cover a timespan from the 7th century through the Mamluk period to the early 20th century. They highlight the archaeology of large Islamic centers in the past, but also of the material culture in smaller sites and peripheral regions. Special emphasis is paid to pottery as one of the main artifacts that carry information on past societies, but other finds and materials are discussed as well. The aspect of Islamic material culture which receives particular attention is ‘production’, specifically the production of clay vessels, glaze, mercury, and crops.

What unites the new approaches presented here is that Islam is understood as both a ‘religion’ and a framework for economic, cultural, and social networks and influence. In this perspective, the volume aims to offer students of Islamic archaeology, historians of Islam and archaeologists of different disciplines a glimpse of the state-of-the-art in current Islamic Archaeology

This volume stems from a research project on medieval and sixteenth-century fragments with music carried out at CESEM–Centre for the Study of the Sociology and Aesthetics of Music, Lisbon Nova University, between 2021 and 2024, as well as from an international colloquium on fragmentology held in Cascais, Portugal, in July 2023. It brings together twenty studies that address a varied range of disjecta membra, including loose folios from dismembered manuscripts, mutilated musical-liturgical codices, incomplete sets of part-books, truncated musical settings, and even the remains of a historic organ. The aim is to invest these materials with significance beyond their condition as fragmented cultural artefacts by exploring their texts, contexts, meanings, trajectories and, when appropriate, proposing methods for their reconstitution.

Many of our oldest and best-loved stories are about killing guests and betraying hosts. Hospitality is celebrated, in medieval texts and in medieval studies, as a way of binding individuals together and strengthening social cohesion, but both the practice and narration of hospitality was shot through with ambiguity and ambivalence.

This volume shifts the scholarly gaze from the high table — where kings, queens, and honoured guests are graciously served by skilled servants — to the shadowy corners of the hall, the places where gossip and complaint are exchanged, where outlaws hide under the guise of hospitality, where hostages and troublesome strangers are benched, where the light from the hall-fire reflects on drawn blades: prompting difficult reflections on the processes of extraction and predation that provided the material foundations for the feast.

The chapters in Guests, Strangers, Aliens, Enemies range from Silk Road caravanserais in Armenia and crusader relations in the Latin East, through ambassadorial and papal receptions in the Mediterranean, treatment of merchants and the poor in Scandinavia, elite feasts in Latin Europe, to hosting of outlaws and hostages in Eurasia. The authors explore ambiguities of hospitality in the Middle Ages through a wide range of sources and methodological approaches.

Between the years 1000 and 1300, the two developing polities of Norway and Poland often followed similar trends. Both realms were located on what was considered the periphery of Europe, both joined Latin Christendom — and with it, the wider sphere of European cultural influence — at the turn of the first millennium, and both, by the end of the thirteenth century, had largely coalesced as stable kingdoms. Yet while the histories of these two countries have long been studied along national lines, it remains rarer for them to be considered outside of their traditional geographical context, and studied via comparison with events elsewhere.

This innovative volume seeks to explore the means and uses of symbolic power that were employed by religiopolitical elites in order to assert their legitimacy and dominance by taking an explicitly comparative approach and dual perspective on these two polities. What stories did elites tell themselves and others about their deservedness to rule, what spaces and objects did they utilize in order to project their elevated status, and how did struggle and rivalry form part of their societal dominance? Formed from chapters co-written by experts in Polish and Norwegian history, this unique volume not only reflects on the similarities and differences between events in these two polities, but also more broadly offers conceptual tools and comparative frameworks that can enhance our wider understanding of the conditions and factors that shaped religiopolitical behaviour on the peripheries.

Peu de notions médiévales sont aussi vastes et, semble-t-il, aussi hétérogènes que l’« amour » puisque, de la convoitise à la charité, de la passion amoureuse à la piété filiale, de l’amitié entre égaux à l’amour du prince, de l’amour de Dieu à l’amour du prochain en passant par celui envers soi-même ou ses ennemis, il reçoit les noms les plus variés, vise les objets les plus divers, encourt les jugements moraux les plus contraires. Ceci soulève plusieurs questions, au centre des échanges entre médiévistes de toutes disciplines: histoire, philosophie, théologie, lettres latines et romanes, histoire du droit, histoire de l’art etc. Pourquoi observe-t-on soudain une vogue littéraire de l’amour au xiie siècle, chez les poètes d’oc et d’oïl, les exégètes du Cantique des cantiques, les théologiens de la Trinité ou de la charité, les maîtres de la vie intérieure, les commentateurs du pseudo-Denys, les philosophes de l’amor honestus ou de l’amitié, les canonistes définissant le mariage, les théoriciens de l’amour du prince et de ses sujets, les amants eux-mêmes dont on commence à conserver les correspondances enflammées? Ensuite, comment écrivains et docteurs, tout en distinguant soigneusement les diverses sortes d’amour, les intègrent-ils dans une même conception unitaire? Enfin, pourquoi, dans les trois derniers siècles du Moyen Âge, se met-on à opposer de plus en plus la connaissance et l’amour comme deux facultés de l’âme symétriques et antithétiques, et quels sont les enjeux jusqu’à aujourd’hui de cette joute entre l’amour et la connaissance ?

The territory known as Livonia, on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, emerged as a result of the Baltic Crusades in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It was a region of multiple nations, languages and cultures, and the scene of their mutual interaction, connected to the Holy Roman Empire, the papal curia, Scandinavia and Lithuania, and mediating the Hanseatic trade with Russia. This book is a significant new study of the multiple facets of Baltic history, taking in social history, urban and rural culture, peasant economy and literacy, with novel perspectives on crusading, political history and the chief agents of power, notably the Teutonic Order. This first comprehensive treatment of Livonian history in English will serve as a valuable source of information for undergraduate and postgraduate students as well as a resource for studying the Baltic Crusades and crusader territories in general.

L’essor des traductions directes du grec au français commence dans les années 1550. Du début du xive siècle jusqu’au milieu du xvie siècle, les auteurs-traducteurs en langue française qui représentent la Grèce ancienne n’ont, sauf exception, aucune connaissance directe des œuvres grecques. Les savoirs sur la Grèce qu’ils transmettent et réinventent sont médiatisés par des filtres divers. Leur réception est indirecte, elle prend appui sur des œuvres antérieures, textuelles et iconographiques, dont les représentations de la Grèce ancienne sont déjà le fruit d’une ou de plusieurs réceptions.Les œuvres latines qu’ils traduisent et adaptentsont très diverses : des textes antiques jusqu’aux traductions humanistes d’œuvres grecques réalisées en Italie et aux Pays-Bas, en passant par des œuvres latines médiévales originales, des traductions latines du français et des traductions arabo-latines et arabo-hispano-latines. Les illustrations de nombreux manuscrits et imprimés redoublent cette traduction textuelle d’une traduction visuelle qui enrichit la mémoire de la Grèce ancienne ainsi recréée. La question de la réception de l’Antiquité grecque est ainsi explorée par une entrée différente de celle qui a été adoptée jusqu’à présent et qui a consisté en l’étude de la transmission et de la traduction directe des œuvres grecques. Le présent volume porte sur des traductions consacrées à des héros et héroïnes des temps mythiques jusqu’à la guerre de Troie.

The aim of this book is to forge a new critical perspective on the Spanish Habsburgs’ family networks by studying the roles performed by princes and princesses of the blood, of different ranks and status, in the service of the Spanish monarchs. The chapters included draw on a range of case studies in order to rethink the dynastic and political role assigned to the king’s relatives. They also analyse the problematic issues generated by the court, ceremonial, diplomatic, dynastic, and governmental duties undertaken by these political actors. In doing so, these studies forge a deeper understanding of the conflicts prompted by the administration of the extensive transnational community of Spanish Habsburg interests and allegiances. The innovative and insightful studies included in this volume are drawn from both unpublished doctoral theses as well as ongoing research projects. In this sense, it seeks to contribute to the evolving historiographical debate on the role played by a range of agents who have not been studied in depth by historians, above all with a focus on the construction of the Spanish Habsburg monarchy in the early modern period. The approach we have adopted has been to prioritize little-known and less-studied agents, contexts, and periods from the Spanish Habsburg sphere, which are nonetheless highly relevant for developing a deeper knowledge of the potential and expectations assigned to the king’s extended family, whether legitimate or illegitimate. Furthermore, this book addresses the problematic issues and conflicts that were prompted by these political agents in undertaking various diplomatic, dynastic and governmental roles.

How can contemporary theorisations of consent help us to nuance our understanding of consent and coercion in the Middle Ages? And what can reconsidering medieval attitudes towards consent offer to our own ‘consent culture’? Contemporary feminist approaches have identified consent both as a potent political framework for liberation and as an inherently limited concept that opens out onto other important ethical questions. Proceeding from this moment, this book looks in two directions to understand the varied ways in which structural inequalities impact meaningful consent and facilitate coercion in the Middle Ages and today.

Building upon the momentum of ‘medieval consent studies’ as a newly defined field, this volume expands the focus beyond rape and raptus, assessing more varied representations of consent and coercion through an intersectional consideration of power, inequality, and sexual violence. The contributions bring together different methodologies, cultural contexts, and literary traditions to highlight literature’s capacity to reflect otherwise undocumented forms of sexual vulnerability. Offering a compelling case for integrating critical approaches like trans history, codicology, animal studies, ecocriticism, and disability studies into this field, Reconsidering Consent and Coercion demonstrates the vital necessity of a nuanced and inclusive understanding of the past for our present discourses of consent.

The body or relics of a saint could attract divine protection on the community and the place where they were kept. If, in some cases, the monasteries were structures of assistance to sanctuaries of certain notoriety, starting from the 7th century, they increasingly played the role of protagonists, autonomously managing the devotional activities derived from the acquisition or translation of relics. The need to preserve the isolation of the 'clausura' and to manage, at the same time, an increasing flow of pilgrims led these monasteries to build new spaces for prayer, communion and assistance.

This book includes the Proceedings of the International Conference held in Naples (Italy) on November 28-29, 2022. The Conference - organized, as part of a Marie-Curie research project, by the Fondazione San Bonaventura with the contribution of the Italian Ministry of Culture - brought together historians, archaeologists, and art historians to discuss the theme of spatial articulation of monasteries chosen as places of pilgrimage during the Early Middle Ages in Western Europe. From this interdisciplinary discussion, exciting insights have emerged on aspects of particular relevance, such as the organization of the funerary space and interaction between monks and laypeople, the elements of balance or clash between 'clausura' and hospitality and the comparison between male and female monasteries as devotional centers.

In recent years, archaeologists working at Norse sites across the North Atlantic have excavated a number of very small churches with cemeteries, often associated with individual farms. Such sites seem to be a characteristic feature of early ecclesiastical establishments in Norse settlements around the North Atlantic, and they stand in marked contrast to church sites elsewhere in Europe. But what was the reason behind this phenomenon?

From Greenland to Denmark, and from Ireland to the Hebrides, Iceland, and Norway, this volume presents a much-needed overview of small church studies from around the North Atlantic. The chapters gathered here discuss the different types of evidence for small churches and early ecclesiastical landscapes, review existing debates, and develop a synthesis that places the small churches in a broader context. Ultimately, despite the varied types of data at play, the contributions to this volume combine to offer a more coherent picture of the small church phenomenon, pointing to a church that was able to answer the needs of a newly converted population despite the lack of an established infrastructure, and throwing new light on how people lived and worshipped in an environment of dispersed settlements.

This book is the result of an international conference organized by the University of Tours in May 2021. It sets out to explore the notion of sequel in literature by examining the Homeric poems. While Gérard Genette evoked Homer in a considerable number of pages of his essay Palimpsestes, he however paid particular attention to forms of continuity from the front, from the back and from the sides, afterwards and sideways, which seem to make Homeric material the first victim of the cyclical additions that appear to constitute the ineluctable future of the great epics. In recent decades, however, these positions have been strongly nuanced and the time was ripe, therefore, for diachronic reflection on the validity of the notion of the ‘Homeric sequel’ by testing the meaning it has in various geographical and cultural contexts, from Antiquity to the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

The authors of this volume contribute to the discussion of the literary concept of ‘continuation’ and offer a wide panorama of the poet's fruitful reception over time; they do so without neglecting the phenomena of transformation made possible by the survival of a mythology of Homeric origin which exists despite the absence of a direct reading of the Greek texts.

The interconnected histories of Judaism and Christianity are explored in this compelling volume honouring the influential work of Jeremy Cohen. Cohen’s pioneering studies have reshaped our understanding of these religious traditions, emphasizing the crucial role of cross-religious engagements in forming their self-perceptions and identities.

Comprising fifteen chapters, the book is organized into four thematic sections. The first section, Literary Mirrors and Inter-Religious Representations, explores patterns of internalizations, (mis)representations, and appropriations between competing religious traditions. The second section, Physical and Figurative Encounters, addresses the roles played by visible and physical markers in setting interreligious boundaries and exchanges. The third section, Agents of Anti-Jewish Discourse, focuses on Christian thinkers of the late Middle Ages who propagated anti-Jewish measures or prejudices across different genres and causes. The final section, The Transformability of the Jews and the Hermeneutics of Inter-Religious Conversion, examines the cultural and intellectual impact of different efforts to convert Jews and Jewishness.

This collection of new studies by leading medievalists serves as a fitting tribute to Jeremy Cohen’s groundbreaking contributions and offers readers an insightful look into the complex world of medieval and early modern religious identity.

The two books of Scriptor, Cantor & Notator present an innovative multi-author project dealing with the complex interconnections between learning, writing and performing chant in the Middle Ages. A number of different methodological approaches have been employed, with the aim of beginning to understand the phenomenon of chant transmission over a large geographical area, linking and contrasting modern definitions of East and West. Thus, in spite of this wide geographical spread, and the consequent variety of rites, languages and musical styles involved, the common thread of parallels and similarities between various chant repertoires arising from the need to fix oral repertories in a written form, and the challenges involved in so doing, are what bring this wide variety of repertoires and approaches together. This multi-centric multi-disciplinary approach will encourage scholars working in these areas to consider their work as part of a much larger geographical and historical picture, and thus reveal to reader and listener more, and far richer, patterns of connections and developments than might otherwise have been suspected. The Materiality of Sound in Chant Manuscripts in the East brings together articles on ancient Greek, Byzantine, Coptic and Armenian music scripts in the East. Together with the collection of essays published in The Materiality of Sound in Chant Manuscripts in the West, these books discuss local scribal peculiarities and idiosyncrasies beyond the cultural and geographical contexts of production and uses of their manuscript sources.

This collection of essays is the first to focus exclusively on the Wittelsbach court of Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria (1493–1550). The contributors argue for a deeper understanding of this duke’s reign and acknowledge his crucial role in shaping the religious and cultural identity of the Duchy of Bavaria. By providing insights into the duke’s cultural aspirations, the organisation of the court, musical sources, religious musical practice, and everyday working life, this book aims to: (1) situate the court of Wilhelm IV in the context of the religious and political upheavals of the early sixteenth century; (2) trace the development of the musical repertoire and personnel of the Bavarian court chapel between 1500 and 1550; and (3) critically assess the degree to which the Munich court could be considered ‘modern’ by re-evaluating the broader cultural, religious, and musical life of the court around 1520. The volume thus sheds light on the cultural ambitions of a duke who defined music and art as expressions of strategic elements that interwove tradition, devotion, and representation in a programme of governance based on humanist education—a duke whose foresight enabled the Munich court to quickly become one of the most prestigious and famous seats of power in the Holy Roman Empire.

Roman wooden writing tablets, known in Latin as tabulae ceratae, have been found by archaeologists in various locations around the former capital of the civitas/municipium Tungrorum or Roman Tongeren (now the Belgian city of Tongeren-Borgloon). These rare and delicate finds are remarkable not only due to the excellent state of their preservation, but also because they are inscribed with the remnants of texts, once etched into an overlying wax layer, that can, to the discerning eye, still be deciphered. The tablets not only provide concrete information about religious, judicial and administrative practices, but they also enhance our understanding of the complex processes of Romanisation and Latinisation in the northwestern civitates and municipia of the Roman Empire.

Unearthed in the first half of the twentieth century, with a second group discovered in 2013, the Roman tablets housed in the Gallo-Roman Museum of Tongeren-Borgloon and in the city’s municipal heritage depository, became the object of an in-depth study by an international team of specialists piloted by the Gallo-Roman Museum. It is the results of this project that are presented here in this volume for the first time. The painstaking process of deciphering and interpreting the script marks and text fragments is explored via analysis of palaeography, philology and onomastics, along with key scientific techniques such as wax analysis, wood species identification, and script visualisation by Multi-Light Reflectance Imaging. Rich detail is also provided about other associated wooden finds that shed light on how and where the tablets were produced.

The result is a beautifully illustrated and insightful volume that introduces the lost world of Roman Tongeren and its writing tablets to professionals and the general public alike.

What different mechanisms did women religious use to interpret the communal and individual aspects of enclosure throughout history? To what extent was enclosure a pivotal feature of Christian spiritual, social and cultural life? How did social and political contexts shape the strategies of nuns and beatas in accepting or rejecting strict enclosure?

Within Walls explores the diverse experiences of enclosure within female Christian spiritualities, presenting it as a crucial concept for a deep understanding of the history of women religious. The volume primarily aims to show the different ways in which women religious lived, negotiated and redefined enclosure in its material and symbolic dimensions. Covering the period from the New Testament era to the late sixteenth century, and spanning regions from the Holy Land and Egypt to Western Europe and colonial Mexico, it  explores the evolving meanings and uses of the confined life as experienced and shaped by women religious in Christianity.

The case studies presented in this volume—from the strategies of seclusion of early Christian anchoresses to the plethora of voices of Mediaeval and Early Modern female communities and the authority wielded by individual nuns, pilgrims, prioresses, reformers and mystics—argue that there was by no means a single form of enclosure in female Christian religious life. Instead, inspired by Philip Sheldrake’s interpretation of sacred spaces as polyphonic, this volume stresses the multivocality and multilocality of the term. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach that integrates microhistory, human geography, the cultural analysis of materiality, literary studies, feminist and gender studies, indigenous methodologies, art studies, postcolonial anthropology and the philosophy of religion and spirituality, Within Walls provides fresh perspectives on the most intricate dimension of religious life in history.

This collection of studies explores the complexities of the royal courts of Poland from the late medieval period to the cusp of modernity. Drawing on pioneering research and primary sources, the volume authors dissect the multifaceted roles and dynamics of courtiers, positioning them within the broader socio-political and cultural paradigms of their time. From the distinct cultural imprints of the Jagiellon dynasty to the challenges faced by monarchs elected during the eighteenth century, each study within this collection provides a rigorous examination of courtly structures, influences, and transformations.

The volume examines the symbiotic relationships between courtiers and monarchs, the changing ideals of courtly service, and the impact of both domestic traditions and foreign influences on the Polish courts. It offers invaluable insights for scholars of court culture, bringing to the world stage evidence from the archives of Poland and seeking to understand the evolution of court life and its implications for the broader historical narratives of Poland throughout the entire existence of this composite monarchy.

Conques has been an important node, a singularity within many entangled histories from late antiquity to the present. This volume publishes papers expanding on the second conference of the project “Conques in the Global World. Transferring Knowledge: from Material to Immaterial Heritage” (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research and Innovation Staff Exchange H2020). Held in October 2023 at the Centre européen in Conques, the workshop brought together international experts from a variety of disciplines and geographies, indicating the directions future studies of this site might take and reflecting on its material, literary, and historiographical legacy.

The collected essays in this volume reflect scholarly and artistic fascination with Conques. They question, open, and reopen important dossiers, bringing fresh insights and perspectives on the site’s material, literary, and performative culture. These range from Bernard of Angers’s Miracles of Sainte Foy and the scholarly reception of this text to charged discussions of the architectural sources and models for the abbey-church and its role in regional and interregional dynamics. From the heated architectural history, the essays segue into the other hot topic of Conques: rethinking the elusive Majesty of Sainte Foy. Essays examine its fabrication history, its specific perception during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and its staging and geographical anchoring. These analyses give way to an essay devoted to Conques’ nineteenth-century reconstruction. The present volume closes with a text devoted to the mediation of medieval literary culture within contemporary contexts. In their disciplinary diversity, this volume unites scholarly traditions, opening new avenues for the study of a medieval site which, through its entangled histories, captivates scholars around the world.

Chancelier de l’Université de Paris, Jean Gerson (1363-1429) est surtout connu comme théoricien de la théologie mystique et par son action réformatrice au sein de l’Église pendant les années difficiles du Grand Schisme, où il joua un rôle de premier plan. Or si la carrière universitaire et l’action politique de Gerson font de lui un intellectuel parisien, l’évidence de la transmission manuscrite et imprimée désigne sans équivoque le Rhin supérieur comme la région où la diffusion des œuvres du chancelier a été la plus foisonnante. Intervenant à une échelle comparable à la diffusion manuscrite des œuvres de Thomas d’Aquin, le rayonnement de l’œuvre de Gerson a ceci de spectaculaire qu’il dépasse largement le milieu universitaire et qu’il se déploie en moins d’un siècle. Le paradoxe reste pourtant intact de pourquoi l’Allemagne, et non la France, s’impose comme le lieu de rayonnement de l’œuvre de Gerson dans des proportions aussi importantes quantitativement ? Pour répondre à cette question, l’étude de la réception de l’œuvre du chancelier ne peut pas faire l’économie d’une réévaluation de la tradition manuscrite et imprimée des 15e et 16e siècles à partir des témoins préservés dans les bibliothèques du Rhin supérieur. En privilégiant le cas de Gerson comme point d’observation, ce volume se propose de renouveler les perspectives de l’histoire intellectuelle et culturelle dans le long 15e siècle en focalisant sur l’histoire des textes, les conditions et les circonstances de leur transmission, afin de dresser une cartographie des réseaux de communication dans la région rhénane dans les décennies qui entourent l’invention de l’imprimerie.

Patrick Zutshi is a leading authority on the later medieval Western Church and papacy and internationally recognised as an expert in papal diplomatic and the Avignon Curia. This volume brings together essays by over twenty of Patrick’s colleagues and friends, all distinguished scholars in medieval history, to celebrate his 70th birthday. The volume reflects both Patrick’s wide scholarly interests, ranging from the administration of the papal curia to intellectual and legal history and the mendicant orders, and his extensive network of colleagues and collaborators in different countries, including Germany, Italy, Ireland, Switzerland, Finland, Australia, USA, and UK. This collection of essays also engages with important themes in later medieval history of wide interest to university students, their teachers, and other researchers in the field, comprising: Mendicants and the Religious Life; University and Intellectual History; Bishops and Secular Clergy; and the Papal Curia between Avignon and Rome. All the essays draw on original research, reflecting Patrick’s own research and editing of manuscript and archival sources.

The corpus of sermons and saints’ lives from early medieval England, in English and Latin, is the largest and most varied of its kind from a contemporary European perspective. In recent years this extraordinary body of literature has attracted increasing attention, as witnessed by an efflorescence of new editions, translations, commentaries, essay collections, dissertations, and amply funded research projects such as the Electronic Corpus of Anonymous Old English Homilies (ECHOE) project based at the University of Göttingen.

The present collection of thirteen essays grew out of a 2022 conference sponsored by the ECHOE project on Old English anonymous homilies and saints’ lives and their sources and reflects the best of current scholarship on early medieval homiletic and hagiographic literature from England. This literature is central to an understanding of the spiritual imagination and social practices of non-élite audiences. Together, they introduce new discoveries, identify new sources, edit new texts, make new claims about authors, revisers, and textual relationships, revise previous arguments about aspects of literary history, and provide new interpretations of Old English and Latin sermons and saints’ lives. These studies show vividly how European learning influenced the liturgical practices and peripheral education of early medieval England.

Contributors include Helen Appleton, Aidan Conti, Claudia Di Sciacca, R. D. Fulk, Thomas N. Hall, Christopher A. Jones, Leslie Lockett, Rosalind Love, Hugh Magennis, Stephen Pelle, Jane Roberts, Winfried Rudolf, and Charles D. Wright.