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"e;Warrior monks"e;-the misnomer for the Iberian military orders that emerged on the frontiers of Europe in the twelfth century-have long fascinated general readers and professional historians alike. Proposing "e;ecclesiastical knights"e; as a more accurate name and conceptual model-warriors animated by ideals and spiritual currents endorsed by the church hierarchy-author Sam Zeno Conedera presents a groundbreaking study of how these orders brought the seemingly incongruous combination of monastic devotion and the practice of warfare into a single way of life.Providing a detailed study of the military-religious vocation as it was lived out in the Orders of Santiago, Calatrava, and Alcantara in Leon-Castile during the first century, Ecclesiastical Knights provides a valuable window into medieval Iberia. Filling a gap in the historiography of the medieval military orders, Conedera defines, categorizes, and explains these orders, from their foundations until their spiritual decline in the early fourteenth century, arguing that that the best way to understand their spirituality is as a particular kind of consecrated knighthood.Because these Iberian military orders were belligerents in the Reconquest, Ecclesiastical Knights informs important discussions about the relations between Western Christianity and Islam in the Middle Ages. Conedera examines how the military orders fit into the religious landscape of medieval Europe through the prism of knighthood, and how their unique conceptual character informed the orders and spiritual self-perception.The religious observances of all three orders were remarkably alike, except that the Cistercian-affiliated orders were more demanding and their members could not marry. Santiago, Calatrava, and Alcantara shared the same essential mission and purpose: the defense and expansion of Christendom understood as an act of charity, expressed primarily through fighting and secondarily through the care of the sick and the ransoming of captives. Their prayers were simple and their penances were aimed at knightly vices and the preservation of military discipline. Above all, the orders valued obedience. They never drank from the deep wellsprings of monasticism, nor were they ever meant to.Offering an entirely fresh perspective on two difficult and closely related problems concerning the military orders-namely, definition and spirituality-author Sam Zeno Conedera illuminates the religious life of the orders, previously eclipsed by their military activities.

King Alfonso VIII of Castile: Government, Family and War brings together a diverse group of scholars whose work concerns the reign of Alfonso VIII (1158-1215). This was a critical period in the history of the Iberian peninsula, when the conflict between the Christian north and the Moroccan empire of the Almohads was at its most intense, while the political divisions between the five Christian kingdoms reached their high-water mark. From his troubled ascension as a child to his victory at Las Navas de Tolosa near the end of his fifty-seven-year reign, Alfonso VIII and his kingdom were at the epicenter of many of the most dramatic events of the era.Contributors: Martin Alvira Cabrer, Janna Bianchini, Sam Zeno Conedera, S.J., Miguel Dolan Gómez, Carlos de Ayala Martínez, Kyle C. Lincoln, Joseph O'Callaghan, Teofi lo F. Ruiz, Miriam Shadis, Damian J. Smith, James J. Todesca

A collection of essays devoted to the culture of the Francophone European crusading states of the eastern Mediterranean. Contributors, including historians of the crusades, Old French literature, and medieval art, each address different themes and questions related to life, literature, and language in the Frankish Levant.

An interdisciplinary collection of short, accessible essays intended for the non-specialist reader and ideal for teaching at an undergraduate level, this volume contains 22 essays examining how the medieval past has brought something distorted back into the present.

Whose Middle Ages? is an interdisciplinary collection of short, accessible essays intended for the nonspecialist reader and ideal for teaching at an undergraduate level. Each of twenty-two essays takes up an area where digging for meaning in the medieval past has brought something distorted back into the present: in our popular entertainment; in our news, our politics, and our propaganda; and in subtler ways that inform how we think about our histories, our countries, and ourselves. Each author looks to a history that has refused to remain past and uses the tools of the academy to read and re-read familiar stories, objects, symbols, and myths.Whose Middle Ages? gives nonspecialists access to the richness of our historical knowledge while debunking damaging misconceptions about the medieval past. Myths about the medieval period are especially beloved among the globally resurgent far right, from crusading emblems on the shields borne by alt-right demonstrators to the on-screen image of a purely white European populace defended from actors of color by Internet trolls. This collection attacks these myths directly by insisting that readers encounter the relics of the Middle Ages on their own terms.Each essay uses its author's academic research as a point of entry and takes care to explain how the author knows what she or he knows and what kinds of tools, bodies of evidence, and theoretical lenses allow scholars to write with certainty about elements of the past to a level of detail that might seem unattainable. By demystifying the methods of scholarly inquiry, Whose Middle Ages? serves as an antidote not only to the far right's errors of fact and interpretation but also to its assault on scholarship and expertise as valid means for the acquisition of knowledge.

Ecstasy in the Classroom analyzes the early thirteenth century theological discourse about Paul's rapture and other modes of cognizing God. It reconstructs the perceptions of transformation and self they imply, and demonstrate their role in establishing the peculiar professional identity of scholastic theologians compared with other seers of God.

The twenty-five original essays in this remarkable book constitute both a state of the art survey of Dante scholarship and a manifesto for new understandings of one of the world's great poets.

The twenty-five original essays in this remarkable book constitute both a state of the art survey of Dante scholarship and a manifesto for new understandings of one of the world's great poets.

This volume brings together scholarship on pan-European late-medieval religious controversy, with particular attention to developments in England, Bohemia, and at general church councils. It builds on recent work by approaching late-medieval cultural transaction and controversy internationally. Contributors examine textual transmission and compilation, polemical rhetoric, and philosophical and theological interchange, among other subjects.

Eddic, Skaldic, and Beyond shines light on traditional divisions of Old Norse-Icelandic poetry and awakens the reader to work that blurs these boundaries. Many of the texts and topics taken up in these enlightening essays have been difficult to categorize and have consequently been overlooked or undervalued. The boundaries between genres (Eddic and Skaldic), periods (Viking Age, medieval, early modern), or cultures (Icelandic, Scandinavian, English, Continental) may not have been as sharp in the eyes and ears of contemporary authors and audiences as they are in our own. When questions of classification are allowed to fade into the background, at least temporarily, the poetry can be appreciated on its own terms. Some of the essays in this collection present new material, while others challenge long-held assumptions. They reflect the idea that poetry with "e;medieval"e; characteristics continued to be produced in Iceland well past the fifteenth century, and even beyond the Protestant Reformation in Iceland (1550). This superb volume, rich in up-to-date scholarship, makes little-known material accessible to a wide audience.

This study of the intellectual culture of the women's monasteries of the Main Valley during the eighth century, based on analysis of the manuscripts produced and used by women religious, argues that the content of the women's books was overwhelmingly gender-egalitarian and frequently feminist (that is, resistant to patriarchal ideas).

This volume offers studies on medieval education in the formal academic sense typical of schools and universities, and in a broader cultural sense that includes law, liturgy, and the religious orders of the high Middle Ages. Essays explore the transmission of knowledge during the middle ages in various kinds of educational communities.

Medievalists have long considered topics of cultural contact such as antagonism or exchange between western Europe and the Islamic world and the west's debts to Byzantium. This text aims to pose new questions, exploring how the meeting of cultures promotes historical change.

Rashi's commentary and the Glossa Ordinaria both developed in the late eleventh and early twelfth century with no known contact between them. Nevertheless, they shared a way of reading text that shaped their interpretations of the near-sacrifice of Isaac. This work compares them both with each other and their respective sources to show their similarity.

This collection responds to the critical legacy of Penn R. Szittya. Its contributors investigate how medieval poetic language reflects and shapes social, political, and religious worlds. In addition to new readings of canonical poetic texts, it includes readings of texts that have previously not held a central place in critical attention.

Medievalists have long considered topics of cultural contact such as antagonism or exchange between western Europe and the Islamic world and the west's debts to Byzantium. This text aims to pose new questions, exploring how the meeting of cultures promotes historical change.

Clearly written, this incisive critical study opens a new analytic window not only to the rhetoric of medieval Italian poetry but also to a richer understanding of one of the most important strands of medieval European culture.