Coins and trade in early medieval Italy

This paper is an analysis of monetary circulation in early medieval Italy in the period c.600–900. Using a dual comparison – first, of the level of currency use as against ceramics within Italy, and second, of the pattern of Italian coin use, and economic activity more generally, with that north of the Alps – this paper presents examples that shed light on patterns of change and discontinuity.     

Lights,power and the moral economy of early medieval Europe

By the beginning of the early Middle Ages the convention that each church should have a light burning at all times on the altar was strongly established. This paper examines how elites promulgated this idea and benefitted from their ability to furnish lighting material (oil and wax) when this was becoming scarce and expensive. This seeming generosity helped to give the power of rulers a moral quality, but at the same time their insistence that to provide for the lights was a universal obligation meant that the social base of those who could provide for the lights broadened. It is argued here that growth in the number and types of people giving for the lights diluted the moral power that came from giving, but that it also allowed a much broader section of society to participate in the moral economy.     

Civic religion in late medieval Europe

This article reassesses the value of a term that has proved very durable in late medieval historiography. It identifies three main research clusters using ‘civic religion’ (North American, Francophone and Germanic), and examines inherent problems with the term, particularly its association with ‘civil religion’ and its ambiguity of meaning, at once ‘urban’ (specific to towns) and ‘municipal’ (governmental). The term has been applied particularly to the city-states of northern Italy: the article also looks at three different cities outside this region, Zaragoza, Bruges and Salisbury, as case studies to consider the term's wider applicability. Despite their differences, this article argues that there were in all of them common religious practices associated with urban government; and that ‘civic religion’ does serve as a useful term to classify these practices as a basis for future research – not as aspects of advancing ‘civil religion’, but to describe the connections and elisions that city councils made in sacred terms between ‘municipal’ and ‘urban’ interests.     

Reply to comments on trade,towns and states: A reconsideration of early medieval economics

The aim of this paper is to discuss a specific group of stamped gold foils with human representation from the late Scandinavian Iron Age (AD 550/600–800) from the perspective of size. The article argues that the framed gold foils embed sophisticated and multi-layered transformations that capture and echo basic principles of northern cosmology and belief systems related to Odin as the god for kings and his ability as a seer.     

Evidence of early medieval trade and migration between Wales and the Mediterranean Sea region

Imported Mediterranean pottery recovered from 5th–7th century settlement sites along the south Wales coast indicates that trade and contact between Wales and Byzantium continued following the collapse of the Roman Empire in the early-5th century. It is hypothesised that people as well as pottery continued to travel to Wales from Byzantium, some of whom subsequently settled amongst the local communities. Strontium and oxygen isotope analysis was undertaken on human remains (n = 33 individuals) from four early medieval cemeteries from south Wales. The study identified individuals who may not have been local to the British Isles, thus demonstrating that the isotopic analysis of human remains from Wales can further our understanding of migration to Britain during the early medieval period.     

Attitudes and impediments to pacifism in medieval Europe

The spirit of total pacifism can be discerned in medieval western Europe amongst individuals such as St Francis of Assisi, and within communities such as the Penitents and Humiliati in Italy and the Beguines of northern Europe: such people refused to become attached to the popular pastime of warfare; they found the taking of human life to be objectionable and sinful, and refused to fight under any circumstances, even in defence of their own towns or possessions.However, it was difficult to be a pacifist. Such a philosophy was not popular amongst the civic authorities. Even the medieval Church made it difficult to pursue such sentiments: pacifist groups tended to be tainted with heresy, and therefore to be rooted out. The thinking of medieval theologians and philosophers on the questions of war and peace tended to be ambivalent; and the Church was willing to approve and bless warfare, such as the crusades, for its own ends. The nature of warfare itself also militated against the spirit of pacifism.     

Regnal succession in early medieval Ireland

Regnal succession in early medieval Ireland has been the centre of scholarly debate for the past eighty-five years. This paper contributes to the debate with an investigation of the early Irish law texts. It is argued that these law texts, especially the tracts on inheritance, reveal a certain pattern of regnal succession, which can be divided into an early and a later phase. Moreover, they allow us to define necessary criteria for eligibility for Irish kingship. The results of this examination are illustrated in the summary by the historical example of the early Síl nÁedo Sláine.     

A typology of representative institutions in late medieval Europe

This article attempts to follow the tradition established by Hintze and Elias in comparing several aspects of representative institutions throughout medieval Europe. It uses numerous recent case studies and a new more detailed examination of the Low Country sources and it tries to take into account the criticisms levelled at the rather unsophisticated generalizations of earlier scholars. Attention is given to the structure of the institutions, their actual working and their functions.Comparisons are made whenever the available information permits, if possible by quantification, although our information is often too vague and incomplete to permit this. A number of ideal types are formulated as a working hypothesis for further investigation, based on the social structures within which these types of institutions functioned. The essential variables were the extent of urbanization in a particular territory, the form of government and the economic and juridical situation of the nobles and peasants.     

A typology of representative institutions in late medieval Europe

This article attempts to follow the tradition established by Hintze and Elias in comparing several aspects of representative institutions throughout medieval Europe. It uses numerous recent case studies and a new more detailed examination of the Low Country sources and it tries to take into account the criticisms levelled at the rather unsophisticated generalizations of earlier scholars. Attention is given to the structure of the institutions, their actual working and their functions.Comparisons are made whenever the available information permits, if possible by quantification, although our information is often too vague and incomplete to permit this. A number of ideal types are formulated as a working hypothesis for further investigation, based on the social structures within which these types of institutions functioned. The essential variables were the extent of urbanization in a particular territory, the form of government and the economic and juridical situation of the nobles and peasants.     

Early medieval port customs, tolls and controls on foreign trade

The objective of this paper is to offer a fresh perspective on the nature and organization of international trade in early medieval ports from the evidence of documentary sources on tolls and customs, trading practices and controls on foreign merchants. In particular, the paper considers the evidence for continuities and borrowings from the Roman and Byzantine worlds and the extent to which they influenced trading practices in the west and especially in Anglo-Saxon England.     

The magic of early medieval ritual

Whether, and how, we ought to study early medieval rituals has been much debated recently, including in the pages of this journal by Geoffrey Koziol and Philippe Buc. This paper is intended as a contribution to this debate, and argues that rituals' written or spoken interpretations are not a simple rendering of the ritualized actions' 'meanings' in words and must therefore be analysed separately, not conflated with the possible effects of performance. Ritualized acts thus had two loci: the short-term experience of the embodied performance, and the long-term struggle over interpretation in speech and writing, both of which need to be explored with appropriate methodologies. Whilst the textuality of our sources thus needs to be taken seriously, it is proposed that we can also say something about the possible or even probable characteristics of early medieval ritualized acts as the medium of bodily postures and gestures used for demonstrative public interations between power holders.     

Multiple myeloma in an early medieval skeleton

Detailed studies on neoplasms in prehistoric populations are rare. Each well-documented case can therefore add to our knowledge. In former times, palaeopathology could present only tentative diagnoses in the case of tumours. Today, modern diagnostic methods and a comparison with established cases make exact evaluations and their verification possible. During our study it became obvious that criteria for the diagnosis of recent tumours can be used as a guide. In this paper we present the most important findings of a malignant primary bone tumour (multiple myeloma) in an early medieval skeleton and its differential diagnoses. Even in the absence of histological findings, the remaining criteria (X-ray, age, localization, macroscopic features) permit the diagnosis of multiple myeloma to be made with some certainty.