The Community, the Family and the Saint: Patterns of Power in Early Medieval Europe

This collection of twenty-two original essays investigates the organising forces of social identity and power in early Medieval Europe. The essays take as their starting-points primary literary and historical texts, artefacts and archaeological evidence from a wide geographical area, ranging from the early Celtic world to the emerging city states of twelfth-century Italy. The essays are arranged in four sections which reflect the nexus of power in this period: Community and Family; Saints; Power; Death, Burial and Commemoration. Contributors to the volume are Mary Alberi, Stefan Brink, Edward Coleman, Mayke de Jong, Philippe Depreux, Matthew Ellis, Guy Halsall, Mark Handley, Karl Heidecker, Dominic Janes, Sarah Larratt Keefer, Harald Kleinschmidt, Rob Meens, Bertil Nilsson, David Pelteret, Joaquin Martinez Pizarro, Mark Redknap, Hedwig Röckelein, Patricia Skinner, Pauline Stafford, Martina Stein-Wilkeshuis and Lisa Weston. Joyce Hill is Professor of Old and Middle English Language and Literature, and a former Director of the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Leeds. Mary Swan is Director of Studies of the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Leeds. Both are specialists in the early Middle Ages, focussing on the language, literature and history of Anglo-Saxon England.