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  Boundaries in the Medieval and Wider World: Essays in Honour of Paul Freedman

  Thomas Barton, Susan McDonough, Sara McDougall, and Matthew Wranovix

  Throughout his distinguished career at Vanderbilt and Yale, Paul H. Freedman has established a reputation for pushing against and crossing perceived boundaries within history and within the historical discipline. His numerous works have consistently ventured into uncharted waters: from studies uncovering the hidden workings of papal bureaucracy and elite understandings of subaltern peasants, to changing perceptions of exotic products and the world beyond Europe, to the role modern American restaurants have played in taking cuisine in exciting new directions. The fifteen essays collected in this volume have been written by Paul Freedman's former students and closest colleagues to both honour his extraordinary achievements and to explore some of their implications for medieval and post-medieval European society and historical study. Together, these studies assess and explore a range of different boundaries, both tangible and theoretical: boundaries relating to law, religion, peasants, historiography, and food, medicine, and the exotic. While drawing important conclusions about their subjects, the collected essays identify historical quandaries and possibilities to guide future research and study.

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  Priests and Their Books in Late Medieval Eichstatt

  Matthew Wranovix

  This book analyzes the acquisition and use of texts by the parish clergy in the diocese of Eichstätt between 1400 and 1520 to refute the amusing, but misleading, image of the lustful and ignorant cleric so popular in the satirical literature of the period. By the fifteenth-century, more widely available local schooling and increasing university attendance had improved the educational level of the clergy; priests were bureaucrats as well as pastors and both roles required extensive use of the written word.
  
  What priests read is a question of fundamental importance to our understanding of the late medieval parish and the role of the clergy as communicators and cultural mediators. Priests were entrusted with saying the Mass, preaching doctrine and repentance, honoring the saints, plumbing the conscience, and protecting the legal rights of the Church. They baptized children, blessed the fields, and prayed for the souls of the dead. What priests read would have informed how they understood and how they performed their social and religious roles.
  
  By locating and contextualizing the manuscripts, printed books, and parish records that were once in the hands of priests in the diocese, the author has found evidence for the unexpected: the avid acquisition of books; a theological awareness; and an emerging professional identity. This marks an important revision to the conventional view of a dramatic era marked by both the transition from manuscripts to printed books and the outbreak of the Reformation.

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  María de Molina, Queen and Regent: Life and rule in Castile-León

  Paulette L. Pepin

  This biography of Queen María de Molina thematically explores her life and demonstrates her collective exercise of power and authority as queen. Throughout her public life, María de Molina’s resilient determination, as queen and later as regent, enabled her to not only work tirelessly to establish an effective governing partnership with her husband King Sancho IV, which never occurred, but also to establish the legitimacy of her children and their heirs and their right to rule. Such legitimacy enabled Queen María de Molina’s son and grandson, under her tutelage, to fend off other monarchs and belligerent nobles. The author demonstrates the queen’s ability to govern the Kingdom of Castile-León as a partner with her husband King Sancho IV, a partnership that can be described as an official union. A major theme of this study is María de Molina’s role as dowager queen and regent as she continued to exercise her queenly power and authority to protect the throne of her son Fernando IV and, later, of her grandson Alfonso XI, and to provide peace and stability for the Kingdom of Castile-León.

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  Russland an der Ostsee: Imperiale Strategien der Macht und Kulturelle Wahrnehmungsmuster

  Karsten Bruggemann and Bradley D. Woodworth

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  Vene Impeerium ja Baltikum: Venestus, Rrahvuslus ja Moderniseerimine

  Tõnu-Andrus Tannberg and Bradley D. Woodworth

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  Conciliar Church Policy during the Reign of Fernando IV, King of Castile-León, 1295-1312

  Paulette L. Pepin

  Publisher's summary: This study examines the relationship between the clergy and the monarchy, and the clergy’s attempts to guard their rights. It examines the four provincial councils (May 1310 at Toro, August 1310 at Alcalá de Henares, October 1310 at Salamanca, and July 1311 at Zamora) which played a significant role in the reassertion of the Castilian and Leonese prelates’ libertas ecclesiastica and the suppression of the Order of the Templars in Castile.

  Table of contents:
  Foreword
  Preface by Joseph O’Callaghan
  1. Church-State Relations in the Kingdom of Castile-Léon in the Thirteenth Century
  2. In Defense of the Castilian and Leonese Churches’ libertas ecclesiastica (1295-1302)
  3. Safeguarding the Rights of Castilian and Leonese Churches
  4. Preserving libertas ecclesiastica: The Church Councils of 1310-1311
  5. Conclusion
  Bibliography; Index