Canonical collections of the early Middle Ages (ca. 400-1140)

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Peter Fox

Cambridge University Library is one of the world's great research libraries. This book is a celebration of the treasures of the library from the perspective of a group of eminent scholars who actively use the collections for research. Chapters have been selected to illustrate the vast range of the library's collections: from the fifth-century Codex Bezae to the archives of contemporary writers and politicians; from medieval manuscripts to the letters of Charles Darwin; on history, theology, politics, sociology, art history, biology, agriculture, mathematics and astronomy. Extensively illustrated with over two hundred photographs, many of them in colour and published for the first time, Cambridge University Library: The Great Collections offers a unique perspective on a remarkable institution.

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Kurt A. Schreyer

"In Shakespeare's Medieval Craft, Kurt A. Schreyer explores the relationship between Shakespeare's plays and a tradition of late medieval English biblical drama known as mystery plays. Scholars of English theater have long debated Shakespeare's connection to the mystery play tradition, but Schreyer provides new perspective on the subject by focusing on the Chester Banns, a sixteenth-century proclamation announcing the annual performance of that city's cycle of mystery plays. Through close study of the Banns, Schreyer demonstrates the central importance of medieval stage objects--as vital and direct agents and not merely as precursors--to the Shakespearean stage." -- Publisher's description.

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Hector L. MacQueen

The close links between Scots and English law in the Middle Ages have long been recognised, but S.F.C. Milsom has recently challenged the received views of English legal development. Common Law and Feudal Society assesses the relevance of the new approach to Scottish legal history, setting the development of medieval law within the context of a society in which private lordship, exercised through courts and other less formal methods of dispute settlement, played a key role alongside royal justice. Based on extensive research, this book examines the brieves of novel dissasine, mortancestry and right, and legal remedies for the recovery of the land, as well as aspects of the early history of the Scottish legal profession and the origins of the Court of Session. Exploring the relationship between law and society, this book is for social and legal historians alike.

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Jeff Rider

"Scholars have long considered the De multro to be a true journal, written hastily as events unfolded and never revised. In God's Scribe, the first book devoted to Galbert and his chronicle, Jeff Rider challenges that view. He argues that the De multro is not the transparent and objective testimony it has been taken to be; rather it is a complex and sophisticated work of astonishing originality that is an outstanding example of medieval historical writing.". "Intended as a companion volume to the De multro, the book provides an outline of the Flemish crisis of 1127-28 and summarizes what is known about Galbert. It traces the elaboration of the multro from a set of wax notes to a nearly completed chronicle. Rider studies Galbert's sources, the way he took and organized his notes, the distinct stages in which the chronicle was written, its literary qualities, and the conceptual tools he used to comprehend the events he related in it. Rider concludes that Galbert's efforts to understand an extended series of events in a light of the theology of history and authority common in his day, and to apply that theology to the practice of historical writing, made the De multro one of the most intellectual and experimental histories of its time, while its style, form, and viewpoint made it one of the most popular ones."--BOOK JACKET.