By the time of the Conquest, the Normans had been established in Normandy for over a hundred and fifty years. They had transformed themselves from pagan Northmen into Christian princes; their territories extended from England, southern Italy and Sicily to distant Antioch, and their influence had spread throughout western Europe and the Mediterranean.   paperback   ISBN 978-1-843-83341-3

Price:  £19.99

The twelfth-century renaissance, though usually seen as a French phenomenon, produced fundamental changes in the culture and politics of the wider Anglo-Norman world. The essays in this volume, by leading scholars in this field meeting at La Bretesche, Brittany, in 1995, explore the impact of this change.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15691-0

Price:  £50.00

The influence of war on late Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman society was dominant and all-pervasive. Here in this book, gathered together for the first time, are fundamental articles on warfare in England and Normandy in the 11th and 12th centuries, combining the work of some of the foremost scholars in the field.   paperback   ISBN 978-0-851-15328-5

Price:  £16.99

Charles the Bold (1467-1477) was the last of the great Dukes of Burgundy. This historical and biographical work assesses his personality and role as ruler, and discusses his relationship with his subjects and neighbours. It describes and analyses his policies, giving particular attention to his imperial plans and projects and his clash with the Swiss. The armies, the court and Burgundian clients and partisans are given separate treatment.   paperback   ISBN 978-0-851-15918-8

Price:  £19.99

The importance of the late twelfth-century Chronicle of Hainaut (Chronicon Hanoniense) as an historical record cannot be overestimated. Gilbert of Mons was an eye-witness to important events affecting Count Baldwin V of Hainaut, and provides much significant information about persons and affairs within France and the Empire, particularly Count Philip of Flanders, King Philip Augustus and Emperor Frederick Barbarossa; he had a keen interest in noble marriages, making his chronicle an unmatched source for genealogical and prosopographical material for this region. Moreover, his work is a mine of information on a great many subjects, such as the crusades, political events, noble women, the lives of saints, lord-tenant relationships, customary practices and the association of churches with lay advocates; it is particularly informative on military matters, giving detailed accounts of sieges, campaigns and tournaments. This volume presents a clear translation, accompanied by detailed annotations clarify the text, identifying people, events and concepts, an introduction, and bibliography.   hardback   ISBN 978-1-843-83120-4

Price:  £45.00

This study examines the evolution of national and regional, cultural and political identities in that northern region of France which borders Belgium, over the two centuries which followed the French Revolution. During that time the region was transformed by the development of the industrial economy, population shifts, war and occupation, and numerous changes of political regime. Through an analysis of a wide range of issues, including language, regional and national political movements, educational policy, attitudes towards immigrants and the border, the press, trade unions, and the church - as well as the attitude of the French State - the author questions traditional interpretations of the process of national assimilation in France. At the same time he illustrates how the Franco-Belgian border, originally an arbitrary line through a culturally homogeneous region, became not only a significant marker forthe identity of the French Flemish, but a real cultural division.
TIMOTHY BAYCROFT is lecturer in French history, University of Sheffield.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-861-93269-6

Price:  £45.00

The definitive reference work on this topic. `[The author takes] the Celtic world to include both the European continent and the more recent settlements in the British Isles. The entries, admirably broad in scope, conceive religion and culture as including not only the usual gods and myths but shamanic practices and totems. Maier also provides entries for important scholars of Celtic culture.' CHOICE   paperback   ISBN 978-0-851-15660-6

Price:  £25.00

Edward, prince of Wales and Aquitaine, known as the Black Prince, is one of the legendary figures of English history, victor of three great battles and a model of chivalry and courtesy. Behind this image, which many of his contemporaries accepted and eagerly believed in, it is difficult to get at the realities of his character and of the life that he led.   paperback   ISBN 978-0-851-15686-6

Price:  £19.99

The period 1500 to 1610 witnessed a fundamental transformation in the nature of Franco-Irish relations. In 1500 contact was exclusively based on trade and small-scale migration. However, from the early 1520s to the early 1580s, the dynamics of 'normal' relations were significantly altered as unprecedented political contacts between Ireland and France were cultivated.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-861-93266-5

Price:  £40.00

Following the cataclysmic events of 1789 some of those involved in the Revolution began to take seriously the possibility of a French republic. Various ideas developed about the form this should take and the models on which it could be based, from those of ancient Greece and Rome, to modern republics such as Geneva or the United States of America.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-861-93273-3

Price:  £40.00

It is a testament to C. Warren Hollister's ongoing influence that the reign of Henry I, until his work on the period relatively neglected, is now a vibrant field of inquiry - to which this collection, a special volume of the Haskins Society Journal dedicated to his memory, makes a significant contribution.   hardback   ISBN 978-1-843-83293-5

Price:  £50.00

Bertrand du Guesclin (d. 1380) was the most famous French soldier of his generation. He made his name as a guerrilla leader in the Breton War of Succession (1341-64) and, as Constable from 1370-80, played a major role in the recovery of France under Charles V. Captured on at least three occasions, but also victorious in several important battles, his valour and dominant personality allowed him to exercise remarkable influence.   hardback   ISBN 978-1-843-83088-7

Price:  £75.00

The social and political meaning of lordship in western France in the tenth and eleventh centuries is the focus of this study. It analyses the development and features of lordship as it was practiced and experienced in Maine and the surrounding regions of France, emphasizing the social logic of lordship (why it worked as it did, and how it was socially justifiable and even necessary) and the role of honour and charisma in shaping lordship relationships. The vision and chronology of tenth- and eleventh-century lordship on offer here departs from the model of 'feudal mutation', and emphasizes two major themes - the centrality of intangible, charismatic elements of honor, prestige and acclamation, and the lack of foundation for any notion of 'feudal transformation': while acknowledging changes in the geography of power across the tenth and eleventh centuries, the argument insists that the practicalities of the practice of lordship remained essentially the same between 890 and 1160. RICHARD E. BARTON is assistant Professor of History, University of North Carolina at Greensboro.   hardback   ISBN 978-1-843-83086-3

Price:  £45.00

Eminently readable. More than a narrative history; Vaughan's explorations of the administrative and financial structures underpinning ducal authority, and of the court and its culture, are integral. There are no comparable, modern, in-depth studies of these players on the late medieval European stage. Four distinguished scholars contribute an introductory chapter for each ducal reign.   paperback   ISBN 978-0-851-15915-7

Price:  £19.99

Under Philip the Good, grandson of the founder of the duchy's power, Burgundy reached its apogee. Professor Vaughan portrays not only Philip the Good himself, perhaps the most attractive personality among the four great dukes, but the workings of the court and of one of the most efficent - if not necessarily the most popular - administrations in fifteenth-century Europe.   paperback   ISBN 978-0-851-15917-1

Price:  £19.99

The religious life was central to Norman society in the middle ages. Professed religious and the clergy did not and could not live in isolation; the support of the laity was vital to their existence. How these different groups used sacred space was central to this relationship. Here, fascinating new light is shed on the reality of religious life in Normandy. The author uses ideas about space and gender to examine the social pressures arising from such interaction around four main themes: display, reception and intrusion, enclosure and the family. The study is grounded in the discussion of a wide range of sources, including architecture, chronicles and visitation records, from communities of monks and nuns, hospitals and the parish, allowing the people, rather than the institutions, to come to the fore. Dr LEONIE V. HICKS teaches at the University of Southampton   hardback   ISBN 978-1-843-83329-1

Price:  £45.00

Alongside the familiar pitched battles, regular sieges, and large-scale manoeuvres, medieval and early modern wars also involved assassination, abduction, treason and sabotage. These undercover operations were aimed chiefly against key individuals, mostly royalty or the leaders of the opposing army, and against key fortified places, including bridges, mills and dams.   hardback   ISBN 978-1-843-83292-8

Price:  £45.00

In 1801 Britain and Bonaparte made an armistice, which became the Treaty of Amiens in March 1802. In the brief period of peace which followed, British attitudes underwent a major change, so that when war began again in May 1803 there was little or no dissent from the view that the war had to be fought to a finish and Bonaparte's power destroyed. This was partly the result of Bonaparte's underhand methods during negotiations; but it was also due to the conclusion reached by the many British visitors to France during the interval of peace that Bonaparte was extremely dangerous, anger at his stealthy political advances in Europe and America, and outrage at his detention and imprisonment of British civilians when war began again. The attitude of the British government headed by Henry Addington, and in particular the diplomatic methods of the Foreign Secretary Lord Hawkesbury (later the Prime Minister Lord Liverpool) were decisive in countering Bonaparte's methods; they receive their due in this first detailed examination of events, based on original materials.   hardback   ISBN 978-1-843-83041-2

Price:  £50.00

The four Valois Dukes of Burgundy created, in little more than a century, a fabulously wealthy and independent state. Their centralised control and chancellery have bequeathed to us a vast treasure trove of documents, including accounts and inventories of the Masters of the artillery under the later Dukes.   hardback   ISBN 978-1-843-83162-4

Price:  £50.00

Accessible collections of primary sources covering the Hundred Years War are still remarkably few and far between, and teachers of the subject will find Curry's volume a valuable addition to their bibliographies and teaching aids. FRENCH HISTORY `Agincourt! Agincourt! Know ye not Agincourt?' So began a ballad of around 1600.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15802-0

Price:  £50.00

With additional contributions from Franoise Autrand, Christophe Piel, Michael Prestwich, and Bertrand Schnerb. On the evening of 26 August 1346, the greatest military power in Christendom, the French royal army with Philip VI at its head, was defeated by an expeditionary force from England under the command of Edward III.   paperback   ISBN 978-1-843-83306-2

Price:  £16.99

The Knights Templar, part monastic order, part military force, lived by a firm code, or rule, which exists in differing versions. This Spanish version is a follow-up to J.M. Upton-Ward's highly successful edition of the French Rule. The introduction to this Catalan Rule, Barcelona Archivo de la Corona de Aragon, Cartes Reales, MS 3344, discusses the content, language and dating of the manuscript. It also provides background information derived from the French Rule (which the reader may require for a fuller appreciation of the text - see author note below) on the circumstances of the Knights Templar. There is a brief description of the provincial organisation of the Order with particular reference to the houses in Aragon, where it is most likely that the manuscript was used; a summary of clauses; and a concordance with de Curzon's 1886 edition of the French Rule. Compared to de Curzon's edition, the Barcelona text is incomplete, but it contains important clauses not found in other manuscripts. A partial transcription claiming to represent all the clauses without equivalents in de Curzon's edition was published in 1889, but it omitted several clauses now published here for the first time. Footnotes to the English translation elucidate the text; give biographical information on the named officers of the Order where possible; and indicate significant differences compared with the French Rule. J. M. UPTON-WARD edited and translated The Rule of the Templars (Boydell & Brewer 1998), now available in paperback.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15910-2

Price:  £45.00

The indispensable charter collection for the Breton lands in the complex period of the break-up of the Angevin hegemony. ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW Around 1200, sovereignty over the duchy of Brittany was disputed by the Angevinkings of England and the Capetian kings of France. With few local chronicle sources concerning Brittany in this important period, ducal charters provide crucial evidence for politics, external relations, and the conduct of government. They are also an essential source for Breton society and institutions in a period of rapid change and development. Collected here for the first time are the acts of Duchess Constance (1171-1201), her mother, dowager-duchess Margaret of Scotland, Constance's three husbands, Geoffrey, son of King Henry II, Ranulf III, earl of Chester, and Guy de Thouars, and her three children, Eleanor, Arthur of Brittany, and Alice, who succeeded in 1213 to a duchy under Capetian sovereignty. The subject matter concerns not only Brittany, but also the Breton rulers' extensive lands in England, the honour of Richmond, and even the counties of Anjou, Maine and Touraine while they were under Arthur's rule. The charters are also of wider general significance for the light they cast on the exercise of political power by female rulers.
Dr JUDITH EVERARD is a British Academy post-doctoral Research Fellow at Fitzwilliam College,Cambridge; MICHAEL JONES is Professor of Medieval French History at the University of Nottingham.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15751-1

Price:  £55.00

The Albigensian Crusade, which forms the main subject of William of Puylaurens' Chronicle, was a defining episode in the history of France. Launched in 1209 by Pope Innocent III, it was directed against the aristocracy of southern France (especially the Counts of Toulouse) who were accused of protecting heresy, and especially Catharism, a dualist heresy which represented a major threat to the Catholic Church.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15925-6

Price:  £45.00

During the period 911-1154, a newly-constituted people came to control not only a Frankish duchy, but also the kingdoms of England and Sicily. This people, composed of Scandinavian settlers and Frankish natives, came to be known as the Normans. This book examines the growth of the concept of the Norman people (gens Normannorum), through the self-perception of group members [Normanitas or 'Norman-ness'] and the perceptions of 'others'. Using identity models which deal with the interaction of various types of communities, it examines narrative sources (both internally and externally produced) in order to establish what it meant to be a Norman, both to the Normans themselves, and to those with whom they had contact. Beyond these perceptions of self and otherness, examination focuses in particular on the role of the Norman leaders (as the embodiment of Norman identity), the effects of language, the importance of conquest and the sense of homeland, up until the significant change in rulership in both England and Sicily in 1154.   hardback   ISBN 978-1-843-83119-8

Price:  £45.00

The rise of Bertrand du Guesclin ranks as one of the most spectacular adventures in a fourteenth century rich in heroic tales. A poor Breton squire, ungainly and unlettered, he came of age at the onset of the Hundred Years War. He spent two decades engaged in irregular warfare in his native province before he became a knight, and was recognised by Charles V as the captain France needed.   hardback   ISBN 978-1-843-83352-9

Price:  £16.99

The Goodman of Paris [Le Mnagier de Paris] wrote this book for the instruction of his young wife around 1393. He was a wealthy and learned man, a member of that enlightened haute bourgeoisie upon which the French monarchy was coming to lean with increasing confidence. When he wrote his Treatise he was at least sixty but had recently married a young wife some forty years his junior. It fell to her to make his declining years comfortable, but it was his task to make it easy for her to do so.   paperback   ISBN 978-1-843-83222-5

Price:  £14.99

Three large volumes describe the history of Freemasonry across the world. Mediaeval origins in trades unions, decline during the Reformation and return in 1717 until 1887. Chronicles antiquities, symbols, customs and constitutions of every Grand Lodge, in England, Europe, Asia and North America.    

Price:  £25.49

The Historia Albigensis is one of the most important sources for the history of the Cathar heresy and the Albigensian crusade. This new translation makes the work available in English for the first time. The Historia was written between about 1212 and 1218 by Peter, a young monk at the Cistercian abbey of les Vaux-de-Cernay, where his uncle Guy was abbot.   paperback   ISBN 978-0-851-15807-5

Price:  £16.99

Wace's Roman de Rou relates the origins of Normandy from the time of Rollo (Rou) to the battle of Tinchebray. It was commissioned by Henry II as a way of both celebrating the Norman past and justifying the right of Norman rulers to the throne of England: the accounts it gives of the early life of William the Conqueror and of the battle of Hastings, which occupy a substantial portion of the work, make it a valuable historical document as well as an important work of literature. Wace related the events partly in Alexandrines and partly in the octosyllabic rhyming couplets used by the romance writers of the day; indeed, at a time when the boundary between romance and history was blurred, he created a cast of characters and recounted a series of battles and adventures in a style worthy of any of the great masters of romance. He was also exceptionally good, like other contemporary romance writers, at realistic conversations, such as those between King Harold and his brother Gyrth before the battle of Hastings. As a historian, Wace was dedicated to the truth and willing to undertake personal research in order to verify the accuracyof his statements. As a storyteller, he had the ability to render events more dramatic by showing how they arose from the interplay of human beings. The translation, by GLYN S. BURGESS, is accompanied by full editorial notes(in collaboration with Elisabeth van Houts) and an introduction; the volume is completed by a critical essay by Dr van Houts.
GLYN S. BURGESS is Emeritus Professor of the University of Liverpool.
ELISABETH VAN HOUTS lectures in medieval history, University of Cambridge.   paperback   ISBN 978-1-843-83007-8

Price:  £19.99

The historical, political, ecclesiastical, and religious relationships between medieval Cornwall, Brittany, Wales, Ireland and England are explored here through a study of the cult of St Petroc. Evidence for the cult in each area is thoroughly surveyed, but Cornwall and Brittany, the most important loci of the cult and most closely linked by language and culture, are the book's primary focus.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15777-1

Price:  £50.00

In 1274 the Council of Lyons decreed the end of various 'new orders' of Mendicants which had emerged during the great push for evangelism and poverty in the thirteenth-century Latin Church. The Franciscans and Dominicans were explicitly excluded, while the Carmelites and Austin friars were allowed a stay of execution. These last two were eventually able to acquire approval, but other smaller groups, in particular the Friars of the Sack and Pied Friars, were forced to disband.   hardback   ISBN 978-1-843-83258-4

Price:  £25.00

Agnes and Huguette were two Waldensian women who were interrogated by the inquisitional court of Pamiers, in southern France, in 1319 and subsequently burnt at the stake for their heretical beliefs. Shahar uses the records of their inquisition as a basis for an examination of the Waldensian sect's attitude towards its women members, and their role within the sect, comparing their lives with women in the Catholic church and in other sects.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15815-0

Price:  £40.00