A Cultural History of Violence in the Middle Ages / edited by Sara M. Butler.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Butler, Sara M., editor.

Series:

The Cultural Histories Series.

The Cultural Histories Series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Violence--History.

Violence.

Civilization--History.

Civilization.

Civilization, Medieval.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (264 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Distribution:

London : Bloomsbury Publishing (UK), 2026.

Place of Publication:

London : Bloomsbury Academic, 2025.

System Details:

text file rdaft

Summary:

Once a byword for unthinking violence and brutality, in recent years “medieval” has been rescued from the dustbins of scholarly tradition. Today historians do not deny the era’s violence; nor do they claim it was any more or less violent than the 21st century. What is more important is that they have offered a nuanced understanding of how violence functioned in the Middle Ages. This book builds on a significant historiography to examine how various circumstances shaped the valence of violence. This is particularly important in an era with extensive intercultural contact and cohabitation, a rigid social and gender structure, the emergence of a concept of holy war, and increasingly sophisticated means of inflicting and withstanding violent attacks. This book traces the ways in which violence changed and evolved as a tool of power and resistance in the era 500 to 1450. Drawing upon a wide variety of source materials, this volume presents essays that examine violence through a broad range of lenses: Understanding and Defining Violence; Sacred Violence; Spaces of Violence; Authority and Violence; Persecution, Oppression and Subjection; Emotion and Violence; Visual Representations of Violence; Literary Representations of Violence; and Technologies of Violence.

Contents:

Introduction, Sara Butler (The Ohio State University, USA) 1. Understanding and Defining Violence, Warren C. Brown (California Institute of Technology, USA) 2. Sacred Violence, Jessalyn Bird (Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, USA) 3. Spaces of Violence, Patricia Turning (Albright College, USA) 4. Authority and Violence, Jelle Haemers (KU Leuven, Belgium) 5. Persecution, Oppression and Subjection, Mark D. Meyerson (University of Cambridge, UK) 6. Emotion and Violence, Kate McGrath (Central Connecticut State University, USA) 7. Visual Representations of Violence, Martha Easton (Saint Joseph's University, USA) 8. Literary Representations of Violence, Larissa Tracey (Longwood University, USA) 9. Technologies of Violence, Dan Spencer (independent historian, UK)

ISBN:

9781350148383

OCLC:

1582442933