Hastening Toward Prague Power and Society in the Medieval Czech Lands Lisa Wolverton "An exemplary piece of work. . . . Hastening Toward Prague] will interest any medieval, political, or social historian who picks it up and starts reading. It is beautifully written, clear, even elegant."--William Chester Jordan, Princeton University This is the first comprehensive study in English of Czech society and politics in the High Middle Ages. It paints a vivid portrait of a flourishing Christian community in the decades between 1050 and 1200. Bohemia's social and political landscape remained...

This volume celebrates the remarkable scholarly career of medieval historian John Van Engen with eighteen exceptional essays contributed by Van Engen's colleagues and former doctoral students, a group that includes some of the best established scholars of the Middle Ages as well as leading younger ones. Together, their work reflects the wide-ranging but coherent body of John Van Engen's own scholarship.

In a section on Christianization, Ruth Mazo Karras explores medieval marriage, Lisa Wolverton offers a new model of the Christianization of Bohemia, R. I. Moore examines the...

Cosmas of Prague: Narrative, Classicism, Politics models new ways to study medieval historical writing. It analyzes the oldest history of a Slavic people written by a Slav, the Chronicle of the Czechs by Cosmas of Prague. Some scholars read Cosmas as a mere annalist, others as a fanciful narrator only partially reliable as a source of historical data, and still others as a panegyrist of the Premyslid dynasty and an exponent of Czech national identity. However, close reading of his text reveals Cosmas to be a fierce critic of the prevailing political order, indeed of all political orders per...