"The various and contradictory signs of English otherworldliness offered medieval writers a remarkably elastic medium with which to construct national identity. . . . Above all, the wonderful aspects of geographic otherness made it possible for English writers to see their homeland as not only barbarously divided but also blessed and united. Even as they acknowledged England as a barbarous wasteland . . . or as a site of brutal disorder . . ., the English also imagined England as a holy wilderness or as a blessed isle." from the IntroductionIn a view that sweeps from the tenth century to the...
"The various and contradictory signs of English otherworldliness offered medieval writers a remarkably elastic medium with which to construct national...
The first comprehensive analysis of English national identity in the late Middle Ages. During the late Middle Ages, the increasing expansion of administrative, legal, and military systems by a central government, together with the greater involvement of the commons in national life, brought England closer than ever to political nationhood. Examining a diverse array of texts--ranging from Latin and vernacular historiography to Lollard tracts, Ricardian poetry, and chivalric treatises--this volume reveals the variety of forms "England" assumed when it was imagined in the medieval West. These...
The first comprehensive analysis of English national identity in the late Middle Ages. During the late Middle Ages, the increasing expansion of admini...
The first comprehensive analysis of English national identity in the late Middle Ages. During the late Middle Ages, the increasing expansion of administrative, legal, and military systems by a central government, together with the greater involvement of the commons in national life, brought England closer than ever to political nationhood. Examining a diverse array of texts--ranging from Latin and vernacular historiography to Lollard tracts, Ricardian poetry, and chivalric treatises--this volume reveals the variety of forms "England" assumed when it was imagined in the medieval West. These...
The first comprehensive analysis of English national identity in the late Middle Ages. During the late Middle Ages, the increasing expansion of admini...
England during the Middle Ages was at the forefront of European antisemitism. It was in medieval Norwich that the notorious "blood libel" was first introduced when a resident accused the city's Jewish leaders of abducting and ritually murdering a local boy. England also enforced legislation demanding that Jews wear a badge of infamy, and in 1290, it became the first European nation to expel forcibly all of its Jewish residents. In The Accommodated Jew, Kathy Lavezzo rethinks the complex and contradictory relation between England s rejection of the Jew and the centrality of Jews to...
England during the Middle Ages was at the forefront of European antisemitism. It was in medieval Norwich that the notorious "blood libel" was first...
