The Egyptian hermit Onuphrios was said to have lived entirely on dates, and John the Baptist on locusts and wild honey. Was it really possible to sustain life on so little food? Full of anecdotes, this is the story of hermits, monks, food and fasting in the Middle Ages.

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries the Normans had a formative influence on the development of states and societies in the British Isles, southern Italy and the Levant. Their achievements still resonate powerfully today, and represent a vital field of historical study. But how far did colonial elites define themselves as Norman, and to what extent were they categorized as such by others? What were the defining attributes of the supremacies achieved by the Normans, and by other incomers associated with them, and how decisive and diverse was the impact of their influence on local...

This volume complements the one published in 2013 as Norman Expansion: Connections, Continuities and Contrasts, and provides a European-wide treatment of the Norman diaspora and polities they established between the 10th and 12th centuries in France, the British Isles, southern Italy and the Levant. While providing strong links with the first volume, it offers at the same time a distinctive interpretative framework and new material. The Introduction lays out the nature of the Norman Edge project and its aims, and the approaches taken in the previous volume. It assesses the current state of...