Early Medieval EuropePub Date : 2026-04-07Epub Date: 2026-03-12DOI: 10.1111/emed.70022
Caitlin Ellis, Sam Ottewill-Soulsby
{"title":"The caliph and the falcons: a ninth-century history from Iceland to Iraq","authors":"Caitlin Ellis, Sam Ottewill-Soulsby","doi":"10.1111/emed.70022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/emed.70022","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In the late ninth and early tenth centuries, an extraordinary number of falcons were given to the ʿAbbāsid caliphs in Baghdad, many of which were white. Gifts from competing dynasties in the northern provinces of the Caliphate, at least some of these birds were almost certainly gyrfalcons from near the Arctic Circle. This article argues that they came from Scandinavia and that their appearance in Baghdad can be linked to Norse settlement in Iceland. The journey of these gyrfalcons demonstrates the importance of access to northern goods for caliphal politics and the impact of scarce animal resources on early medieval trade.</p>","PeriodicalId":44508,"journal":{"name":"Early Medieval Europe","volume":"34 2","pages":"299-322"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2026-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/emed.70022","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147683778","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Early Medieval EuropePub Date : 2026-04-07Epub Date: 2026-02-17DOI: 10.1111/emed.70030
Nicola Meyrick
{"title":"Canon Law and Christian Societies Between Christianity and Islam: An Arabic Canon Collection from al-Andalus and its Transcultural Contexts. Edited by Matthias Maser, Jesús Lorenzo Jiménez and Geoffrey K. Martin. Religion and Law in Medieval Christian and Muslim Societies 11. Turnhout: Brepols. 2024. 434 pp. €125 (hardback). ISBN 978 2 503 60726 9.","authors":"Nicola Meyrick","doi":"10.1111/emed.70030","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/emed.70030","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44508,"journal":{"name":"Early Medieval Europe","volume":"34 2","pages":"361-363"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2026-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147683824","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Early Medieval EuropePub Date : 2026-04-07Epub Date: 2026-03-05DOI: 10.1111/emed.70023
Juan Antonio Jiménez Sánchez
{"title":"The ecclesiastical fight against storm-makers in the Latin west","authors":"Juan Antonio Jiménez Sánchez","doi":"10.1111/emed.70023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/emed.70023","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper studies the strategies used by the Church to fight against the storm-makers. These figures were said to cause the storms that ruined crops, and during Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages in the Visigothic and Frankish kingdoms were subject to punishment and constraints. The analysis begins with a review of the methods employed by ordinary people to nullify the actions of <i>tempestarii</i>. Next, the canonical legislation enacted to punish these practitioners of magic is examined, followed by an analysis of how the Church was helped in this struggle by the civil authorities. Finally, the study explores how the Church countered belief in the <i>tempestarii</i> both through preaching and teaching, and through the appropriation and reinterpretation of these beliefs within its own doctrinal framework.</p>","PeriodicalId":44508,"journal":{"name":"Early Medieval Europe","volume":"34 2","pages":"275-298"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2026-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/emed.70023","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147683275","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Early Medieval EuropePub Date : 2026-04-07Epub Date: 2026-02-27DOI: 10.1111/emed.70024
Holly Miller, Christina Lee
{"title":"Animals and multi-species considerations of well-being 500–1100","authors":"Holly Miller, Christina Lee","doi":"10.1111/emed.70024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/emed.70024","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Much of the scholarship on early medieval English medicinal ingredients has focussed on herbal remedies and the role of plants in healing activities. This approach detracts from the significance of animals, their parts, and their products, and also obscures the fact that many healing activities are in fact multi-species. In this paper, we combine ideas from object-oriented methodologies commonly used in archaeology, such as <i>chaîne opératoire</i> and object biography, with analysis of case studies of early medieval well-being texts, using the pig as an exemplar species. These examples show that knowledge of an animal's phenotype, behaviour, management, and history was important to procure the right medical ingredients and that knowledge of the animals as individuals was necessary for the expected efficacy of the medical treatment. This article represents an initial step and proof of concept for using these methods to illustrate the role of animals in well-being practices, thereby highlighting the multi-species nature of early medieval <i>materia medica</i>.</p>","PeriodicalId":44508,"journal":{"name":"Early Medieval Europe","volume":"34 2","pages":"254-274"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2026-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147684239","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Roman presbyters and la bella scrittura Filocaliana","authors":"Julia Borczyńska","doi":"10.1111/emed.70015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/emed.70015","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The long-standing collaboration between Bishop Damasus of Rome and Furius Dionysius Filocalus has prompted extensive scholarly research over the years, thereby forging a lasting and inseparable link between them. This article does not seek to undermine that bond; rather, it demonstrates – on the basis of surviving epigraphic evidence – that Filocalus’ workshop was not solely Damasus’ domain but was also heavily employed by Roman presbyters. They were the earliest imitators of Damasus’ building initiatives and the most devoted supporters of his project to monumentalize suburban cemeteries, making full use of the recognizable Filocalian script as their primary means of expressing this innovative vision.</p>","PeriodicalId":44508,"journal":{"name":"Early Medieval Europe","volume":"34 1","pages":"101-133"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2025-12-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145970183","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The date and context of the Astronomer's Life of Louis the Pious","authors":"Simon MacLean","doi":"10.1111/emed.70005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/emed.70005","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The Astronomer's Life of the emperor Louis the Pious (814–40) is a canonical source for scholars of Frankish history. It sits at the centre of recent debates about the nature and tone of Carolingian political discourse, and about the crisis of the empire in the 830s. Yet the date and precise context of the text's composition have hardly ever been debated. The consensus position, codified in Ernst Tremp's definitive 1995 edition, is that it was written very shortly after the death of its subject, during the succession war fought between his sons. In this article I argue that this reading is not as secure as is usually assumed, and that a later dating may be preferable. I propose a new interpretation of the text as a product of Charles the Bald's reign and argue that this context reinvigorates the Life's value as a source for ninth-century history.</p>","PeriodicalId":44508,"journal":{"name":"Early Medieval Europe","volume":"34 1","pages":"70-100"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2025-12-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/emed.70005","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145969624","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Les Cartulaires. Entre mises en ordre des archives et mises en ordre du monde (IXe-XIIIe siècle). Edited by Claire Cazanove Hannecart. Turnhout: Brepols. 2024. 312 pp. €95. ISBN 978 2 503 58867 4.","authors":"Leticia Agúndez San Miguel","doi":"10.1111/emed.70008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/emed.70008","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44508,"journal":{"name":"Early Medieval Europe","volume":"34 1","pages":"189-191"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145993882","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Duncan W. Wright, Oliver H. Creighton, David Gould, Scott Chaussée, Tim Kinnaird, Michael Shapland, Aayush Srivastava, Sam Turner
{"title":"The power of the past: materializing collective memory at early medieval lordly centres","authors":"Duncan W. Wright, Oliver H. Creighton, David Gould, Scott Chaussée, Tim Kinnaird, Michael Shapland, Aayush Srivastava, Sam Turner","doi":"10.1111/emed.70004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/emed.70004","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The repurposing of earlier sites and monuments is an enduringly popular theme in early medieval archaeology, but in England it has attracted little interest among Late Saxon and early post-Conquest studies. From the tenth century, however, an increasingly prevalent pattern is discernible of secular lords locating their power centres in relation to earlier features. A variety of evidence for such correlations is presented here, demonstrating reuse as an explicit strategy of aspirant lords who developed their private complexes with reference to a wide range of prehistoric, Roman, and earlier medieval antecedents. It is argued that the tumultuous political conditions around the turn of the first millennium intensified elite engagement with material signatures of the past, which they curated in efforts to shape collective memory and buttress their authority.</p>","PeriodicalId":44508,"journal":{"name":"Early Medieval Europe","volume":"34 1","pages":"34-69"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2025-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/emed.70004","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145970166","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Hungarian pro anima donations from the eleventh century","authors":"Pavol Hudáček","doi":"10.1111/emed.70006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/emed.70006","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The article deals with eleventh-century Hungarian pro anima donations, which reflect the efforts of the members of the Árpád dynasty and other powerful elites to secure eternal salvation. Medieval Hungary underwent profound social changes following the adoption of Christianity. For the rulers and magnates, this manifested in a concern for their immortal souls and the securing of memorialization after death, something that was to be provided by the emerging Benedictine abbeys or proprietary churches. For purification of one's sins, the various ecclesiastical institutions needed to be duly supported materially; widespread donations meant for the salvation of souls served this specific purpose.</p>","PeriodicalId":44508,"journal":{"name":"Early Medieval Europe","volume":"34 1","pages":"134-168"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2025-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145987285","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mills and society in early medieval northern Italy","authors":"Marco Panato","doi":"10.1111/emed.70003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/emed.70003","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Drawing on the extensive documentary record of northern Italy, available archaeological evidence, and comparative case studies from early medieval Europe, this study demonstrates that mill-based landscapes in the Po and Friuli-Venetian plains were shaped by society as a whole. Italian charters from the late ninth and tenth centuries highlight the pivotal role of kings and emperors in managing mills and milling resources, alongside ecclesiastical and secular landlords, aristocratic women, and wealthy peasants. This article explores the varied forms and functions of mills, highlighting that, beyond their crucial role in ecological sustainability, they also served as powerful social instruments for establishing authority, consolidating alliances, and controlling territory.</p>","PeriodicalId":44508,"journal":{"name":"Early Medieval Europe","volume":"34 1","pages":"3-33"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2025-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/emed.70003","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145964352","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}