Early Medieval EuropePub Date : 2026-04-07Epub Date: 2026-03-22DOI: 10.1111/emed.70025
Richard Purkiss
{"title":"The status of thegn in late Anglo-Saxon England","authors":"Richard Purkiss","doi":"10.1111/emed.70025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/emed.70025","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article considers how the term ‘thegn’ was used in tenth- and eleventh-century England. Although commonly thought to indicate members of a face-to-face service aristocracy with specific attributes, it has resisted close definition. Examination of references to anonymous thegns in administrative and legal texts suggests that the people meant were, increasingly, quite ordinary landowners. This casts Archbishop Wulfstan's much-quoted stipulations on thegnship in a new light. The application of OE <i>þegn</i> to landowners in general hints at a deeper realignment of social boundaries in a newly expanded kingdom.</p>","PeriodicalId":44508,"journal":{"name":"Early Medieval Europe","volume":"34 2","pages":"323-352"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2026-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/emed.70025","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147684032","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: 2026-02-09DOI: 10.1111/emed.70021
Julio Escalona
{"title":"May I pick your brain? Local minds as living cadastres in a Portuguese eleventh-century lawsuit","authors":"Julio Escalona","doi":"10.1111/emed.70021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/emed.70021","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In the context of a dispute with the monastery of Lorvão, in the late eleventh century, the monks of Vacariça, near Coimbra (modern Portugal), carried out a field enquiry in the village of Recardães. This was part of a failed attempt to repossess a number of land plots that they claimed were theirs, but had lost control of. This case is a suitable starting point for a discussion of the fundamental, but often neglected role of Dense Local Knowledge (DLK) in the structuration of aristocratic estates and power relations, in contexts where centralized records of landownership were absent.</p>","PeriodicalId":44508,"journal":{"name":"Early Medieval Europe","volume":"34 2","pages":"231-253"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2026-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/emed.70021","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147683530","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: 2026-01-14DOI: 10.1111/emed.70016
Jessica Hendy-Hodgkinson
{"title":"The Acts of Eadburg: drypoint additions to Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Selden Supra 30","authors":"Jessica Hendy-Hodgkinson","doi":"10.1111/emed.70016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/emed.70016","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In 1913, two drypoint additions were identified in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Selden Supra 30 (SS30), an eighth-century Southumbrian copy of the Acts of the Apostles. It was suggested that these additions, cut into the membrane of p. 47, were abbreviations of the Old English female name, Eadburg. Just over a century later, many more drypoint markings were discovered in the margins of SS30, including several instances of Eadburg’s full name. This article provides the first analysis of these additions to the manuscript. It argues, based on their form, content, and placement, that these tiny annotations represent meaningful responses to the text added to SS30 by its owner – Eadburg herself.</p>","PeriodicalId":44508,"journal":{"name":"Early Medieval Europe","volume":"34 2","pages":"195-230"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2026-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/emed.70016","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147683799","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: 2026-02-25DOI: 10.1111/emed.70029
Marco Panato
{"title":"Gardens in Northern Iberia in the Early Middle Ages: Practice, Product, and Sale. By Wendy Davies. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. 2024. xviii + 240 pp. £99. ISBN 978 0 19 889584 8.","authors":"Marco Panato","doi":"10.1111/emed.70029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/emed.70029","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44508,"journal":{"name":"Early Medieval Europe","volume":"34 2","pages":"370-372"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2026-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147683935","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: 2026-02-17DOI: 10.1111/emed.70027
Simon Maclean
{"title":"Judith of West Francia, Carolingian Princess and First Countess of Flanders: Biographical Elements and Legacy. Edited by Steven Vanderputten. Turnhout: Brepols. 2024. 254 pp. €70. ISBN 978 2 503 60461 9 (hardback); 978 2 503 60462 6 (ebook).","authors":"Simon Maclean","doi":"10.1111/emed.70027","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/emed.70027","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44508,"journal":{"name":"Early Medieval Europe","volume":"34 2","pages":"356-357"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2026-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147683952","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.70033
Daisy Bonsall
{"title":"Textile and Textile Imagery in Early Medieval English Literature: Traditions and Contexts. By Maren Clegg Hyer. Woodbridge and Rochester, NY: D.S. Brewer. 2025. x + 246 pp. £85. ISBN 978 1 84384 744 1.","authors":"Daisy Bonsall","doi":"10.1111/emed.70033","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/emed.70033","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44508,"journal":{"name":"Early Medieval Europe","volume":"34 2","pages":"373-375"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2026-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147683276","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: 2026-02-17DOI: 10.1111/emed.70032
Samuel Rowe
{"title":"The Legacy of Medieval Scandinavian Encounters with England and the Insular World. Edited by Richard Dance, Sara M. Pons-Sanz and Brittany Schorn. Studies in the Early Middle Ages 34. Turnhout: Brepols. 2025. 454 pp. + 11 b/w illustrations, 12 b/w tables, 5 b/w and 3 colour maps. €125. ISBN 978 2 503 60770 2 (hardback); ISBN 978 2 503 60771 9 (e-book).","authors":"Samuel Rowe","doi":"10.1111/emed.70032","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/emed.70032","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44508,"journal":{"name":"Early Medieval Europe","volume":"34 2","pages":"367-369"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2026-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147683951","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: 2026-03-12DOI: 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}