front cover of Pagans in the Early Modern Baltic
Pagans in the Early Modern Baltic
Sixteenth-Century Ethnographic Accounts of Baltic Paganism
Francis Young
Arc Humanities Press, 2023
The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was the last European polity to renounce paganism and accept the Christian faith, at the end of the fourteenth century. However, the conversion of the Baltic region continued into the early modern period and the ongoing pagan beliefs and practices of Lithuanians and Prussians excited the interest of early ethnographers. This volume brings together Jan Łasicki's On the Gods of the Samogitians, Jan Malecki’s Little Book on the Sacrifices and Idolatry of the Old Prussians, and other Latin texts on Baltic paganism, none of which have hitherto been translated into English. A critical introduction places these texts, which are of interest far beyond the field of Central European history, in the contexts of early modern ethnography, Baltic history, and Reformation religious polemic.
[more]

front cover of Pandemic Disease in the Medieval World
Pandemic Disease in the Medieval World
Rethinking the Black Death
Monica H. Green
Arc Humanities Press, 2015
This ground-breaking book brings together scholars from the humanities and social and physical sciences to address the question of how recent work in the genetics, zoology, and epidemiology of plague's causative organism (Yersinia pestis) can allow a rethinking of the Black Death pandemic and its larger historical significance.
[more]

front cover of The Peace of God
The Peace of God
Geoffrey Koziol
Arc Humanities Press, 2018
The Peace of God was one of the most important movements of the Middle Ages, yet is highly contested. It has been seen as both radically innovative and fundamentally traditional; as millenarian and not millenarian; as a popular movement and as a way of consolidating power for the elites. Geoffrey Koziol argues for the validity of all these differing viewpoints, because specific instantiations of the Peace of God varied greatly, and there were inherent contradictions in early ideas of peace and peace-making.
[more]

front cover of People and Places of the Roman Past
People and Places of the Roman Past
The Educated Traveller's Guide
Peter Hatlie
Arc Humanities Press, 2019
Written by scholars who specialize in Roman history, religion, and culture, this book is written for travellers in search of inspiration and learning as they tour the streets, churches, museums, and monuments of the Roman past. Combining biographical portraits of some of Rome’s most significant historical figures with a study of the monuments, artworks, and places associated with them, <i>People and Places of the Roman Past</i> offers an informative and insightful look at the human and cultural history of one of the great cities of the world.
[more]

front cover of Performing Disability in Medieval and Early Modern Britain
Performing Disability in Medieval and Early Modern Britain
Mark C. Chambers
Arc Humanities Press, 2024
Performing Disability is a landmark examination of performance history in the medieval and early modern era. Seeking to provide a fact-based assessment of disabled performance, this survey examines the nature and socialization of disabled performers in the medieval and early Tudor periods. Using Records of Early English Drama, literary representations, and targeted histories of disability in the medieval period, this study takes a new and welcome look at the evidence for, and the conceptualization of, “impairment” as a performative act in the premodern era. It features discussions on the different societal constructions pertaining to “disability” (mental incapacity, blindness and deafness, dwarfism, gigantism, etc.), and how the evidence for such conditions was socialized through performance. Taking an evidence-based and multidisciplinary approach to perceptions of identity and “othering” in premodern society, this study is certain to appeal to a wide audience, including historians of theatre and performance, disability advocates and theorists, and social historians.
[more]

front cover of
"The Perils of Persiles and Sigismunda, a Northern Saga" by Miguel de Cervantes
William Thomas Little
Arc Humanities Press, 2023
Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda, historia septentrional (1617) is Miguel de Cervantes’s last major work. Virtually ignored for the past four hundred years and overshadowed by the acclaim accorded Don Quixote, it is due a revival. As indicated by this new English title, The Perils of Persiles and Sigismunda, a Northern Saga, this challenging saga-like fiction follows an attractive young prince and princess who undertake a perilous pilgrimage by sea and on land from their North Atlantic islands to Rome. This new translation by William Thomas Little takes full account of recent scholars’ ground-breaking research and their new readings. It also includes a selected bibliography, a contextualizing introduction, and footnotes on the text that clarify for contemporary readers cultural issues that were readily known to seventeenth-century readers in Spain, France, Italy, Portugal, and England.
[more]

front cover of The Picts Re-Imagined
The Picts Re-Imagined
Julianna Grigg
Arc Humanities Press, 2018
Pictish studies is undergoing significant revision and invigoration, with recent archaeological discoveries and new methodologies in archaeology, cultural geography and art history prompting a re-assessment of Pictish cultural and social development. We can now say more about the cultural and political lives of the Picts than ever before, and these new findings are enabling a fresh perspective on the wider development of Early Medieval polities across the Latin west. This short book provides an exciting and informed synthesis of our current understanding of Pictish history and material remains.
[more]

front cover of Plague and Contagion in the Islamic Mediterranean
Plague and Contagion in the Islamic Mediterranean
Nükhet Varlik
Arc Humanities Press, 2017
This book discusses diseases that affected human and non-human populations in areas stretching from the Red Sea and Egypt to Anatolia, the Balkans, and the Black Sea, in the early modern and modern eras. It tackles various questions of historiography and sources, tests new interdisciplinary methodologies, and asks new questions while revisiting older ones. It contributes to Ottoman studies, the history of medicine, Mediterranean and European history, as well as global studies on the role of epidemics in history.
[more]

logo for Arc Humanities Press
Poetry and Nation-Building in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
Three Early Modern Latin Epics
Francis Young
Arc Humanities Press, 2024

front cover of The Political Message of the Shrine of St. Heribert of Cologne
The Political Message of the Shrine of St. Heribert of Cologne
Church and Empire after the Investiture Contest
Carolyn M. Carty
Arc Humanities Press, 2022
This is the first ever book in English solely devoted to one of the most important reliquary shrines of the Mosan Rhineland, the Heribert Shrine. Carolyn M. Carty investigates how liturgy, history, politics, and geography all converge to influence the creation and the message of a work of art in the aftermath of the Investiture Controversy between the Church and the Holy Roman Empire. She argues that the Heribert Shrine's images and inscriptions support the supremacy of the Church over the State with consequent implications for the shrine's intended viewers.
[more]

front cover of Polynesia, 900–1600
Polynesia, 900–1600
Madi Williams
Arc Humanities Press, 2021
This book provides a concise overview of the history of Polynesia, focusing on New Zealand and its outlying islands, during the period 900–1600. It provides a thematic examination of Polynesia to avoid placing the region’s history into an inaccurate, linear Western chronology. The themes of movement and migration, adaptation and change, and development and expansion offer the optimal means of understanding Polynesia during this time. Through this innovative and unique perspective on Polynesian history, which has not been previously undertaken, the reader is encouraged to think about regions outside Europe in relation to the premodern period.
[more]

front cover of Practices of Commentary
Practices of Commentary
Medieval Traditions and Transmissions
Amanda Goodman
Arc Humanities Press, 2023
The comparative or connected study of localized intellectual traditions poses special challenges to the global turn in medieval studies. How can we enable conversations across language groups and intricate cultural formations, as well as disciplines? Practices of commentary offer a compelling opportunity: their visual layouts reveal assumptions about the relative status of text and gloss, while interpretive interlinear or marginal prompts capture the dynamic relationships among generations of teachers, students, and readers. The material traces of manuscript usage—from hastily scrawled marginal notes to vivid rubrication—illuminate the shared didactic and communicative practices developed within scholarly communities. By bringing together researchers working on specific cultures and discourses across Eurasia, this volume moves toward a global account of premodern commentary traditions.
[more]

front cover of The Pre-Modern Manuscript Trade and its Consequences, ca. 1890–1945
The Pre-Modern Manuscript Trade and its Consequences, ca. 1890–1945
Laura Cleaver
Arc Humanities Press, 2024

front cover of Primary Sources on Monsters
Primary Sources on Monsters
Asa Simon Mittman
Arc Humanities Press, 2018
Companion volumes <i>Classic Readings on Monster Theory</i> and <i>Primary Sources on Monsters</i> gather a wide range of readings and sources to enable us to see and understand what monsters can show us about what it means to be human. The first volume introduces important modern theorists of the monstrous and aims to provide interpretive tools and strategies for students to use to grapple with the primary sources in the second volume, which brings together some of the most influential and indicative monster narratives from the West.
[more]

front cover of Princesses Mary and Elizabeth Tudor and the Gift Book Exchange
Princesses Mary and Elizabeth Tudor and the Gift Book Exchange
Valerie Schutte
Arc Humanities Press, 2021
This is the first book to offer a comparison of these two famous Tudor queens as princesses, suggesting that their early lives need to be more closely examined together. It offers a detailed case study of the four extant dedications that Elizabeth Tudor wrote to accompany manuscript translations that she gave to Henry VIII, his then wife, Katherine Parr, and to Elizabeth's brother Edward (VI of England) as New Year’s gifts from 1545 to 1548. Additionally, it seeks to compare Elizabeth with her sister Mary, beginning with pre-accession dedications given to each of them, exploring two of Mary's own translations, moving to their typical patterns of New Year's gift giving, and ending on the textual transmission of their translations that were later published in 1548. It argues that Elizabeth’s dedications to her family, while participating in the tradition of giving books, were unique and in the dedications she intended not only to represent her loyalty but also to stabilize her position within the royal family.
[more]

front cover of Property, Power, and Authority in Rus and Latin Europe, ca. 1000–1236
Property, Power, and Authority in Rus and Latin Europe, ca. 1000–1236
Yulia Mikhailova
Arc Humanities Press, 2018
This book intertwines two themes in medieval studies hitherto kept apart: comparisons of Latin and Orthodox Europe and the "feudal revolution" of the late- and post-Carolingian periods. The book broadens the debate by comparing texts written in "learned" and "vulgar" Latin, Church Slavonic, Anglo-Norman, and East Slavonic. From this comparison, the Kingdom of the Rus appears as a regional variation of European society. This suggests current interpretations overemphasize factors unique to the medieval West and overlook deeper pan-European processes.
[more]


Send via email Share on Facebook Share on Twitter