Lives, Identities and Histories in the Central Middle Ages

Julie Barrau is Senior Lecturer in Medieval British History at the University of Cambridge. She has published research on Thomas Becket and his circle, letter-writing, Latin literacy, and on the circulation of knowledge in the central Middle Ages. Her first book, Bible, lettres et politique. L'Écriture au service des hommes à l'époque de Thomas Becket, was awarded the Prix Saintour by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres. David Bates is Emeritus Professor of Medieval History at the University of East Anglia. He gave the Ford Lectures in the University of Oxford in 2010 and has a doctorate honoris causa from the University of Caen-Normandie. His most recent books are The Normans and Empire (2013), William the Conqueror (2016; French translation, 2018), and (with Xavier Barral i Altet), La Tapisserie de Bayeux (2019), awarded the Prix du Livre d'Art by the Syndicat National des Antiquaires.

Introduction Julie Barrau and David Bates; Part I. Entwined Lives and Multiple Identities; 1. Mother and Motherhood in the Vita et passio Willelmi Norwicensis Miri Rubin; 2. Prayer for the Dead: Women, Death, and Salvation Fiona J. Griffiths; 3. Authority over Men and the Distribution of Property: Two Readings of William of Malmesbury Mathieu Arnoux; 4. Flemish Settlement and Maritime Traffic in the South-West Peninsula of Britain, c.1050–1250 Julia Crick; 5. Cistercians and the Laity in Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century Upper Normandy Elma Brenner; 6. Memory and Trauma: the Strange Case of Walchelin the Priest Patricia Skinner; 7. New Charters of the Empress Matilda, with Particular Reference to her Reception at Gloucester in 1139 Nicholas Vincent; 8. Female Identity before 1250: the Preudefemme David Crouch; Part II. Historians, Lawyers and Exegetes: Writing Lives and Identities 9. Ademar of Chabannes and the Normans: An Outline of a New Reading Pierre Bauduin; 10. Lives, Identities, and the Historians of the Normans David Bates; 11. Ruth in the Twelfth Century: Medieval Takes on the Multiple Identities of a Foreign Converted Widow from Scripture Julie Barrau; 12. Jacob and Esau and the Interplay of Jewish and Christian Identities in the Middle Ages Anna Sapir Abulafia; 13. Identity, Gender and History in Wace's Roman de Rou and Roman de Brut Leonie Hicks; 14. Glanvill: Language, Law, and Identity John Hudson; 15. Dunstan, Edgar, and the History of Not-So-Recent Events George Garnett.