New Books Week: Medieval and Early Modern Studies

We're at the midpoint of New Books Week, and today sees our biggest crop of books in one primary area of study, Medieval and Early Modern Studies. This, of course, covers a fairly large scope, both in subject matter, geography, and time, and the titles below reflect that.

 

Confessions of Faith in Early Modern EnglandConfessions of Faith in Early Modern England
Brooke Conti

"Brooke Conti's claims are fresh, insightful, and important. Confessions of Faith in Early Modern England allows us to see her texts in a new way, and as connected to the larger issue of trying to write about one's private religion in a period when religion was public, and one's relation to the state religion was a matter of importance, fraught with danger." —Achsah Guibbory, Barnard College

In speeches, political pamphlets, and other works of religious controversy, writers from the reign of James I to that of James II unexpectedly erupt into autobiography. Brooke Conti positions these texts as products of the era's tense political climate.

Full Description, Table of Contents, and More

240 pages | 6 x 9
Hardcover | ISBN 978-0-8122-4575-2 | $55.00s | £36.00
Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-0921-1 | $55.00s | £36.00

 

Made FleshMade Flesh: Sacrament and Poetics in Post-Reformation England
Kimberly Johnson

"Kimberly Johnson's dual identity as scholar and poet animates this strikingly original book—not only in its limpid, lively prose but also in its resonant reappraisal of a seemingly familiar subject. Early modern devotional poetry has often been analyzed in terms of its theological and ecclesiological contexts; the real strength and purchase of Johnson's book lies in its integration of this contextual material with a searching investigation of the formal strategies of poetry as such." —Molly Murray, Columbia University

"With great energy and insight, Kimberly Johnson shows how both seventeenth-century poetry and Eucharistic theology were steeped in performative language. Made Flesh makes a real and lasting contribution to early modern studies, and to the study of poetic language in general." —Michael Schoenfeldt, University of Michigan

Made Flesh explores the ways in which the works of John Donne, George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, Edward Taylor, and other devotional poets negotiated the strange triangulation of body, word, and meaning in the Eucharist, effectively reproducing the interpretative challenges of sacramental worship.

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248 pages | 6 x 9 | 3 illus.
Hardcover | ISBN 978-0-8122-4588-2 | $59.95s | £39.00
Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-0940-2 | $59.95s | £39.00

 

The Making and Unmaking of a SaintThe Making and Unmaking of a Saint: Hagiography and Memory in the Cult of Gerald of Aurillac
Mathew Kuefler

"All historians of medieval monasticism know about Gerald of Aurillac–or at least we think we do. Mathew Kuefler has written a very original work on Gerald, redating and reattributing the vitae that form the basis of his fame. The book is gracefully written, well argued, and well documented." —Constance Brittain Bouchard, University of Akron

The Making and Unmaking of a Saint traces the rise and fall of devotion to Gerald of Aurillac through a millennium, from his death in the tenth century to the attempt to reinvigorate his cult in the nineteenth century.

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320 pages | 6 x 9 | 34 illus.
Hardcover | ISBN 978-0-8122-4552-3 | $79.95s | £52.00
Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-0889-4 | $79.95s | £52.00
A volume in the Middle Ages Series

 

Jean de SaintréJean de Saintré: A Late Medieval Education in Love and Chivalry
Antoine de La Sale. Translated by Roberta L. Krueger and Jane H. M. Taylor

"Jean de Saintré is an important late medieval text that contributes to our understanding of the development of the modern novel, and offers important information about material culture, conventional gender roles, and social hierarchies in noble court culture. In addition to all that, it's really fun to read and now newly accessible in a fluent and colloquial English translation by Krueger and Taylor." —Peggy McCracken, University of Michigan

Jean de Saintré is the intriguing story of a young knight's training, his first love, and his disillusionment. It teems with details of armor, jousting and tournaments, heraldry and crusading—and also with a cheerful, and unexpected, eroticism.

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288 pages | 6 x 9 | 6 illus.
Hardcover | ISBN 978-0-8122-4586-8 | $59.95s | £39.00
Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-0939-6 | $59.95s | £39.00
A volume in the Middle Ages Series

 

The Roman Inquisition on the Stage of Italy, c. 1590-1640The Roman Inquisition on the Stage of Italy, c. 1590-1640
Thomas F. Mayer

"A stunning achievement. Driven by a deep exploration of primary sources, The Roman Inquisition on the Stage of Italy, c. 1590-1640 examines the way investigation, trial, and sentencing procedures played out in different states. No one will be able to treat the Inquisition in the same old-fashioned way again." —Edward Muir, Northwestern University

"Thanks to wide-ranging research and new perceptions, Thomas Mayer shows how the Roman Inquisition served popes as both a legal and diplomatic institution as they handled jurisdictional squabbles with the diversely organized states of Naples, Venice, and Tuscany."Christopher Black, University of Glasgow

Drawing on the Roman Inquisition's own records, diplomatic correspondence, local documents, newsletters, and other sources, Thomas F. Mayer provides an intricately detailed account of the ways the Inquisition operated to serve the papacy's long-standing political aims in Naples, Venice, and Florence between 1590 and 1640.

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368 pages | 6 x 9
Hardcover | ISBN 978-0-8122-4573-8 | $79.95s | £52.00
Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-0934-1 | $79.95s | £52.00
A volume in the Haney Foundation Series

 

Mad Tuscans and Their FamiliesMad Tuscans and Their Families: A History of Mental Disorder in Early Modern Italy
Elizabeth W. Mellyn

"At last, a study that goes beyond literary representations of madness to explore how actual people and communities understood and dealt with conditions judged to be insane. Mad Tuscans and Their Families carefully charts the legal and political contexts behind a wide range of behaviors and never loses sight of those who cared for sufferers when there was no agreed-upon public response or means of care." —David Gentilcore, University of Leicester

Drawing on the rich judicial archives of early modern Florence and its Tuscans domains, Mad Tuscans offers an innovative look at how families and courts of law worked together to forge pragmatic solutions to the range of problems madness introduced to their households.

Full Description, Table of Contents, and More

304 pages | 6 x 9 | 8 illus.
Hardcover | ISBN 978-0-8122-4612-4 | $55.00s | £36.00
Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-0981-5 | $55.00s | £36.00

 

The Gibraltar CrusadeThe Gibraltar Crusade: Castile and the Battle for the Strait
Joseph F. O'Callaghan

"Through a meticulous choice and interpretation of Arabic, Catalan, Castilian, English, and Latin chronicles and ecclesiastical, municipal, and royal notarial records, O'Callaghan lays out with consummate care and with great detail the story of the brutal struggle for control of the Strait of Gibraltar—a struggle that would ultimately seal the fate of Spanish Islam." —Medieval Review

"[O'Callaghan] does a superb job of sifting through the chronicles of the Christian and Muslim rulers that provide the foundation for this entire narrative. . . . This very interesting book makes it abundantly clear that pragmatism and financial gain had as much to do with the correlation of forces as did religious practice." —Journal of Military History

"What truly makes this work a prominent addition to the field of Iberian reconquest lore are the Castilian, Latin, Arabic, and English sources O'Callaghan uses with proficient erudition to tell the story of this 'epic battle'—one that certainly needed to be told." —Historian

Joseph O'Callaghan offers the first full and authoritative history of the epic battle for control of the Strait of Gibraltar waged by Castile, Morocco, and Granada in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries—a major, but often overlooked chapter in the Christian reconquest of Spain.

Full Description, Table of Contents, and More

392 pages | 6 x 9 | 13 illus.
Hardcover | ISBN 978-0-8122-4302-4 | $55.00s | £36.00
Paperback | ISBN 978-0-8122-2302-6 | $29.95s | £19.50
Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-0463-6 | $29.95s | £19.50
A volume in the Middle Ages Series

 

Evening NewsEvening News: Optics, Astronomy, and Journalism in Early Modern Europe
Eileen Reeves

"A magisterial book that will appeal to readers interested in early modern cultural and social history as well as the history of science and astronomy. Eileen Reeves shows how the dark room, the spyglass, and the telescope offered material for describing all the known and less known features of information in the early seventeenth century, from speed to tardiness, from accuracy to unreliability, from exclusivity to intermediation." —Filippo De Vivo, Birkbeck College, University of London

"Evening News convincingly demonstrates the entanglement of journalism and the news with optics and astronomy. Discovered snippets of private correspondence and other minute pieces of text, close readings of these passages, and connections to historical contexts manifest the author's impressive erudition." —Sven Dupré, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science

Eileen Reeves examines the ways in which a long-standing association of reportage with covert surveillance and astrological prediction was altered by the near simultaneous emergence of weekly newsheets, the invention of the Dutch telescope, and the appearance of Galileo Galilei's astronomical treatise, The Starry Messenger.

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328 pages | 6 x 9 | 4 illus.
Hardcover | ISBN 978-0-8122-4574-5 | $69.95s | £45.50
Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-0948-8 | $69.95s | £45.50
A volume in the Material Texts series

 

The Medieval SalentoThe Medieval Salento: Art and Identity in Southern Italy
Linda Safran

"An ambitious and truly interdisciplinary book that covers a particularly vast body of material with exemplary clarity and erudition. Linda Safran provides an enormously rich source to fill in a major lacuna in the scholarship of medieval Italy." —Nino Zchomelidse, Johns Hopkins University

"A richly detailed and illuminating examination of a little-studied region of medieval southern Italy. Safran's interdisciplinary approach pushes the boundaries of identity scholarship by relying in particular on art historical and anthropological methods." —Joanna Drell, University of Richmond

The Medieval Salento explores the visual and material culture of people who lived and died in this region between the ninth and fifteenth centuries, showing the ways Jews, Orthodox Christians, and Roman-rite Christians used images, artifacts, and texts in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin to construct both independent and intersecting identities.

Full Description, Table of Contents, and More

480 pages | 7 x 10 | 20 color 149 b/w illus.
Hardcover | ISBN 978-0-8122-4554-7 | $95.00s | £62.00
Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-0891-7 | $95.00s | £62.00
A volume in the Middle Ages Series

 

The Queen's DumbshowsThe Queen's Dumbshows: John Lydgate and the Making of Early Theater
Claire Sponsler

"This absorbing and well-plotted study affords a rare glimpse into the conceptualization, performance, and impact of drama at a crucial time in the creation of an English vernacular literature." —Carol Symes, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign "

An impressively researched, perceptive study of a neglected topic by a leading scholar of medieval English drama." —Theresa Coletti, University of Maryland

The Queen's Dumbshows explores the importance of John Lydgate's mummings and entertainments for literary and theatrical history, rethinking what constitutes "drama" in late medieval England and what role it played in public life.

Full Description, Table of Contents, and More

320 pages | 6 x 9 | 7 illus.
Hardcover | ISBN 978-0-8122-4595-0 | $65.00s | £42.50
Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-0947-1 | $65.00s | £42.50
A volume in the Middle Ages Series