This ambitious volume starts off on common ground for many publications within medieval studies, locating the Middle Ages as a period formerly identified by scholarship as ‘static and monolithic’, a view that for decades influenced how researchers from different areas approached it (p 2). What at first could be an argument leading an entire publication into the obscurities of ‘revisionism’ leads to an interesting introductory discussion of how the essays gathered in the book will revisit theoretical and methodological practices in different academic areas to date, deconstructing any ideas that oversee the medieval period as a stagnant moment in history. As the editors themselves confirm, this volume is situated among discussions and current bibliographies on the ‘global’ in the Middle Ages.
The three concepts bringing together the book’s eighteen essays are that of transition, transformation and taxonomy. The authors seek to challenge large-scale terminologies while engaging with a diversity of contexts within the medieval period, highlighting that ‘change does not happen uniformly’, therefore questioning ‘a network of overarching conceptual systems, structures [and] categories that are used to classify the Middle Ages’ (pp 9, 5). The essays address one or more of the concepts, following an interesting pattern that highlights at the very introduction of each main category discussed, be it transition in compunction* in the insular context, ethnic identities in transition in medieval Córdoba or taxonomies in ‘embroidered’ Anglo-Saxon stones. As the reader will quickly spot, the majority of the essays derive from previous papers given by the authors at the 2012 conference on ‘Transition in the Medieval World’, explaining why the theme of transition is featured at length throughout the volume.
While addressing transition, transformation and taxonomies, the essays also engage with other theoretical and methodological agendas pertaining to the disciplines they derive from. The problems regarding taxonomies are often addressed in more subtle ways, where authors do not necessarily name their investigative approach but rather focus directly on the taxonomic issue they seek to tackle (such as identity, for instance). And whereas some essays do focus on other geographical contexts within the medieval period, such as Ireland, Córdoba and Lombardic North Italy, the great majority of the chapters focus on various aspects of the Anglo-Saxon period, which ends up being the centre of scrutiny.
The problems regarding the elusiveness of the concept of transition are tackled in interdisciplinary and creative ways, sometimes also discussing a number of other concepts in different disciplines. Such is the case with Aleksandra McLain, who discusses the concepts of material culture and transition in archaeology, and Eric Lacey, who addresses Anglo-Saxon folk-taxonomies in linguistics and literary studies. Although the discussions presented in the volume’s eighteen essays revolve around very specific contexts, objects and concepts/methodological agendas, the authors have fully succeeded in introducing their themes in more general ways, providing the reader with well-presented introductions and wide-ranging perspectives of discussions within their corresponding disciplines. Furthermore, all the essays provide in-depth bibliographies and additional reading for the topics covered. Also notable throughout the volume is the impeccable use of images that are carefully selected not solely as illustrative to a theme or object under scrutiny, but rather engaging with the analysis and arguments presented by the authors. Whereas images may abound and provide crucial insight into the themes the authors engage with, other authors, such as Neil Christie, also provide interesting material in the form of charters to better illustrate the specificity of the conversion process as one of staged transitions.
This volume succeeds in providing the reader with a diversity of themes under the medieval ‘umbrella’, gathered within the same major theoretical and methodological framework focusing on the concepts of transition, transformation and taxonomies. However, it is in the creative and interdisciplinary ways adopted by the authors of the eighteen essays that the book succeeds in achieving its full potential.
* Related to the doctrine of compunction, an aspect of religious prayers in the early and central Middle Ages, where Christian worshippers were stimulated to cry to show real regret or spiritual connection.
