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9 results in Beyond Medieval Europe

The Balkans in the Seventh Century
  • Ethnic and Cultural Transformations
  • Edited by Panos Sophoulis, Georgios Kardaras
  • Published by:
    Arc Humanities Press
    Published online:
    21 October 2026
  • The seventh century was a period of radical transformation in the Balkans in terms of political, social, and economic history. The decline in Byzantine power led to the collapse of ancient urban civilization, the arrival of new populations from eastern Europe and the steppes, and, subsequently, the establishment of new political structures and modes of economic relations. Given that the written sources provide relatively little information about these events, archaeology is required to fill in the gaps and improve our knowledge and understanding of the socio-cultural and ethnic transitions that took place. New developments in archaeology in the Balkans have brought an enormous amount of information to light. The book’s eight contributors present research from different parts of the region, offering valuable new insights into the history, culture, and economy of the early medieval Balkans.

The Insular Worlds of Byzantium, ca. 550–ca. 900
  • Luca Zavagno
  • Published by:
    Arc Humanities Press
    Published online:
    21 October 2026
  • This book explores the "Byzantine" islands of the late antique Mediterranean through different methodologies and a wide array of sources in comparative perspective. It deals with transversal themes centered on the peculiar political and economic structures of insular societies (such as the episcopate and the archontate or, in the case of Sicily, the theme). Reassessing the exaggerated space that the historiography on Byzantine islands has traditionally granted to literary and documentary sources, this book draws upon archaeological evidence that points instead to a less violent and disruptive phase in the islands' history as Late Antiquity passed into the early Middle Ages. The islands are also considered as hubs of connectivity where the Islamic and the Byzantine cultures encountered and heavily influenced the local "insular" political, economic, and social structures across the centuries.

Reading Prester John
  • Cultural Fantasy and its Manuscript Contexts
  • John Eldevik
  • Published by:
    Arc Humanities Press
    Published online:
    17 October 2026
  • During the Middle Ages, many Europeans imagined that there existed a powerful and marvel-filled Christian realm beyond the lands of Islam ruled by a devout emperor they called “Priest John,” or “Prester John.” Spurred by a forged letter that mysteriously appeared around 1165 and quickly “went viral” in hundreds of manuscripts across Western Europe, the legend of Prester John and his exotic kingdom was not just a utopian fantasy, but a way to bring contemporary political and theological questions into sharper focus. In this new study, John Eldevik shows how the manuscripts that transmitted the story of Prester John reflect the ways contemporary audiences processed ideas about religious conflict and helped them imagine a new, global dimension of Christianity. It includes an appendix with a new translation of the B recension of The Letter of Prester John.

Fraternal Bonds in the Early Middle Ages
  • Aneta Pieniądz
  • Translated by Anna Kijak
  • Published by:
    Arc Humanities Press
    Published online:
    30 June 2026
  • The problem of fraternal relations in the early Middle Ages has not been hitherto studied in detail, especially in comparison with the multitude of studies dealing with the models of marriage, gender-based social roles, or the relations between generations. Historians have been often prone to assume that relations between siblings in European culture were naturally constant, based on loyalty, solidarity, and readiness to act in the common interest, stemming from blood ties. However, this conviction equates the category of brotherhood/fraternitas used by medieval authors with concepts associated with sources from later periods. This study does not concern narrowly defined family history, but is an attempt to examine fraternal relations in the early Middle Ages as a multidimensional cultural phenomenon. As the author seeks to demonstrate, it is difficult to speak of kinship in the ninth century and later without being aware of the religious and ideological implications of the transformations taking place at the time, even if direct traces of the impact of moralizing and theological teachings on the conduct of individuals are hard to capture in the sources.

Rituals in Slavic Pre-Christian Religion
  • Festivals, Banqueting, and Divination
  • Juan Antonio Álvarez-Pedrosa, Enrique Santos Marinas
  • Published by:
    Arc Humanities Press
    Published online:
    30 June 2026
  • The authors comprehensively analyze all the available information regarding the ritual practices of Slavic pre-Christian religion that can be found in written medieval texts. After investigating every kind of reference to such practices, they offer a reconstruction of Slavic pre-Christian religion on the basis of these medieval testimonies. In doing so, they overcome the challenges presented by the fact that all of these sources are indirect, since the Slavs did not acquire literacy until they became Christians. Thus the writers of these texts mostly professed a monotheistic religion, being Christians and in some cases Muslims. The picture that they offer is biased and determined by their own faith. The present analysis innovatively combines testimonies from every Slavic area (Eastern, Western, and Southern), showing their mutual correspondences and emphasizing the relationship between the Slavic pre-Christian religion and its Indo-European roots.

Bishop John Vitez and Early Renaissance Central Europe
  • The Humanist Kingmaker
  • Tomislav Matić
  • Published by:
    Arc Humanities Press
    Published online:
    30 June 2026
  • This comprehensive biography of John Vitez, an instrumental figure of the Early Renaissance, presents a complex picture of cultural, political, and religious developments in Central Europe through one man’s life. Drawing on close study of Vitez’s writings and his various political and artistic networks of influence, Tomislav Matić demonstrates the wide scope of this church leader’s involvement in late medieval Central Europe. Not only were Vitez’s writings a catalyst for the introduction of humanism across the region, he was a patron of the arts, an avid astrologer, a master diplomat, and even a kingmaker, thus central to both political and cultural developments.

The Rise and Demise of the Myth of the Rus’ Land
  • Charles J. Halperin
  • Published by:
    Arc Humanities Press
    Published online:
    30 June 2026
  • The concept of the Rus’ Land (russkaia zemlia) became and remained an historical myth of modern Russian nationalism as the equivalent of “Russia,” but it was actually a political myth, manipulated to provide legitimacy. Its meaning was dynastic—territories ruled by a member of the Riurikid/Volodimerovich princely clan. This book traces the history of its use from the tenth to the seventeenth century, outlining its changing religious (pagan to Christian) and geographic elements (from the Dnieper River valley in Ukraine in Kievan Rus’ to Muscovy in Russia) and considers alternative “land” concepts which failed to rise to the ideological heights of the Rus’ Land. Although the Rus’ Land was never an ethnic or national concept, and never expanded its appeal beyond an elite lay and clerical audience, understanding its evolution sheds light upon the cultural and intellectual history of the medieval and early modern East Slavs.

Trust and Mistrust in Premodern Europe and the Mediterranean
  • Edited by Annabel Laura Hancock, Ian Forrest
  • Published by:
    Arc Humanities Press
    Published online:
    27 June 2026
  • This volume uncovers the ways in which trust and mistrust affected people’s lives in premodern Europe and the Mediterranean. Trust is a fundamental part of human relationships. It forms the basis of our connections with people and institutions in a variety of ways. But without reference to the great variety of meanings and experiences of trust in history, particularly the premodern past, we fail to grasp both the subtleties and the true significance of the topic. Through exploration of the nuances of the construction, maintenance, and breakdown of trust and trusting relationships, this volume demonstrates that trust functions in different ways in different contexts. It illuminates how the study of trust today points to new interpretations of life in the past, and how study of the past can offer valuable perspectives on life in the present.

Slavery and Unfreedom in Byzantine Thought on the Household
  • Nathan Leidholm
  • Published by:
    Arc Humanities Press
    Published online:
    27 June 2026
  • Slavery and family were deeply linked in Byzantine society. When Byzantine writers and theologians envisioned and contextualized both the realities and the idea of the household, they universally assumed the presence of enslaved people within it. Slavery was foundational in Byzantine conceptions of the family, as was the role of kinship and the family in their thinking about slavery. This study explores how the language, ideals, stereotypes, and literary tropes associated with enslaved people were deeply linked to Byzantine thought about the family and the household as a social unit. Drawing on a wide range of sources and modern theories like intersectionality and social death, this monograph seeks to demonstrate the numerous ways in which the long-term, widespread presence of enslaved people in Byzantine society influenced and even defined medieval Byzantine thought regarding the domestic space and its dynamics.