Ebook: Vengeance in the Middle Ages: Emotion, Religion, and Feud

This volume aims to balance the traditional literature available on medieval feuding with an exploration of other aspects of vengeance and culture in the Middle Ages. The volume begins with an examination of the historiography of medieval vengeance, as well as the difficulties of investigating such a concept in the medieval period and the pressing reasons for so doing. Interdisciplinary articles from scholars in Europe and North America then follow, many contesting or enlarging traditional approaches to and interpretations of vengeance in the Middle Ages. Geographically, the articles in the volume highlight Western Europe (particularly the Anglo-Norman world), Scotland, Ireland, Spain, and Portugal. Thematically, the articles are concerned with heroic cultures of vengeance, vengeance as a legal and political tool, Christian justification and expression of vengeance, literature and the distinction between discourse and reality, and the emotions of vengeance. Methodologically, these interdisciplinary studies incorporate tools borrowed from anthropology, the study of emotion, and modern social and literary theories. Aimed at professional scholars and graduate students within the broad field of medieval studies, incorporating the subfields of history, literature, and religious studies, this collection will also prove interesting to non-medievalists interested in the history of emotion, the justification of human conflict, and the theoretical role of discourse and its applicability to specific historical periods. Although the articles will be written in English, both the geographical scope of the volume and its international contributors will promote its use outside the English-speaking academic world.