The book is concerned with arguably the single harshest subsistence crisis in Europe in the last two millennia: the Great Famine of 1315-17.
Court, culture, politics, and gender — these are the themes that flow throughout Marie of Brabant’s life and tie together the material effects of a long, pleasure-filled existence enlivened by the politics of Europe on the cusp of a new age.
During recent decades, there has been a profound change in the way that researchers have read and interpreted the sources of the Middle Ages. This shift has prompted scholars to reconsider the historical value of the medieval cartularies. From Charters to Codex. Studies on Cartularies and Archival Memory in the Middle Ages