Court Culture in the Early Middle Ages

The role of the court in early medieval polities has long been recognised as an essential force in the running of the kingdom. The court was not only an organ of central government but a sociological community with its own ideology and culture, and a place where royal power was both displayed and negotiated. The studies within this volume reflect the diversity of modern court studies, considering the court as a social body and considering its educative and ideological activities. The contributors to this volume bring together historical, archaeological, art historical and literary approaches to the topic as they consider aspects of court life in England, Francia, Rome, and Byzantium from the eighth to the tenth centuries. The volume therefore looks at court life in the round, emphasizes and invites connections between early medieval courts, and opens new perspectives for the understanding of early medieval courts.

Introduction - Catherine Cubitt

Unsettled at Aachen: Alcuin between Frankfurt and Tours - Donald A. Bullough
Was Charlemagne’s Court a Courtly Society? - Janet L. Nelson
‘A Place of Discipline’: Carolingian Courts and Aristocratic Youth - Matthew Innes
Mathematics at Charlemagne’s Court and Its Transmission - Paul L. Butzer and Karl W. Butzer
The Illustrated Manuscript of the Visio Baronti [Revelatio Baronti] in St Petersburg (Russian National Library, cod. Oct.v.I.5) - Lawrence Nees
Carolingian Royal Palaces: The State of Research from an Architectural Historian’s Viewpoint - Uwe Lobbedey
Anglo-Saxon Courts - James Campbell
Wrestling with Hercules: King Alfred and the Classical Past - Susan Irvine
Persuasion and Invention at the Court of King Alfred the Great - David Pratt
Papal Court Culture during the Pontificate of Zacharias (ad 741–52) - John Osborne
Beyond the De Ceremoniis - Rosemary Morris
The Byzantine Court and Byzantine Art - Lyn Rodley