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In the eighth and ninth centuries, the papacy had to deal with with a multitude of ‘others’ aunder variing circumstances. This book reseraches three cases that have had a considerable impact on the papacy: the representation of the Byzantine or ‘Greek’ empire and the communication with and about the Lombards and the Franks, both in the eighth century, as well as the conflict with Muslim groups called Saracens in the ninth century., Das Papsttum im 8. und 9. Jahrhundert sah sich unter wechselnden politischen Rahmenbedingungen mit einer Vielzahl von Anderen konfrontiert. In diesem Buch werden drei Beispiele unterscuht, die das Papsttum in unterschiedlicher Weise geprägt haben: die Repräsentation des „byzantinischen“ oder „griechischen“ Kaiserreichs, jene der Langobarden und Franken im 8. Jahrhundert und der Konflikt mit „Sarazenen“ genannten muslimischen Gruppen im 9. Jahrhundert.

This study analyzes the ways in which a variety of cultural manifestations were the necessary preconditions for (religious) policy and power in the Rome of Urban VIII (1623-1644). Precisely their interaction created what we now call ‘Baroque Culture’.

How can people in the spotlight control their self-representations when the whole world seems to be watching? The question is familiar, but not new. Julia Fawcett examines the stages, pages, and streets of eighteenth-century London as England's first modern celebrities performed their own strange and spectacular self-representations. They include the enormous wig that actor Colley Cibber donned in his comic role as Lord Foppington--and that later reappeared on the head of Cibber's cross-dressing daughter, Charlotte Charke. They include the black page of Tristram Shandy, a memorial to the parson Yorick (and author Laurence Sterne), a page so full of ink that it cannot be read. And they include the puffs and prologues that David Garrick used to heighten his publicity while protecting his privacy; the epistolary autobiography, modeled on the sentimental novel, of Garrick's protégée George Anne Bellamy; and the elliptical poems and portraits of the poet, actress, and royal courtesan Mary Robinson, a.k.a. Perdita. Linking all of these representations is a quality that Fawcett terms "over-expression," the unique quality that allows celebrities to meet their spectators' demands for disclosure without giving themselves away. Like a spotlight so brilliant it is blinding, these exaggerated but illegible self-representations suggest a new way of understanding some of the key aspects of celebrity culture, both in the eighteenth century and today. They also challenge divides between theatrical character and novelistic character in eighteenth-century studies, or between performance studies and literary studies today. The book provides an indispensable history for scholars and students in celebrity studies, performance studies, and autobiography—and for anyone curious about the origins of the eighteenth-century self.

For the popes it was inevitable to maintain relations with the Arab-Muslim world, of course eastern - Egypt and the Middle East - but also Western - Spain and the Maghreb. Thus in 1199, Innocent III addressed himself to the "Miramolin, king of Morocco". Some two hundred and one letters, written during the 13th and 14th centuries, mostly recorded in the registers of the Vatican Secret Archives, help to clarify the position of the Holy See vis-a -vis the Maghreb. In order to carry out their policy and to maintain ties with the faithful, the Popes wrote to the Christian or Muslim sovereigns, sent messengers across the Mediterranean Sea, encouraged the works of the brothers in this part of the world, A bishopric in Marrakesh. They regularly supported attempts to expand Christianity in North Africa, but this was not their only concern. They also cared about the Christians who lived in the Maghreb, whether they were merchants, mercenaries or captives. The papacy had to reconcile these two aspects and had to adapt to the reality of the life of these communities in the land of Islam. Clara Maillard at the MSH of Nantes on December 8, 2011, her thesis in medieval history entitled "Popes and Maghreb in the XIIIth and XIVth centuries, study of apostolic letters from 1199 to 1419", under the direction of John Tolan , Professor at the University of Nantes. She worked with the RELMIN project in 2014 as a post-doctoral student on the pontifical letters concerning Christians who lived in the Maghreb.

Byron and the Forms of Thought is a major new study of Byron as a poet and thinker. While informed by recent work on Byron’s philosophical contexts, the book questions attempts to describe Byron as a philosopher of a particular kind. It approaches Byron, rather, as a writer fascinated by the different ways of thinking philosophy and poetry are taken to represent. After an Introduction that explores Byron’s reception as a thinker, the book moves to a new reading of Byron’s scepticism, arguing for a close proximity, in Byron’s thought, between epistemology and poetics. This is explored through readings of Byron’s efforts both as a philosophical poet and writer of critical prose. The conclusions reached form the basis of an extended reading of Don Juan as a critical narrative that investigates connections between visionary and political consciousness. What emerges is a deeply thoughtful poet intrigued and exercised by the possibilities of literary form.

"The Goalkeeperis a new scholarly almanac devoted to the art of Vladimir Nabokov. Himself an ardent goalkeeper, the author of Lolita viewed soccer as more than a game: “I was less the keeper of a soccer goal than the keeper of a secret” (Speak, Memory). The inaugural collection features contributions from two dozen leading Nabokov scholars worldwide, including academic articles (Neil Cornwell, Gerard de Vries, Samuel Schuman, and others); roundtable discussions (Brian Boyd, Jeff Edmunds, Priscilla Meyer, David Rampton, Leona Toker); interviews (Dmitri Nabokov, Alvin Toffler); archival materials; the Kyoto Nabokov conference report; and book reviews (Pekka Tammi, Zoran Kuzmanovich, Galya Diment). The Nabokov Almanac, edited by Yuri Leving, is affiliated with the Nabokov Online Journal, published since 2007."

This book explores how the conceptions of episcopacy shaped the identity of the bishops of France in the wake of the reforming Council of Trent (1545-63). It demonstrates how the episcopate, initially demoralized by the Wars of Religion, developed a powerful ideology of privilege, leadership and pastorate that enabled it to become a flourishing participant in the religious, political and social life of the ancien régime. Arguing that the traditional images portrayed by Trent and prelates such as Charles Borromeo of Milan did not offer a comprehensive model of episcopal spirituality, government and pastoral care, the study examines the distinctive images of episcopacy that were developed by French reformers and theologians to respond to the specific demands of ecclesiastical leadership and reform in seventeenth-century France. It then assesses the ways in which an increasingly assertive episcopate put these ideals into practice, and explains that the bishops' tempestuous relations with the religious orders, the Jansenists, the papacy and the Bourbon monarchy were profoundly shaped by their gallican, conciliarist and independent views of episcopal duties and prerogatives. This is the first publication to analyse the attitudes of Tridentine bishops towards their office by considering the French episcopate as a recognisable caste, possessing a variety of theological and political principles that allowed it to dominate the French church. It will be indispensable to those interested in the culture of early modern catholicism and the ancien régime.

This book is about trials, civil and criminal, ecclesiastical and secular, in England and Europe between the thirteenth and the seventeenth centuries. The opening chapter provides a conceptual framework both for this book and for its companion volume on the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Subsequent chapters provide a rounded view of trials conducted according to different procedures within contrasting legal systems, including English common law and Roman canon law. They consider the judges and juries and the amateur and professional advisers involved in legal processes as well as the offenders brought before the courts, with the reasons for prosecuting them and the defences they put forward. The cases examined range from a fourteenth century cause-célèbre, the attempted trial of Pope Boniface VIII for heresy, to investigations of obscure people for sexual and religious offences in the city states of Geneva and Venice. Technical terms have been cut to a minimum to ensure accessibility and appeal to lawyers, social, political and legal historians, undergraduate and postgraduates as well as general readers interested in the development of the trial through time. Domestic and international trials, 1700-2000: The trial in history, vol. II edited by Dr Rose Melikan, is also published by Manchester University Press.

This volume brings together two important contemporary accounts of the life of Martin Luther in a confrontation that had been postponed for more than 450 years. The first of these accounts was written after Luther's death, when it was rumoured that demons had seized the reformer on his deathbed and dragged him off to Hell. In response to these rumours, Luther's friend and colleague, Philip Melanchthon, wrote and published a brief encomium of the reformer in 1548. A completely new translation of this text appears in this book. It was in response to Melanchthon's work that Johannes Cochlaeus completed and published his own monumental life of Luther in 1549, which is translated and made available in English for the first time in this volume. After witnessing Luther's declaration before Charles V at the Diet of Worms, Cochlaeus sought out Luther and debated with him. However, the confrontation left him convinced that Luther was an impious and malevolent man. Consequently, over the next twenty-five years, Cochlaeus fought vigorously against the influence of the Reformation. Such is the detail and importance of Cochlaeus' life of Luther that for an eyewitness account of the Reformation - and the beginnings of the Catholic Counter-Reformation - there is simply no other historical document to compare. Published in collaboration with The Sohmer-Hall Foundation, this book also supplies introductory texts to the lives of both Cochlaeus and Melanchthon, plus comprehensive annotation for readers who wish to make a broader study of the period. These translations will be essential reading for students and academics of the Reformation and all early modern historians interested in this fascinating period of religious history.