eMEDIEVAL, CULTURAL HISTORY, LITERACY, DEATH, FAMILY, AFFINITIES, INHERITANCE, FEUDALISM, CHRISTIANITY 

This book offers an integrated appraisal of the early Middle Ages as a dynamic and formative period in European history. It makes use of original sources to introduce early medieval men and women at all levels of society from slave to emperor, and allows them to speak in their own words. It overturns traditional narratives and instead offers a fresh approach to the centuries from AD500 to AD1000. Rejecting any notion of a dominant, uniform early medieval culture, it argues that the fundamental characteristic of the early middle ages is diversity of experience. To explain how the men and women who lived in this period ordered their world in cultural, social, and political terms, it employs a methodology combining cultural history, regional studies, and gender history. Ranging comparatively from Ireland to Hungary and from Scotland and Scandinavia to Spain and Italy, the analysis highlights three themes: regional variation, power, and the legacy of Rome. Collectively, the book's chapters establish the complex cultural realities which distinguished Europe in the period between the end of the central institutions of the western Roman empire in the 5th century and the emergence of a Rome-centred papal monarchy from the late 11th century onwards. In the context of debates about the social, religious, and cultural meaning of ‘Europe’ in the early 21st century, this books seeks the origins of European cultural pluralism and diversity in the early Middle Ages. 

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