Publisher's Synopsis
The latest collection of articles on Anglo-Norman topics, with a particular focus on Wales. The 2007 conference on Anglo-Norman Studies, the thirtieth in the annual series, was held in Wales, and there is a Welsh flavour to the proceedings now published. Five of the thirteen papers cover Welsh topics in the long twelfthcentury: Church reform, political culture, the supposed resurgence of Powys as a political entity, and interpreter families in the Marches, besides a broad and compelling historiographical survey of the place of the Normans in Welsh history. Twelfth-century England is represented by papers on chivalry and kingship [in literature and life], the Evesham surveys, lay charters, and Henry of Blois and the arts. Essays which focus on the southern Italian city ofTrani and on the crusader history of Ralph of Caen explore wider Norman identities. Finally, there are two broad surveys contextualizing the Anglo-Norman experience: on the careers of the clergy and on how warriors were identified before heraldry. CONTRIBUTORS: HUW PRYCE, LAURA ASHE, JULIA BARROW, HOWARD B. CLARKE, JOHN REUBEN DAVIES, JUDITH EVERARD, NATASHA HODGSON, CHARLES INSLEY, ROBERT JONES, PAUL OLDFIELD, DAVID STEPHENSON, FREDERICK SUPPE,JEFFREY WEST.