History Faculty Books

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  The Great Beginning of Cîteaux: A Narrative of the Beginning of the Cistercian Order: The Exordium Magnum of Conrad of Eberbach

  Konrad Abbot of Eberbach, Benedicta Ward, Paul Savage, E. Rozanne Elder, and Brian Patrick McGuire

  Conrad, a monk of Eberbach in Germany, weaves both documentary history and edifying exempla into a gentle exhortion to Cistercians of the early thirteenth century to remain true to their vocation and to the traditions of their Order. Benedicta Ward SLG, a member of the Sisters of the Love of God community, is a fellow of Harris Manchester College and teaches for the Faculty of Theology at Oxford University. She is the author of numerous books on early monasticism and medieval spirituality. Paul Savage received his Ph.D. in medieval history from the University of Notre Dame and wrote his dissertation on the Exordium Magnum. In addition to the early Cistercians he has studied the early generations of the Carthusian Order and contributed several articles on the antipopes in the New Catholic Encyclopedia. He currently teaches history and economics in Salt Lake City.

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  An American Dream: The Life of an African American Soldier and POW Who Spent Twelve Years in Communist China

  Clarence Adams, Della Adams, and Lewis Carlson

  Throughout his life, Clarence Adams exhibited self-reliance, ambition, ingenuity, courage, and a commitment to learning--character traits often equated with the successful pursuit of the American Dream. Unfortunately, for an African American coming of age in the 1930s and 1940s, such attributes counted for little, especially in the South. Adams was a seventeen-year-old high school dropout in 1947 when he fled Memphis and the local police to join the U.S. Army. Three years later, after fighting in the Korean War in an all-black artillery unit that he believed to have been sacrificed to save white troops, he was captured by the Chinese. After spending almost three years as a POW, during which he continued to suffer racism at the hands of his fellow Americans, he refused repatriation in 1953, choosing instead the People's Republic of China, where he hoped to find educational and career opportunities not readily available in his own country. While living in China, Adams earned a university degree, married a Chinese professor of Russian, and worked in Beijing as a translator for the Foreign Languages Press. During the Vietnam War he made a controversial anti-war broadcast over Radio Hanoi, urging black troops not to fight for someone else's political and economic freedoms until they enjoyed these same rights at home. In 1966, having come under suspicion during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, he returned with his wife and two children to the United States, where he was subpoenaed to appear before the House Committee on Un-American Activities to face charges of "disrupting the morale of American fighting forces in Vietnam and inciting revolution in the United States." After these charges weredropped, he and his family struggled to survive economically. Eventually, through sheer perseverance, they were able to fulfill at least part of the American Dream. By the time he died, the family owned and operated eight successful Chinese restaurants in his native Memphis.

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  Collaboration and the Future of Education: Preserving the Right to Think and Teach Historically

  Gordon P. Andrews, Wilson J. Warren, and James Cousins

  Current educational reforms have given rise to various types of "educational Taylorism," which encourage the creation of efficiency models in pursuit of a unified way to teach. In history education curricula, this has been introduced through scripted textbook-based programs such as Teacher Curriculum Institute’s History Alive! and completely online curricula. They include the jargon of authentic methods, such as primary sources, cooperative learning, differentiated instruction, and access to technology; yet the craft of teaching is removed, and an experience that should be marked by discovery and reflection is replaced with comparatively empty processes.

  This volume provides systematic models and examples of ways that history teachers can compete with and effectively halt this transformation. The alternatives the authors present are based on collaborative models that address the art of teaching for pre-service and practicing secondary history teachers as well as collegiate history educators. Relying on original research, and a maturing body of secondary literature on historical thinking, this book illuminates how collaboration can create real historical learning.

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  Voices from Silencee: A Loretto Patchwork

  Sandy Ardoyno, Dianne Dignam Chowen, Marion Golden Curtis, Jackie Hartman Dear, Barbara Speas Havira, Sharon Kassing, Michele Minnis, Marion Veeneman Panyan, and Jane Peckham Stoever

  "In 2008, 13 women who had entered the Loretto novitiate as postulants in 1961 gathered for a reunion at a rustic home in the Missouri Ozarks. Within that group, there were two members of the congregation. Among the remaining 11, some had left during training, others after several years of service. ... We determined to produce an informal, personal record of our Loretto novitiate memories. It would be a gift to the Loretto Community for the 2012 celebration of the bicentennial of the Sisters of Loretto and the 50th jubilee year of the sisters in our novitiate class: Sisters Sandy Ardoyno, Donna Day, Sharon Kassing, Carol Ann Ptacek, Helen Santamaria, and Mary Louise 'Billie' Vandover. Another class member who remained in the order, Sister Lucy Ruth Rawe, died in 2003"--Preface.

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  And the Wind Blew Cold: The Story of an American Pow in North Korea

  Richard M. Bassett and Lewis H. Carlson

  When Richard Bassett returned from Korea on convalescent leave in 1953, he set down his experiences in training, combat, and captivity. More than 20 years later, hospitalized for acute Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, he once again faced his personal demons. This work expands the memoir to include his post-war struggles with the US government and his own wounded psyche. He describes the shock of capture and ensuing long march to Pyokdong, North Korea, Camp 5 on the Yellow River, where many prisoners died of untreated wounds, disease, hunger, paralyzing cold, and brutal mistreatment in the bitter winter of 1950-51. He recounts Chinese attempts to mentally break down prisoners in order to exploit them for propaganda. He then takes the reader through typical days in a prisoner's life, discussing food, clothing, shelter, and work; the struggle against unremitting boredom; religious, social, and recreational diversions; and even those moments of terror when all seemed lost. It refutes Cold War-era propaganda that often unfairly characterized POWs as brainwashed victims or even traitors who lacked the grit that Americans expected of their brave sons.

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  Solving Some Enigmas of the Middle Ages : The Historian as a Detective

  George Beech

  This work examines historical problems encountered on topics from eleventh-century France, England, and the Crusader East, and to a lesser degree from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. These topics include works of art - the Eleanor of Aquitaine vase, the celebrated Bayeux Tapestry, a sixteenth century poem and painting - to inquiries about individual people, such as the first troubadour poet. Lack of contemporary evidence about the subjects described in this book, commonplace for the medieval period hundreds of years ago, limits the ability of the historian today to fully understand them. For instance, uncertainty still hovers over the questions as to who commissioned the Bayeux Tapestry, why, and where was it made. The author's approach to this study closely resembles that of a modern detective investigating a crime committed by an unknown criminal: a search for clues making it possible to identify the culprit. After the introduction to the subject in general, a brief commentary precedes each of the articles themselves, and in conclusion, becomes a summary with emphasis on the author's degree of success in solving the problems.

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  Was the Bayeux Tapestry Made in France?

  George T. Beech

  This book presents the hypothesis that the Bayeux tapestry, long believed to have been made in England, came from the Loire valley in France, from the abbey of St. Florent of Saumur. This is based on a number of different kinds of evidence, the most important of which is signs of a St. Florent/Breton influence in the portrayal of the Breton campaign in the tapestry, about a tenth of the whole.

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  Personal Names Studies of Medieval Europe: Social Identity and Familial Structures

  George T. Beech, Monique Bourin, and Pascal Chareille

  This collection of essays was the first published in North America that sought to describe the methodology and some results of a scholarly enterprise hailed in the preface to the volume as one of the most vibrant, innovative, and productive movements in medieval scholarship at the present time. Under the direction of Monique Bourin an international team of scholars has been considering onomastics from the perspective of history rather than that of linguistics or philology. By examining data on both the micro and macro levels, researchers are beginning to describe how medieval patterns of naming have implications for our understanding of family relationships, kinship, and larger social structures that were not fully realized by earlier scholars.

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  Day of Reckoning: Power and Accountability in Medieval France

  Robert Berkhofer

  Day of Reckoning: Power and Accountability in Medieval France applies recent approaches to literacy, legal studies, memory, ritual, and the manorial economy to reexamine the transformation of medieval power. Highlighting the relationship of archives and power, it draws on the rich documentary sources of five of the largest Benedictine monasteries in northern France and Flanders, with comparisons to others, over a period of nearly four centuries.

  The book opens up new perspectives on important problems of power, in particular the idea and practice of accountability. In a violent society, medieval lords tried to delegate power rather than share it--to get their men to prosecute justice or raise money legitimately, rather than through extortion and pillage. Robert F. Berkhofer III explains how subordinates were held accountable by abbots administering the extensive holdings of Saint-Bertin, Saint-Denis, Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Saint-Père-de-Chartres, and Saint-Vaast-d'Arras. As the abbots began to discipline their agents and monitor their conduct, the "day of reckoning" took on new meaning, as customary meeting days were used to hold agents accountable. By 1200, written and unwritten techniques of rule developed in the monasteries had moved into the secular world; in these practices lay the origins of administration, bureaucratic power, and governance, all hallmarks of the modern state.

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  Christians and Muslims in Early Medieval Italy

  Luigi Andrea Berto

  In the early Middle Ages, Italy became the target of Muslim expansionist campaigns. The Muslims conquered Sicily, ruling there for more than two centuries, and conducted many raids against the Italian Peninsula. During this period, however, Christians and Muslims were not always at war - trade flourished, and travel to the territories of the 'other' was not uncommon. By examining how Muslims and Christians perceived each other and how they communicated, this book brings the relationship between Muslims and Christians in early medieval Italy into clearer focus, showing that the followers of the Cross and those of the Crescent were in reality not as ignorant of one another as is commonly believed.

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  Cristiani e Musulmani Nell' Italia Dei Primi Secoli del Medioevo: Percezioni, Scontri e Incontri

  Luigi Andrea Berto

  Espansione dei musulmani nel Mediterraneo occidentale ebbe una notevole influenza anche per la storia italiana nel Medioevo. Oltre a conquistare la Sicilia, essi infatti fecero sentire la loro presenza in gran parte del Mezzogiorno e in alcune zone del resto della Penisola. Le fonti a nostra disposizione sono per la maggior parte opere narrative e si concentrano soprattutto sugli eventi bellici e pertanto l'immagine dell'avversario tratteggiata in esse è negativa, ma l'idea di un continuo stato di belligeranza tra musulmani e cristiani è fuorviante. Senza minimizzare la portata delle distruzioni avvenute in quei secoli, questo studio ha come obiettivo innanzitutto l'analisi delle caratteristiche di quelle immagini tenendo conto dell'esistenza di alcune sfumature. Oltre alle descrizioni degli effetti immediati di guerre e di incursioni, il libro esamina che cosa comportava avere vicini di questo tipo, che cosa si conosceva "dell'altro" e le caratteristiche dei rapporti in tempo di pace.

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  Deeds of the Neapolitan Bishops: a Critical Edition and Translation of the 'Gesta Episcoporum Neapolitanorum"

  Luigi Andrea Berto

  In the early Middle Ages Naples underwent huge changes. She was able to acquire complete independence from the Byzantine Empire and to emerge as one of the major powers in Southern Italy. Moreover, Naples avoided to become part of the Frankish Empire, to be subdued by the Lombards of Southern Italy and to be attacked by the Muslims, who had conquered Sicily. which is the only medieval historical text composed in Naples before the 14th century. The Deeds of the Neapolitan Bishops not only reports the biographies of the Neapolitan bishops during those centuries, but also describes the history of Naples and the relationships the Neapolitans had with their dangerous neighbors. This volume presents the analysis, Latin text, English translation, and historical commentary of this work, thus offering an important contribution for a better understanding of early medieval southern Italian (and Mediterranean) history. The book will appeal to scholars and students of chronicles, Naples, and Church history in early medieval Italy, as well as all those interested in medieval Europe and the Mediterranean.

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  Ethnic Identity, Memory, and Use of the Past in Italy's 'Dark Ages'

  Luigi Andrea Berto

  This volume examines the Italian peninsula in the early Middle Ages by focusing on research fields such as ethnic identity, memory, and use of the past. Particular attention is devoted to the way some authors were influenced by their own 'present' in their reconstruction of the past. The political and cultural fragmentation of Italy during the early Middles Ages, created by the Lombards' invasion of a part of the Peninsula in the late-sixth century and early-seventh century, Charlemagne's conquest of a part of the Lombard Kingdom in 774, and by the weakening of the Byzantine Empire in the eighth and ninth centuries, make this part of Europe a special area for exploring continuities and discontinuities between the Roman and the post-Roman periods in Western Europe. Across the volume, Berto examines the problems that the features of primary sources and their scarcity pose to their interpretations. Ethnic Identity, Memory, and Use of the Past in Italy's 'Dark Ages' is the ideal resource for upper level undergraduates, postgraduates, and scholars interested in the relationship between Italy and Europe during the Middle Ages.

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  Franks and Lombards in Italian Carolingian Texts

  Luigi Andrea Berto

  Franks and Lombards in Italian Carolingian Texts examines how historians of Carolingian Italy portrayed the history of the Lombards, Charlemagne's conquest of the Lombard kingdom, and the presence of the Franks in the Italian peninsula. The different contexts and periods in which these writers composed their works allows readers to focus on various aspects of this period and to highlight the different ways the vanquished remembered Carolingian rule in Italy. The "memories" of these authors are organized by topic, ranging from the origin of the Lombards to the conflicts that broke out among the Carolingians after Louis II died in 875. Besides presenting the English translation and the original Latin text of the excerpts from Italian Carolingian historical works, the volume also contains English translations of the same events recorded in Frankish and papal narrative texts. In this way it is possible to compare different memories about the same episode or topic. The book will appeal to scholars and students of the Lombards and Carolingians, as well as all those interested in medieval Europe.

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  Old Stories and Contemporary Issues in Films About Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Idealistic Thinking, Sex, Lies, and Video Political Agendas

  Luigi Andrea Berto

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  The 'Other,' Identity, and Memory in Early Medieval Italy

  Luigi Andrea Berto

  The political fragmentation of Italy-created by Charlemagne's conquest of a part of the Lombard Kingdom in 774 and the weakening of the Byzantine Empire in the eighth and ninth centuries-, the conquest of Sicily by the Muslims in the ninth century, and the Norman 'conquest' of southern Italy in the second half of the eleventh century favored the creation of areas inhabited by persons with different ethnic, religious, and cultural background. Moreover, this period witnessed the increase in production of historical writing in different parts of Italy. Taking advantage of these features, this volume presents some case studies about the manner in which 'others' were perceived, what was known about them, the role of identity, and the use of the past in early medieval Italy (ninth-eleventh centuries) focusing in particular on how early medieval Italian authors portrayed that period and were, sometimes, influenced by their own 'present' in their reconstruction of the past. The book will appeal to scholars and students of otherness, identity, and memory in early medieval Italy, as well as all those interested in medieval Europe.

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  Christians and Muslims in Early Medieval Italy: Perceptions, Encounters and Clashes

  Luigi Andrea Berto

  In the early Middle Ages, Italy became the target of Muslim expansionist campaigns. The Muslims conquered Sicily, ruling there for more than two centuries, and conducted many raids against the Italian Peninsula. During this period, however, Christians and Muslims were not always at war – trade flourished, and travel to the territories of the ‘other’ was not uncommon. By examining how Muslims and Christians perceived each other and how they communicated, this book brings the relationship between Muslims and Christians in early medieval Italy into clearer focus, showing that the followers of the Cross and those of the Crescent were in reality not as ignorant of one another as is commonly believed.

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  Christians under the Crescent and Muslims under the Cross c.630 - 1923

  Luigi Andrea Berto

  This book examines the status that rulers of one faith conferred onto their subjects belonging to a different one, how the rulers handled relationships with them, and the interactions between subjects of the Muslim and Christian religions.

  The chronological arc of this volume spans from the first conquests by the Arabs in the Near East in the 630s to the exchange between Turkey and Greece, in 1923, of the Orthodox Christians and Muslims residing in their territories. Through organized topics, Berto analyzes both similarities and differences in Christian and Muslim lands and emphasizes how coexistences and conflicts took directions that were not always inevitable. Primary sources are used to examine the mentality of those who composed them and of their audiences. In doing so, the book considers the nuances and all the features of the multifaceted experiences of Christian subjects under Muslim rule and of Muslim subjects under Christian rule.

  Christians under the Crescent and Muslims under the Cross is the ideal resource for upper-level undergraduates, postgraduates, and scholars interested in the relationships between Christians and Muslims, religious minorities, and the Near East and the Mediterranean from the Middle Ages to the early twentieth century.

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  Early Medieval Venice: Cultural Memory and History

  Luigi Andrea Berto

  Early Medieval Venice examines the significant changes that Venice underwent between the late-sixth and the early-eleventh centuries. From the periphery of the Byzantine Empire, Venice acquired complete independence and emerged as the major power in the Adriatic area. It also avoided absorption by neighbouring rulers, prevented serious destruction by raiders, and achieved a stable state organization, all the while progressively extending its trading activities to most of northern Italy and the eastern Mediterranean. This was not a linear process, but the Venetians obtained and defended these results with great tenacity, creating the foundations for the remarkable developments of the following centuries.

  This book presents the most relevant themes that characterized Venice during this epoch, including war, violence, and the manner in which ‘others’ were perceived. It examines how early medieval authors and modern scholars have portrayed this period, and how they were sometimes influenced by their own ‘present’ in their reconstruction of the past.

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  Erchemperto, Piccola Storia dei Longobardi di Benevento

  Luigi Andrea Berto

  Erchemperto, active 9th century. Historia Langobardorum.

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  In Search of the First Venetians: Prosopography of Early Medieval Venice, Studies in the Early Middle Ages.

  Luigi Andrea Berto

  This prosopographical study provides information about each Venetian living in the early Middle Ages, from the invasion of the Lombards in 569 - an action that forced part of northeast Italy's population to seek refuge on the islands of the Venetian lagoon - to the rule of Duke Petrus Ursoylus II (991-1008). There is an entry for each individual listing all available information and quoting the full text of primary sources within the footnotes. The data are organized in categories such as families, first names, rulers, women, office holders, ecclesiastics, occupations, and places of residence (Venice was a duchy with different urban centres).

  Venice is an extremely important place for this kind of analysis. It is the area in which family name use began for the first time in medieval Europe. Venice was never conquered by a 'Germanic' people, and therefore it is possible to study the evolution of a post-Roman/Byzantine society by analyzing the names of the Venetians. Moreover, scholars interested in later periods will be able to find the origins of all the most important Venetian families.

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  I raffinati metodi d'indagine e il mestiere dello storico

  Luigi Andrea Berto

  Negli ultimi vent’anni vari studiosi, traendo ispirazione dalla sociologia, dall’antropologia e dalla critica testuale, hanno proposto nuove interpretazioni sui primi secoli del Medioevo italiano, in particolare sull’identità dei Longobardi e sulle conseguenze del loro insediamento in Italia. In alcuni casi tali posizioni sono state criticate perché ritenute essere il frutto della reazione alla convinzione che l’identità etnica e le qualità ad essa connesse fossero trasmesse geneticamente e quindi immutabili – teoria che ha condotto ad esasperate forme di nazionalismo, di cui la Germania nazista ha costituito uno dei peggiori esempi –. Questo volume mira a fornire una riflessione sulle nuove posizioni storiografiche, non esprimendo ulteriori opinioni su influenze politiche e culturali e su quanto raffinati siano quegli strumenti di ricerca, ma analizzando i risultati ottenuti alla luce di quanto riportato nelle fonti, le grandi assenti in questi dibattiti.

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  La guerra, la violenza, Gli altri e la frontiera nella "Venetia" altomedievale

  Luigi Andrea Berto

  Tra la fine del sesto secolo e gli inizi dell’undicesimo la Venezia delle lagune subì delle drastiche modificazioni. Da una periferia poco rilevante dell’impero bizantino diventò la massima potenza adriatica. In tale periodo i Venetici avevano inoltre ottenuto la piena indipendenza da Costantinopoli, evitato di essere assorbiti dai poteri della vicina terraferma e di subire disastrose distruzioni ad opera di incursori ed invasori, guadagnato sempre più ampie zone di mercato nell’Italia settentrionale e nel Mediterraneo orientale e raggiunto un assetto politico-istituzionale stabile. Questo non fu un processo lineare, ma i Venetici conseguirono e difesero questi risultati con grande tenacità, creando così le basi per il notevole sviluppo dei secoli successivi. Questo volume esamina alcune tra le più rilevanti tematiche che contraddistinsero Venezia nel corso di quest’epoca: la guerra, la violenza, la maniera in cui gli “altri” erano percepiti che cosa si conosceva su di loro e la frontiera.

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  Storia dei vescovi napoletani (I secolo - 876) Gesta Episcoporum Neapolitanorum

  Luigi Andrea Berto

  Edition and translation by Luigi Andrea Berto

  Nell'alto Medioevo Napoli subì drastiche modificazioni. Da zona di frontiera dell'impero bizantino diventò una delle più rilevanti potenze nel Meridione. Nell'ottavo e nono secolo i Napoletani avevano inoltre ottenuto la piena indipendenza da Costantinopoli, evitato di essere assorbiti dai Franchi e dai Longobardi di Benevento e di subire disastrose distruzioni ad opera dei musulmani. I testi riuniti in questo volume (le uniche opere cronachistiche scritte a Napoli prima del XIV secolo) ripercorrono le vite di tutti i vescovi di Napoli, dal semileggendario Aspreno (I secolo) ad Atanasio II (fine IX secolo) che furono furono messe per iscritto in questo periodo di fondamentale importanza per la città. La disponibilità di pochissime informazioni sui prelati partenopei fino all'ottavo secolo fece sì che la prima parte di questo testo sia poco più che una lista. Molto più dettagliata e ricca di informazioni, non soltanto sui vescovi, è invece la sezione successiva, particolarità che la rende una fonte estremamente preziosa per ricostruire la storia della Napoli altomedievale.

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  The Political and Social Vocabulary of John the Deacon’s 'Istoria Veneticorum'

  Luigi Andrea Berto

  Based on an extensive linguistic analysis, this book provides the first examination of the political and social vocabulary of John the Deacon’s Istoria Veneticorum, thus offering significant insights to the history of Venice in the early Middle Ages. The Istoria Veneticorum, a chronicle attributed to John the Deacon, chaplain and ambassador of the Venetian Duke Peter Orseolo II (991-1008), is of fundamental importance for the reconstruction of early medieval Venetian history. In addition to being the only historical narrative of that period, it covers the entire early Middle Ages, from the invasion of the Lombards in 569, an action that forced a part of the Veneto’s population to seek refuge on the islands of the Venetian lagoon, to the beginning of the eleventh century. Its importance is further emphasized by the limited number of the surviving early medieval Venetian sources. Berto’s study of the political and social vocabulary of this work analyses the chronicler’s use and contextualization of key words and provides the reader with an enhanced understanding of the Istoria Veneticorum. The attentive and skilful use of terminology by the chronicler confirms that the author was, in all likelihood, a member of the Orseolo entourage, that he was acquainted with the art of diplomacy, and that he was, in fact, John the Deacon. Furthermore, he did not limit himself to a mere recording of dates and events; rather, by a careful use of terminology—probably in order to avoid reopening recent wounds—he was able to express his opinions about the dukes who had ruled his country. From publisher