The book on sea ice ecology is the ecology of sea ice algae and other microorganism as bacteria, meiofauna, and viruses residing inside or at the bottom of the sea ice, called the sympagic biota. Organisms as seals, fish, birds, and Polar bears relies on sea ice but are not part of this biota. A distinct feature of this ecosystem, is the disappearance (melt) every summer and re-establishing in autumn and winter. The book is organized seasonally describing the physical, optical, biological,...

Where medieval Denmark and Scandinavia as a whole has often been seen as a cultural backwater that passively and belatedly received cultural and political impulses from Western Europe, Professor Michael H. Gelting and scholars inspired by him have shown that the intellectual, religious and political elite of Denmark actively participated in the renaissance and reformation of the central and later medieval period. This work has wide ramifications for understanding developments in medieval E...

The Migration Age is still envisioned as an onrush of expansionary "Germans" pouring unwanted into the Roman Empire and subjecting it to pressures so great that its western parts collapsed under the weight. Further developing the themes set forth in his classic Barbarians and Romans, Walter Goffart dismantles this grand narrative, shaking the barbarians of late antiquity out of this "Germanic" setting and reimagining the role of foreigners in the Later Roman Empire.The Emp...

When Charlemagne died in 814 CE, he left behind a dominion and a legacy unlike anything seen in Western Europe since the fall of Rome. Distinguished historian and author of The Middle Ages Johannes Fried presents a new biographical study of the legendary Frankish king and emperor, illuminating the life and reign of a ruler who shaped Europe’s destiny in ways few figures, before or since, have equaled.Living in an age of faith, Charlemagne was above all a Christian king, Fr...

The armies of the Fourth Crusade that left Western Europe at the beginning of the thirteenth century never reached the Holy Land to fight the Infidel; they stopped instead at Byzantium and sacked that capital of eastern Christendom. Much of what we know today of those events comes from contemporary accounts by secular writers; their perspective is balanced by a document written from a monastic point of view and now available for the first time in English.The Hystoria Constantin...

Unrivalled Influence explores the exceptional roles that women played in the vibrant cultural and political life of medieval Byzantium. Written by one of the world's foremost historians of the Byzantine millennium, this landmark book evokes the complex and exotic world of Byzantium's women, from empresses and saints to uneducated rural widows. Drawing on a diverse range of sources, Judith Herrin sheds light on the importance of marriage in imperial statecraft, the tense coexistenc...

Drawing from a variety of sources - literary, visual, archaeological; papyri, inscriptions and coins – the author studies the nature of Diocletian’s imperial strategy, his wars, his religious views and his abdication. The author also examines Galerius’ endeavour to take control of Diocletian’s empire, his failures and successes, against the backdrop of Constantine’s remorseless drive to power.The first comprehensive study of the Emperor Galerius, this book offers an innovative anal...

At its height, the Carolingian empire spanned a million square kilometres of western Europe - from the English Channel to central Italy and northern Spain, and from the Atlantic to the fringes of modern Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic. As the largest political unit for centuries, the empire dominated the region and left an enduring legacy for European culture. This comprehensive survey traces this great empire's history, from its origins around 700, with the rise to dominance of the...

The European Middle Ages have long attracted popular interest as an era characterised by violence, whether a reflection of societal brutality and lawlessness or part of a romantic vision of chivalry. Violence in Medieval Europe engages with current scholarly debate about the degree to which medieval European society was in fact shaped by such forces.Drawing on a wide variety of primary sources, Warren Brown examines the norms governing violence within medieval societies fr...

This prestigious collection of essays by leading scholars provides a thorough reassessment of the medieval era which questions how, when and why the Middle Ages began, and how abruptly the shift from the Roman Empire to Barbarian Europe happened.Presenting the most current work including newly-available material such as translations of French and German essays, From Roman Provinces to Medieval Kingdoms gathers the key thinkers in the field together in one easy-to-use volum...

Despite the wealth of scholarship in recent decades on medieval women, we still know much less about the experiences of women in the early Middle Ages than we do about those in later centuries. In Women and Aristocratic Culture in the Carolingian World, Valerie L. Garver offers a fresh appraisal of the cultural and social history of eighth- and ninth-century women. Examining changes in women's lives and in the ways others perceived women during the early Middle Ages, she s...

The Byzantine World presents the latest insights of the leading scholars in the fields of Byzantine studies, history, art and architectural history, literature, and theology. Those who know little of Byzantine history, culture and civilization between AD 700 and 1453 will find overviews and distillations, while those who know much already will be afforded countless new vistas.Each chapter offers an innovative approach to a well-known topic or a diversion from a well-trodde...