This volume provides a collection of ‘imagined lives’ – individuals who, no matter their position on the social hierarchy, were crucial to the development of medieval Europe and the modern period that followed.
Based on primary source materials and the latest historical research, these literary accounts of otherwise unsourced or under-sourced individuals are written by leading scholars in the field. The book’s approach transcends the limitations of both historical narrative and literary fiction, offering a research-informed presentation of real people that is enriched by informed speculation and creative storytelling. This enriched presentation of the lives of these individuals offers the quickest route to understanding medieval culture, society, and intellectual thought. Crucially, the book treats the whole of Europe, broadly defined: both conventional areas of study such as England and France, and also lesser studied but no less important areas such as eastern Europe, Iberia, and the Balkans. The reader of Portraits of Medieval Europe encounters the diversity present in the European past: the resulting portraits – unique, personal, and engaging – offer not only a wide geographical scope but also perspective on the formation of European society in its fullest form.
This book is accessible and engaging for students new to medieval history as well as those wishing to expand their knowledge of medieval society.
Christian Raffensperger is the Kenneth E. Wray Chair in the Humanities at Wittenberg University, where he is also a professor and Chair of the History Department. His overarching aim in his work is to integrate eastern Europe into the rest of medieval Europe. This began with his first book, Reimagining Europe: Kievan Rus’ and the Medieval World (2012), and has continued through his most recent projects such as Rulers and Rulership in the Arc of Medieval Europe, 1000–1200 (2023).
Erin Thomas Dailey is an Associate Professor of Late Antique and Early Medieval History at the University of Leicester. He is currently the Principal Investigator for an ERC-Consolidator Grant (DoSSE Project 101001429). He is also the author of two monographs, Queens, Consorts, Concubines: Gregory of Tours and Women of the Merovingian Elite (2015), and Radegund: The Trials and Triumphs of a Merovingian Queen (2023).
