View All Book Series

Routledge Studies in Medieval Religion and Culture

About the Book Series

This series presents developments and debates within the field of medieval religion and culture. It provides a broad range of case studies and theoretical perspectives, covering a variety of topics, theories and issues.

Please contact the series editors for more information about contributing to the series.

9 Series Titles


The Invention of Saintliness

The Invention of Saintliness

1st Edition

Edited By Anneke B. Mulder-Bakker
May 07, 2015

This volume discusses, from an historical and literary angle, the ways in which sanctification and the inscription of saintliness take place. Going beyond the traditional categories of canonization, cult, liturgical veneration and hagiographical lives, the work raises fundamental issues concerning ...

Medieval Monstrosity and the Female Body

Medieval Monstrosity and the Female Body

1st Edition

By Sarah Alison Miller
September 11, 2014

The medieval monster is a slippery construct, and its referents include a range of religious, racial, and corporeal aberrations. In this study, Miller argues that one incarnation of monstrosity in the Middle Ages—the female body—exists in special relation to medieval teratology insofar as it ...

Envisaging Heaven in the Middle Ages

Envisaging Heaven in the Middle Ages

1st Edition

Edited By Carolyn Muessig, Ad Putter
May 16, 2014

Envisaging Heaven in the Middle Ages deals with medieval notions of heaven in theological and mystical writings, in visions of the Otherworld, and in medieval art, poetry and music. It considers the influence of such notions in the secular literature of some of the greatest writers of the period ...

Crying in the Middle Ages Tears of History

Crying in the Middle Ages: Tears of History

1st Edition

Edited By Elina Gertsman
November 08, 2013

Sacred and profane, public and private, emotive and ritualistic, internal and embodied, medieval weeping served as a culturally charged prism for a host of social, visual, cognitive, and linguistic performances. Crying in the Middle Ages addresses the place of tears in Jewish, Christian, and ...

Gender and Holiness Men, Women and Saints in Late Medieval Europe

Gender and Holiness: Men, Women and Saints in Late Medieval Europe

1st Edition

Edited By Sam Riches, Sarah Salih
November 24, 2011

This collection brings together two flourishing areas of medieval scholarship: gender and religion. It examines gender-specific religious practices and contends that the pursuit of holiness can destabilise binary gender itself. Though saints may be classified as masculine or feminine, holiness may ...

Julian of Norwich Visionary or Mystic?

Julian of Norwich: Visionary or Mystic?

1st Edition

By Kevin Magill
July 21, 2010

Julian of Norwich was a fourteenth-century woman who at the age of thirty had a series of vivid visions centred around the crucified Christ. Twenty years later, while living as an anchoress in a church, she is believed to have set out these visions in a text called the Showing of Love. Going ...

Disability in Medieval Europe Thinking about Physical Impairment in the High Middle Ages, c.1100–c.1400

Disability in Medieval Europe: Thinking about Physical Impairment in the High Middle Ages, c.1100–c.1400

1st Edition

By Irina Metzler
July 08, 2010

This impressive volume presents a thorough examination of all aspects of physical impairment and disability in medieval Europe. Examining a popular era that is of great interest to many historians and researchers, Irene Metzler presents a theoretical framework of disability and explores key areas ...

Misconceptions About the Middle Ages

Misconceptions About the Middle Ages

1st Edition

Edited By Stephen Harris, Bryon L. Grigsby
April 29, 2009

Interest in the middle ages is at an all time high at the moment, thanks in part to "The Da Vinci Code." Never has there been a moment more propitious for a study of our misconceptions of the Middle Ages than now. Ranging across religion, art, and science, Misconceptions about the Middle Ages...

Tolkien the Medievalist

Tolkien the Medievalist

1st Edition

Edited By Jane Chance
May 01, 2008

Interdisciplinary in approach, Tolkien the Medievalist provides a fresh perspective on J. R. R. Tolkien's Medievalism. In fifteen essays, eminent scholars and new voices explore how Professor Tolkien responded to a modern age of crisis - historical, academic and personal - by adapting his ...

AJAX loader