Stephen D. Church 
Anglo-Norman Studies XLIV 
Proceedings of the Battle Conference 2021

The most recent cutting-edge scholarship on the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries.


The essays collected here demonstrate the rich vitality of scholarship in this area. This volume has a particular focus on the interrelations between the various parts of north-western Europe. After the opening piece on Lotharingia, there are detailed studies of the relationship between Ponthieu and its Norman neighbours, and between the Norman and Angevin duke-kings and the other French nobility, followed by an investigation of the world of demons and possession in Norman Italy, with additional observations on the subject in twelfth-century England. Meanwhile, the York massacre of the Jews in 1190 is set in a wider context, showing the extent to which crusader enthusiasm led to the pogroms that so marred Anglo-Jewish relations, not just in York but elsewhere in England; and there is an exploration of poverty in London, also during the 1190s, viewed through the prism of the life and execution of William fitz Osbert. Another chapter demonstrates the power of comparative history to illuminate the norms of proprietary queenship, so often overlooked by historians of both kingship and queenship. And two essays focusing on landscape bring the physical into close association with the historical: on the equine landscape of eleventh and twelfth-century England, adding substantially to our understanding of the place of the horse in late Anglo-Saxon and early Anglo-Norman societies, and on the Brut narratives of Geoffrey of Monmouth, Wace, and Laȝamon, arguing that they use realistic landscapes in their depiction of the action embedded in their tales, so demonstrating the authors’ grasp of the practical realities of contemporary warfare and the role played by landscapes in it.

Table of Content

List of Illustrations and Tables

Editor’s Preface

List of Abbreviations


‘Avalterre’ and ‘Affinitas Lotharingorum’: Mapping Cultural Production, Cultural Connections and Political Fragmentation in the ‘Grand Est’

(The Allen Brown Memorial Lecture)

Lindy Grant


The Perspective from Ponthieu: Count Guy and his Norman Neighbour

(The Des Seal Memorial Lecture)

Kathleen Thompson


Wild, Wild Horses: Equine Landscapes of the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries

(The Christine Mahaney Memorial Lecture)

Robert Liddiard


Demons and Incidents of Possession in the Miracles of Norman Italy

(The Marjorie Chibnall Essay Prize)

Amy Devenney


Rulership, Authority, and Power in the Middle Ages: The Proprietary Queen as Head of Dynasty

Anaïs Waag


Crusaders and Jews: The York Massacre of 1190 Revisited

Christoph T. Maier


Poverty in London in the 1190s: Some Possibilities

Alan Cooper


Landscapes of Concealment and Revelation in the Brut Narratives: Geoffrey of Monmouth, Wace, and Laȝamon

Leonie V. Hicks and Michael D. J. Bintley


The Twelfth-Century Norman and Angevin Duke-Kings of England and the Northern French Nobility

Heather J. Tanner

About the author

LEONIE V. HICKS is Reader in Medieval Studies at Canterbury Christ Church University, Canterbury, UK.