Medieval Hostageship c.700-c.1500: Hostage, Captive, Prisoner of War, Guarantee, Peacemaker [Hardcover]

This volume explores the issues of taking, using and being hostages in the Middle Ages. It brings together recent research in the areas of hostages and hostageships, looking at the act of hostage-taking and the hostages themselves through the lenses of political and social history. Building upon previous work, this volume in particular critically examines not only the situations of hostages and hostageships but also the broader social and political context of each situation, developing a more complete picture of the phenomenon.

1. The State of Play: Medieval Hostageship and Modern Scholarship

[Matthew Bennett and Katherine Weikert]

2. Aldhelm Old Helmet, First Bishop of Sherbourne, and his Helmgils, Helmet Hostage, First Abbot of Glastonbury, on the Dorset/Devon Coast at Lyme: The Making of a West Saxon Bishopric

3: Perceiving and Personifying Status and Submission in Pre-Viking England: Some Observations on a Few Early Hostages

4. The Role of Hostages in the Danish Conquests of England and Norway, 1013-30

5. Warrior Narratives and Hostageship Ethos: Old French Literature and Reality in the Twelfth Century

6. Exigens Obsides Ab Eis: Hostages Under King John of England, 1199-1216

7. Female Hostages: Definitions and Distinctions

8. The Princesses Who Might Have Been Hostagl��