Paul Oldfield
Biographic Data
| ID | 3766241 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Paul Oldfield |
| GIVEN NAMES | Paul |
| FAMILY NAME | Oldfield |
| SIGNATURE | OLDFIELD P |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Manchester |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0358-928X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 7 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 21 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Messina, 1167–68
Recent scholarship on the cities of the twelfth-century Kingdom of Sicily continues to nuance our understanding of urban life under the umbrella of a new monarchy.Collectively, these studies demonstrate that this new monarchy, centralising and powerful as it was, did not fully squash its cities' independence, and that this was not even its aim.This picture has been aided by recent studies that interpret urban identity and agency in a more holisti…
The Troia Chronicle and Historiographical Production in Medieval Puglia
Historiographical production within twelfth-century Puglia seems to have been markedly limited, and this frustrates attempts to access internal perspectives on a region which played a pivotal socio-political and economic role within southern Italy as it fell under Norman rule, and was subsequently absorbed into the new Kingdom of Sicily in 1130. It might, however, be possible to bolster the region's twelfth-century historiographical outputs if we…
The Commune of Benevento (1128–1131)
This article examines the formation of a commune at Benevento in the twelfth century. In this south Italian city, which was under papal overlordship, a commune emerged, briefly but spectacularly, in the years 1128–31. Its existence has been almost completely overlooked in the wider narrative of the rise of medieval urban communes and in Beneventan scholarship itself. The particular value of an understanding of the Beneventan Commune is threefold.…
Patron Saints of Early Medieval Italy, A.D. c.350–800
One of the most important and sustained advances in the study of medieval history of recent decades can arguably be located in the field of hagiographical research. It is now widely accepted that works of hagiography can yield an impressive array of social, cultural and political information which pushes far beyond the overtly religious and convention-rich framework within which these works were ostensibly produced. Their importance ascertained, …
The Power of Place
Power and authority represent two omnipresent themes that have long animated medieval historians. The origins, nature and articulation of both are, of course, crucial to any understanding of how me...
Alexander of Telese's Encomium of Capua and the Formation of the Kingdom of Sicily
Having been promoted to royal status in 1130, Roger II of Sicily sought to bind a set of disparate territories into one kingdom covering mainland southern Italy and Sicily. Scholarship has devoted much space to identifying Roger's royal strategy in its embryonic and contested state of the 1130s – with views ranging from tyrannical authoritarianism to control via negotiation and consensus – and also to pinpointing some of the major turning points …
The Archpoet and Medieval Culture, by Peter Godman
For decades now historians of medieval Europe have questioned which Europe exactly it was that they had been examining. Did Europe really mean western Europe? And did western Europe really mean northern France and England? Similarly, in attempting to identify the key component parts of medieval high culture, where should one look? Invariably, scholars have turned to the Parisian schools, to the ‘feudal’ Anglo-French world, to the reforming Papacy…
Autonomy and Identity in the Cities of Norman Italy, c. 1050–c. 1200
Understandings on the medieval cities of southern Italy and Sicily have for long been shaped by the so‐called ‘Southern Question’ and problematic comparisons with the cities of North and Central Italy. An over‐arching conventional position emerged suggesting that the political and cultural dynamism of the cities of the South was drastically impaired by the arrival of the Normans and the creation of a monarchy. However, a corpus of revisionist, in…
Pisa nel Medioevo
The rise of the Italian city-states of central and northern Italy—most markedly that of Genoa, Pisa and Venice—represents one of the more defining phenomena of the Middle Ages. Their emergence signified quite revolutionary transformations in Europe’s political, urban, commercial and culture landscape. It is, above all, the latter two transformations with which Michael Mitterauer and John Morrissey’s well-researched and engaging study of Pisa is c…
The Norman Campaigns in the Balkans, 1081–1108
Journal Article The Norman Campaigns in the Balkans, 1081–1108 Get access The Norman Campaigns in the Balkans, 1081–1108 . By Georgios Theotokis . Woodbridge : Boydell Press . 2014 . xiv + 262 pp. £60.00 . ISBN: 978 1 8438 3921 7 . Paul Oldfield Paul Oldfield University of Manchester Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar French History, Volume 29, Issue 3, September 2015, Page 406, https://doi.org/10.1093/fh/crv…
The Bari charter of privileges of 1132
This article examines how Roger II, who in 1130 became the first king of Sicily, articulated the culture of a new monarchy to his subjects. It does so through extensive analysis and contextualization of a crucial, yet undervalued, royal charter issued to the city of Bari in 1132 (and here translated into English for the first time). Previous scholarship has overlooked key evidence within the charter and tended to emphasize conflict in royal-urban…
Sanctity and Pilgrimage in Medieval Southern Italy, 1000–1200
Southern Italy's strategic location at the crossroads of the Mediterranean gave it a unique position as a frontier for the major religious faiths of the medieval world, where Latin Christian, Greek Christian and Muslim communities coexisted. In this study, the first to offer a comprehensive analysis of sanctity and pilgrimage in southern Italy between 1000 and 1200, Paul Oldfield presents a fascinating picture of a politically and culturally frag…
Sanctity and Pilgrimage in Medieval Southern Italy, 1000-1200
Urban Legends
Journal Article Urban Legends: Civic Identity and the Classical Past in Northern Italy, 1250–1350, by Carrie E. Beneš Get access Urban Legends: Civic Identity and the Classical Past in Northern Italy, 1250–1350, by Carrie E. Beneš(University Park, PA: Penn State U.P., 2011; pp. 278. $79.95). P. Oldfield P. Oldfield Manchester Metropolitan University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The English Historical Re…
The Medieval Cult of St Agatha of Catania and the Consolidation of Christian Sicily
In the twelfth century the cult of St Agatha of Catania was revived on the island of Sicily. This article explores the development of the cult within the wider process of the re-Christianisation of an island which had, in the previous century, been removed from Muslim control by Norman conquerors. It demonstrates that the revival of St Agatha's cult occurred through its connection to powerful political circles and to a range of emergent communica…
The Crusades and the Near East
The Teutonic Knights in the Holy Land. 1190–1291 – By Nicholas Morton
The Iberian Imprint on Medieval Southern Italy
This article explores the Iberian influence on medieval southern Italy from the mid‐eleventh to the mid‐thirteenth century. While a great deal of historical research has uncovered the impact of many other regions on southern Italy that of Iberia has often been overlooked, at least before the famous Sicilian Vespers. Yet, both regions had notable commonalities and a variety of connections throughout the central middle ages. South Italian rulers de…
Urban Government in Southern Italy c.1085-c.1127
A general weakening of central authority in the South Italian peninsula during the period 1085-1127 brought about a variety of urban governments structured by local influences and with differing levels of popular participation
Citizenship and community in southern Italy c. 1100– c. 1220
CITTADINANZA E COMUNITÀ IN ITALIA MERIDIONALE TRA IL 1100 E 1220 CIRCA Questo articolo analizza l'uso della parola ‘cittadino’ ( civis ) nei documenti cartacei dell'Italia meridionale dal tardo XI agli inizi del XIII secolo. Lo studio si focalizza su un campione di otto città, che vengono usate come case-studies per mostrare cosa il concetto di cittadinanza puo aver implicato nel mezzogiorno di epoca medievale. I dati a disposizione suggeriscono …
Rural settlement and economic development in Southern Italy
The history of urban life in Southern Italy during the eleventh and twelfth centuries was particularly disjointed. At varying points many of the regions' cities were subject to the domination of petty Lombard princes, Byzantine emperors, Norman dukes and, as one passes into the twelfth century, Sicilian kings and German emperors. This paper uses the case of the northern Apulian city of Troia to show that, below this surface of political discontin…
Rural settlement and economic development in Southern Italy
The history of urban life in Southern Italy during the eleventh and twelfth centuries was particularly disjointed. At varying points many of the regions' cities were subject to the domination of petty Lombard princes, Byzantine emperors, Norman dukes and, as one passes into the twelfth century, Sicilian kings and German emperors. This paper uses the case of the northern Apulian city of Troia to show that, below this surface of political discontin…
Urban Government in Southern Italy c.1085-c.1127
A general weakening of central authority in the South Italian peninsula during the period 1085-1127 brought about a variety of urban governments structured by local influences and with differing levels of popular participation
Rural settlement and economic development in Southern Italy
The history of urban life in Southern Italy during the eleventh and twelfth centuries was particularly disjointed. At varying points many of the regions' cities were subject to the domination of petty Lombard princes, Byzantine emperors, Norman dukes and, as one passes into the twelfth century, Sicilian kings and German emperors. This paper uses the case of the northern Apulian city of Troia to show that, below this surface of political discontin…
Citizenship and community in southern Italy c. 1100– c. 1220
CITTADINANZA E COMUNITÀ IN ITALIA MERIDIONALE TRA IL 1100 E 1220 CIRCA Questo articolo analizza l'uso della parola ‘cittadino’ ( civis ) nei documenti cartacei dell'Italia meridionale dal tardo XI agli inizi del XIII secolo. Lo studio si focalizza su un campione di otto città, che vengono usate come case-studies per mostrare cosa il concetto di cittadinanza puo aver implicato nel mezzogiorno di epoca medievale. I dati a disposizione suggeriscono …
Urban Government in Southern Italy c.1085-c.1127
A general weakening of central authority in the South Italian peninsula during the period 1085-1127 brought about a variety of urban governments structured by local influences and with differing levels of popular participation
The Iberian Imprint on Medieval Southern Italy
This article explores the Iberian influence on medieval southern Italy from the mid‐eleventh to the mid‐thirteenth century. While a great deal of historical research has uncovered the impact of many other regions on southern Italy that of Iberia has often been overlooked, at least before the famous Sicilian Vespers. Yet, both regions had notable commonalities and a variety of connections throughout the central middle ages. South Italian rulers de…
The Teutonic Knights in the Holy Land. 1190–1291 – By Nicholas Morton
The Medieval Cult of St Agatha of Catania and the Consolidation of Christian Sicily
In the twelfth century the cult of St Agatha of Catania was revived on the island of Sicily. This article explores the development of the cult within the wider process of the re-Christianisation of an island which had, in the previous century, been removed from Muslim control by Norman conquerors. It demonstrates that the revival of St Agatha's cult occurred through its connection to powerful political circles and to a range of emergent communica…
The Crusades and the Near East
Urban Legends
Journal Article Urban Legends: Civic Identity and the Classical Past in Northern Italy, 1250–1350, by Carrie E. Beneš Get access Urban Legends: Civic Identity and the Classical Past in Northern Italy, 1250–1350, by Carrie E. Beneš(University Park, PA: Penn State U.P., 2011; pp. 278. $79.95). P. Oldfield P. Oldfield Manchester Metropolitan University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The English Historical Re…
Sanctity and Pilgrimage in Medieval Southern Italy, 1000–1200
Southern Italy's strategic location at the crossroads of the Mediterranean gave it a unique position as a frontier for the major religious faiths of the medieval world, where Latin Christian, Greek Christian and Muslim communities coexisted. In this study, the first to offer a comprehensive analysis of sanctity and pilgrimage in southern Italy between 1000 and 1200, Paul Oldfield presents a fascinating picture of a politically and culturally frag…
Sanctity and Pilgrimage in Medieval Southern Italy, 1000-1200
The Norman Campaigns in the Balkans, 1081–1108
Journal Article The Norman Campaigns in the Balkans, 1081–1108 Get access The Norman Campaigns in the Balkans, 1081–1108 . By Georgios Theotokis . Woodbridge : Boydell Press . 2014 . xiv + 262 pp. £60.00 . ISBN: 978 1 8438 3921 7 . Paul Oldfield Paul Oldfield University of Manchester Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar French History, Volume 29, Issue 3, September 2015, Page 406, https://doi.org/10.1093/fh/crv…
The Bari charter of privileges of 1132
This article examines how Roger II, who in 1130 became the first king of Sicily, articulated the culture of a new monarchy to his subjects. It does so through extensive analysis and contextualization of a crucial, yet undervalued, royal charter issued to the city of Bari in 1132 (and here translated into English for the first time). Previous scholarship has overlooked key evidence within the charter and tended to emphasize conflict in royal-urban…
The Archpoet and Medieval Culture, by Peter Godman
For decades now historians of medieval Europe have questioned which Europe exactly it was that they had been examining. Did Europe really mean western Europe? And did western Europe really mean northern France and England? Similarly, in attempting to identify the key component parts of medieval high culture, where should one look? Invariably, scholars have turned to the Parisian schools, to the ‘feudal’ Anglo-French world, to the reforming Papacy…
Autonomy and Identity in the Cities of Norman Italy, c. 1050–c. 1200
Understandings on the medieval cities of southern Italy and Sicily have for long been shaped by the so‐called ‘Southern Question’ and problematic comparisons with the cities of North and Central Italy. An over‐arching conventional position emerged suggesting that the political and cultural dynamism of the cities of the South was drastically impaired by the arrival of the Normans and the creation of a monarchy. However, a corpus of revisionist, in…
Pisa nel Medioevo
The rise of the Italian city-states of central and northern Italy—most markedly that of Genoa, Pisa and Venice—represents one of the more defining phenomena of the Middle Ages. Their emergence signified quite revolutionary transformations in Europe’s political, urban, commercial and culture landscape. It is, above all, the latter two transformations with which Michael Mitterauer and John Morrissey’s well-researched and engaging study of Pisa is c…
The Power of Place
Power and authority represent two omnipresent themes that have long animated medieval historians. The origins, nature and articulation of both are, of course, crucial to any understanding of how me...
Alexander of Telese's Encomium of Capua and the Formation of the Kingdom of Sicily
Having been promoted to royal status in 1130, Roger II of Sicily sought to bind a set of disparate territories into one kingdom covering mainland southern Italy and Sicily. Scholarship has devoted much space to identifying Roger's royal strategy in its embryonic and contested state of the 1130s – with views ranging from tyrannical authoritarianism to control via negotiation and consensus – and also to pinpointing some of the major turning points …
Patron Saints of Early Medieval Italy, A.D. c.350–800
One of the most important and sustained advances in the study of medieval history of recent decades can arguably be located in the field of hagiographical research. It is now widely accepted that works of hagiography can yield an impressive array of social, cultural and political information which pushes far beyond the overtly religious and convention-rich framework within which these works were ostensibly produced. Their importance ascertained, …
The Commune of Benevento (1128–1131)
This article examines the formation of a commune at Benevento in the twelfth century. In this south Italian city, which was under papal overlordship, a commune emerged, briefly but spectacularly, in the years 1128–31. Its existence has been almost completely overlooked in the wider narrative of the rise of medieval urban communes and in Beneventan scholarship itself. The particular value of an understanding of the Beneventan Commune is threefold.…
The Troia Chronicle and Historiographical Production in Medieval Puglia
Historiographical production within twelfth-century Puglia seems to have been markedly limited, and this frustrates attempts to access internal perspectives on a region which played a pivotal socio-political and economic role within southern Italy as it fell under Norman rule, and was subsequently absorbed into the new Kingdom of Sicily in 1130. It might, however, be possible to bolster the region's twelfth-century historiographical outputs if we…
Messina, 1167–68
Recent scholarship on the cities of the twelfth-century Kingdom of Sicily continues to nuance our understanding of urban life under the umbrella of a new monarchy.Collectively, these studies demonstrate that this new monarchy, centralising and powerful as it was, did not fully squash its cities' independence, and that this was not even its aim.This picture has been aided by recent studies that interpret urban identity and agency in a more holisti…
History (18 works) · Byzantine Studies and History (12 works) · Medieval Literature and History (12 works) · Art (11 works) · Law (11 works) · Political science (11 works) · Archaeology (10 works) · History (10 works) · Medieval History and Crusades (10 works) · Politics (10 works)