Richard North’s chapter argues that the Old English verse saint’s life Andreas (on the apostle St Andrew) appropriates the secular epic poem Beowulf for mock-epic purposes, turning knowledge of Beowulf, a poem which by implication must have been famous in Anglo-Saxon England, to a new Christian purpose. Andreas is seen to offer through its mock-epic style a satirical commentary on the heathen nostalgia of Beowulf. In Andreas knowledge of secular literature and its version of the past is astutely re-appropriated for religious purposes, being absorbed into and transcended by a Christian celebration of the true heroism of the saint. This chapter adds a new dimension to the understanding of Anglo-Saxon literary history and the place of secular tradition within it.

This part explores the developments of television throughout the 1970s and the increasing popularity of the miniseries format. As big cinematic epics went into decline, representation of the ancient world appeared in other forms and increasingly on television screens, for example in comedies such as Up Pompeii!. More significantly, ground-breaking new shows like I, Claudius, one of the case studies in this part, developed key aesthetic aspects of TV antiquity and pushed the boundaries of what was permissible with regard to screening sex and violence. This and other shows also led to increasing concerns over censorship and media regulation during this decade. Like I, Claudius, the lesser-known The Eagle of the Ninth (1977), the subject of this part’s second case study, strongly reflected contemporaneous concerns over empires, home and abroad, and ethical issue relating to conquest and occupation.

This introductory part sets out the subject by discussing issues relating to representations of antiquity on-screen, such as the difficulties in defining the genre, the alternation of TV antiquity between high and low culture, and the dominance of ancient Roman over Greek narratives. Although TV antiquity is very much indebted to its cinematic predecessors, it has from the outset developed its very own style and language and in the process added a new dimension to representations of antiquity in popular culture. Yet, for a long time, antiquity in television has remained in the shadow of its more spectacular cousin. This part will outline some of the particular characteristics of television, namely complexity, intimacy and seriality, and analyse why these offer distinct advantages when it comes to representing the ancient world on-screen. Finally, this part outlines the interdisciplinary approach of the book and addresses the cultural implications of TV antiquity.

This chapter, by Suzanne Conklin Akbari and Asa Simon Mittman, addresses the subject of cartography and medieval perceptions of geographical space, specifically in relation to Jerusalem. The chapter pays particularly attention to the map of the city in a manuscript from twelfth-century Flanders, doing so in the context of an overview of medieval map-making which stresses the symbolic function of maps within a Christian view of the physical world, with Jerusalem the ideal city at its centre. For the composer of the map examined here, however, Jerusalem is not just an ideal, but a real city. Thus theological understanding is strikingly combined with the practical knowledge.

This part investigates the dramatic expansion of the television market in the 1980s–1990s, which also led to a notable shift in TV antiquity. Technological advances such as the introduction of satellite and cable television, plus the increasing dominance of colour meant that TV antiquity now tried to compete with cinema with regard to spectacle and scale. While the production of British antiquity dramas declined, a number of US miniseries conquered the screens. With Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (1995–99) popular entertainment programmes emerged that drew inspiration from sword-and-sorcery films made a decade earlier, but also high-profile productions such as ABC’s The Last Days of Pompeii (1984). As this part demonstrates, changes in technology went hand in hand with changes in the production environment, such as network syndication and new global markets, which affected the content of the shows produced during this time.

The Introduction begins by placing the present volume in the context of previous and current work on the subject of medieval knowledge. It goes on to give an outline of medieval perspectives on the meaning, value and transmission of knowledge, noting the influence of classical authors and tracing the development of ideas about knowledge through the writings of key Christian thinkers. Isidore of Seville is identified as the key influence of the medieval encyclopaedic tradition and particular attention is paid to the authoritative work of Augustine, Bede and Aquinas. The introduction relates aspects of these medieval perspectives to specific chapters of the book and also highlights the relationship between religious and secular traditions. It ends with a succinct outline of each chapter.

The introductory chapter of Practising Shame lays out the problem of female honour in later medieval England: namely, its problematic reliance on a characteristic (sexual continence) that was revered in women, but also subject to suspicion. This chapter introduces the practices that underpin medieval understandings of female honour, and literature’s role in shaping and articulating those practices in later medieval England. In placing such emphasis on emotion as a practice, and in writing of shamefastness as a practice, Practising Shame contributes to a body of scholarship that is attempting to effect a theoretical shift away from the notion that emotions are something that we ‘have’ (or do not have) and towards the idea that emotions are something that we do. The book’s introduction outlines how shamefastness might be said to constitute an emotional practice and concludes with chapter synopses.

This part explores how early television dealt with representations of antiquity and the significant differences in the structural framework between the commercial broadcasting system in the US and the dominance of public broadcasting in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. It also argues that, while specific shows dealing with antiquity were rare, many other shows, especially science fiction, contained episodes set in the ancient world. The two case studies that feature in this part, ITV’s The Caesars and RAI’s Odissea/The Odyssey (both 1968), offer examples of two very different approaches to TV antiquity as well as diversity of aesthetic styles. In addition to the case studies, the introduction to this part also discusses the BBC’s remarkable six-part series The Spread of the Eagle (1963), and a number of other shows featuring ancient world episodes.

Emily Wingfield’s chapter examines treatments of Queen Margaret of Scotland (d. 1093), beginning with the Life written by Turgot, prior of Durham, at the request of Margaret’s daughter the English queen Matilda, a work that highlights Margaret’s literacy and learning; Margaret’s role as reader and writer is shown to be emphasised also in later treatments. The subject of this chapter is thus not a branch of knowledge but the perceived learning of an important female individual and the significance of that learning in constructions of her as a saint. The chapter examines the way in which books function as vehicles for Margaret’s sanctity and political power and suggests that the Life itself is designed to model the life of a learned and holy queen for Margaret’s daughter, Matilda. Wingfield then considers how later verbal and visual accounts of Margaret develop this tradition so that she comes to function as an advisor of princes as well as princesses, her sanctity being shown to inhere ‘quite specifically, in her literacy’.

In this chapter Denis Renevey examines the ways in which writers in the Greek world and, later, western religious teachers used the name of ‘Jesus’ in contemplative practices, and offers ‘answers as to the way in which knowledge of the power of the name “Jesus” was appropriated for different purposes in the two differing Christian traditions, and according to distinct spiritual ideologies’. Renevey discusses the influence of Origen in the development of knowledge about the powerful potential of the name of Jesus and goes on to highlight the attachment to the name in Orthodox liturgical practice from about the ninth century, an attachment that in the fervency of its language anticipates western traditions of affectivity. Among western writers, Renevey focuses on Anselm of Canterbury and Bernard of Clairvaux, the former promoting affective use of the name in personal devotion, the latter in a communal monastic context, as part of a well-conceived devotional scheme.