This introduction provies a basic orientation and anoriginal scholarly interpretation of the text. Thecareer, mental world and writings of Regino, abbotof Prüm, were all defined by the Carolingian Empireand, more particularly, by its end. The highOttonian period of the mid-tenth century witnessed arevival of historiography, exemplified by the workof the two major authors who wrote about the rise ofthe dynasty. The first of these was Liutprand ofCremona, whose Antapodosis, a history of Europeanpolitics from 888 until around 950, and HistoriaOttonis, a focused account of events surroundingOtto's imperial coronation, were both written in theearlier 960s. The second was Adalbert, who mostprobably wrote his continuation to the Chronicle in967/968. Regino's Chronicle, dedicated to BishopAdalbero of Augsburg in the year 908, was the lastwork of its kind for several decades, and as suchits author can be regarded as the last greathistorian of the Carolingian Empire.

A strong arterial network of regional justice developed over the course of the later medieval period, which nourished and complemented the work of the higher royal courts. The extracts in this chapter provide a wider picture of criminal justice in action, and the interaction of both central and local agencies, that concerns this chapter. The chapter concentrates especially on criminal procedure in the late Middle Ages. The appeal of felony was one of the principal methods of prosecuting an individual for a criminal wrong in the thirteenth century. The procedure was an involved and lengthy one since it necessitated the appeal being initiated in the county court before being heard by justices of gaol delivery. The extracts from gaol deliveries in Norfolk reveal something of the more mundane day-to-day workings of the courts and especially the procedural issues and practical problems that held up the smooth course of trials.

Enrico, more often known as Rigo, was a native of Bolzano in what is now the Italian Tyrol; his Christian name was more characteristic of a German-speaking than of an Italian-speaking region. For centuries after his death in 1315 he remained, a purely 'popular' saint in the sense that his sanctity was recognised by no authority higher than that of the bishop of Treviso, his adopted city and the place of his death. At Treviso his after-fame was marked in 1830 by the building of a neo-classical tempietto on the site of the cell where he died; it is now sacred to the soldiers of Italy. The Life of Rigo published by Daniel Papebroch in Acta sanctorum was written by Pietro da Baono, who became bishop of Treviso in 1359.

The consolidated estate that Roger Harlakenden acquired from the Earl of Oxford, his lessees, and their various assignees was surveyed and mapped by Israel Amyce in 1598. The survey reveals that the two manors had a combined area of nearly 3,000 acres. As all previous studies of Earls Colne have focused on the copyholds of the two manors, it may come as a surprise to discover that 54 per cent of the area of the manor was actually demesne, held at will or by lease, or farmed in hand. The fortunes of the Harlakendens were based primarily on the income from farms on the demesne: the income from copyhold lands, though not a trifle, was, by comparison, a secondary consideration.

This chapter sums up the book, gathering together the various threads. It argues that, while the memory and meaning of the Spanish Civil War remain hotly contested, the civil war setting will be one to which filmmakers increasingly turn. The chapter outlines how the civil war has, in more recent years, provided rich material for filmmakers to narrativise the conflict in order to both make more general points about the historical process and to propagate contemporary concerns. The book, which has also pointed to the changing nature of representations inside Spain, exploring how filmmakers such as Carlos Saura attempted to circumnavigate government censors under the dictatorship, concludes that the civil war has become a touchstone in the Western political imaginary. Inside Spain, the increased level of debate has provoked wider interest in the conflict.

Scholarly contributions to the study of social memory have tended to have two different kinds of focus. Some have focused essentially on issues of transmission, exploring the impact of different media of communication on the retention and formulation of past-related knowledge. Others have been concerned with issues of public representation, with analysing the cultural productions through which specific understandings of a collective past have been articulated at particular historical moments, and with exploring the politics of this representational activity. It is important also to attend to the material and environmental aspects of social memory processes. The operations of power leave their mark not just on the representations of the past that are produced within society, but on the social relationships that govern transmission. Tradition works through normativity, through routine, through the conforming of individual behaviour to socially prescribed patterns.

This chapter reflects on the conflict between heroism and holiness in Book I of The Faerie Queene, and demonstrates Spenser’s use of mock-heroic humour to expose the inappropriateness of classical ideals of self-sufficiency in a Christian context. In particular, the chapter investigates Spenser’s comic handling of three conventions associated with classical epic: the exemplary qualities of the hero, the superiority of epic over pastoral, and heroic violence. The primary target of the book’s satire is Red Crosse, but Spenser’s own authorial persona as a newly invested epic poet is ironically implicated. Both Red Crosse and ‘Spenser’ rise above their humble backgrounds to serve a queen, and both have pretensions to a heroic vocation. While Spenser’s narrator explicitly renounces pastoral for the higher calling of epic, pastoral will not stop ‘interrupting’ his hero’s progress. Initially, such interruption has derogatory implications, but bathos ultimately proves to be spiritually restorative.