Key Figures in Medieval Europe. An Encyclopedia

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INTRODUCTION

Key Figures in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia provides a broad introduction to the biographical knowledge
collected and investigated by modern scholarship over the past several decades regarding the persons whose actions,
beliefs, creations, and writings shaped the Middle Ages, roughly that period in European history stretching from
about 500 to 1500.
The geographic and chronological range of this volume is therefore extensive and impressive, as are the lives
and accomplishments of the 587 fi gures it discusses. Although the historical record tends to favor persons born into
or achieving the higher estates of the Middle Ages, such as the princes of church and state, these entries include
a wide range of individuals, from emperors and queens to businessmen and traveling performers, from popes and
university scholars to visionary women and heretics, from one of the greatest poets of all times, Dante, who dur-
ing the later Middle Ages was known internationally, to Caedmon, a little known oral poet living on the edge of
civilized Europe during the early Middle Ages. These are the people who infl uenced, motivated, and were shaped
by the artistic, economic, intellectual, literary, political, religious, and social history of one of the most fascinating
periods of world history, the Middle Ages. It is worth noting that the Islamic world receives attention in Key Figures
in Medieval Europe, most of all because of its important place in medieval Iberia.
The 587 entries included in Key Figures in Medieval Europe are drawn from the following eight previously pub-
lished volumes in the Routledge Encyclopedias of the Middle Ages series, initiated by Garland.

• Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia, edited by Phillip Pulsiano and Kirsten Wolf (Garland, 1993)


• Medieval France: An Encyclopedia, edited by William W. Kibler, Grover A. Zinn, John Bell Henneman, Jr.,
  and Lawrence Earp (Garland, 1995)


• Medieval England: An Encyclopedia, edited by Paul E. Szarmach, M. Teresa Tavormina, and Joel T. Rosenthal
  (Garland, 1998)


• Trade, Travel, and Exploration in the Middle Ages: An Encyclopedia, edited by John Block Friedman and
  Kristen Mossler Figg (Garland, 2000)


• Medieval Germany: An Encyclopedia, edited by John M. Jeep (Garland, 2001)


• Medieval Jewish Civilization: An Encyclopedia, edited by Norman Roth (Routledge, 2002)


• Medieval Iberia: An Encyclopedia, edited by E. Michael Gerli (Routledge, 2003)


• Medieval Italy: An Encyclopedia, edited by Christopher Kleinhenz (Routledge, 2003).
  The entries comprising Key Figures in Medieval Europe were carefully selected amongst the biographical entries
  found in the above volumes to provide a source for quick and ready information. The present volume is intended
  not only for students, librarians, teachers, and the general public, who may be interested in the Middle Ages but do
  not wish to purchase or sift through numerous individual encyclopedias, but also for medievalists and other scholars
  who want to have a reliable reference work easily at hand. By drawing on previously published entries, the volume
  gathers the best of scholarship scattered over eight volumes into one easy to use biographical resource. To preserve
  the integrity of the scholarship, the entries are published as they originally appeared.
  The strength of the entries is evident in the quality of the scholarship that informed the original volumes and that
  drew on the wide knowledge of hundreds of scholars selected by the editors of the volumes for their expertise in
  the areas of medieval studies assigned to them. The entries, therefore, are reliable accounts of the medieval fi gures
  discussed and can be used with confi dence by all readers.