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What's New in Medieval Studies IV (May 2026)

Giovanni Battista Bracelli, Bizzarie di varie figure (1624). National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Public Domain.

Welcome back to my monthly installment of new releases in medieval studies. Medieval is being used very expansively here, so expect some books dealing with Late Rome or the Renaissance if they look particularly interesting. Now, I don't have the time or resources to read all of these books, so inclusion here doesn't mean it is guaranteed to be amazing. But I have largely tried to steer towards major academic presses (i.e. not popular histories). If you want my reasons for why you should read academic books even if you aren't an academic, you can find my piece here. I will offer some light editorializing but it is by no means comprehensive. If a book is available open access I have designated that, so even if you don't have access to an academic library you can still benefit. For each work I also provide the URL to the work, so you can purchase/download/whatever. Have a book coming out? Get in touch!

This list cannot be comprehensive, and I have occasionally omitted certain books such as source editions that are meant for more specialized audiences. This information was derived from the individual academic presses themselves, my own Bluesky feed, and pages such as "Medieval Updates" which share newly published works.

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Here are the 2 journals and 37 books published in May 2026:

Journals

Early Medieval Europe 34, no. 2, available here. Quite a few open access articles, I can recommend the article by Purkiss and the article by Ellis and Ottewill-Soulsby.
Medieval Clothing and Textiles 20, available here.

Early Middle Ages

Ottewill-Soulsby, Sam and Graeme Ward (eds), The Carolingian South (Manchester University Press) This looks like an exceptional volume, with numerous 'heavy hitters' contributing articles.

High Middle Ages

Church, Stephen D., Laura Cleaver, and Matthew Strickland (eds), The Angevin World, 1154-1204: New Interpretations (Boydell Press)

Late Middle Ages

Konarska-Zimnicka, Sylwia, A History of Medieval Astrology: The Importance of the Kraków School of Astrology (15th-16th Centuries) (Routledge)
Smith, Garrett and Wouter Goris (eds), John Duns Scotus and his Parisian Interlocutors (Brill)

Religion

Cardwell, Samuel, The Idea of Evangelisation: 'Mission', Theology and Scripture from the Early Church to the Age of Bede (Liverpool University Press) Open Access
Hopkins, Stephen C.E., Translating Hell: Vernacular Theology and Apocrypha in the Medieval North Sea (Manchester University Press)
Szczepanik, Paweł and Dirk Steinforth (eds), Pre-Christian Religions, Rituals, and Beliefs in Central and Northern Europe: Interdisciplinary Investigations (Brepols)

Romances/Literature

Alvar Nuño, Guillermo and Elisa Borsari (eds)Classical Tradition and Medieval Literature (Peter Lang)
Campos García Rojas, Axayácatl, and Daniel Gutiérrez Trápaga (eds), Companion to the Hispanic Romances of Chivalry (Tamesis Books)
Johnson, Joseph R., Animals, Speech and Reason in the Middle Ages (Cambridge University Press)
Lurkhur, Karen, Medieval Icelandic Bodies in "Tristram ok Ísodd" (Cornell University Press) Open Access

England

Gallagher, Robert, The Written Word in Early Medieval England: Kent, Mercia and Wessex, c. 830-920 (Cambridge University Press) I'm pretty excited for this, and Robert Gallagher has written several nice articles on charters and texts in Early Medieval England.
Irwin, Dean A. (ed.), The Medieval Lincoln Jewry (Arc Humanities Press)
Naismith, Rory, Offa: King of the Mercians (Yale University Press)
Nuding, Emma, Writing St Guthlac: from the Medieval to the Modern (D.S. Brewer)
Strub, Spencer, Scorn, Shame, and the Simple Reader: Lay Piety and Literature in Late Medieval England (University of Pennsylvania Press)

Byzantium

Bodnaruk, Mariana (ed.), Artistic Practice, Materiality, and Ideology in the Medieval East Roman Empire and Neighboring Eastern Polities (Routledge)
Kaldellis, Anthony, 1453: the Conquest and Tragedy of Constantinople (Oxford University Press)
Mellas, Andrew and Bronwen Neil (eds), The Cambridge Companion to the Byzantine Church (Cambridge University Press)
Peers, Glenn, Strange and Familiar Histories of Byzantine Art: Interpretation, Risk, and Empathy (Arc Humanities Press)

Politics/Culture

Bain, Emmanuel, Rosa Maria Dessì, Michel Lauwers, Isabelle Rosé, Warren Pezé, Alessia Trivellone (eds), Hérésie, pouvoirs et sociétés au Moyen Âge (Brepols)
Barsell, Susanna, William Caferro, and Germano Maifreda (eds), Cultures of Exchange: Mercantile Mentalities between Italy and the World (XII-XVI c.) (University of Toronto Press)
Devere, Heather, Medieval Conceptions of Friendship: Spiritual, Secular and Political (Palgrave MacMillan)
Jara Fuente, José Antonio (ed.), Communicating Political Order in the Middle Ages: Discourse, Agency, and the Exercise of Power (Dykinson) A bit later than what I normally do, but this looks really interesting.
Pranke, Piotr, Łukasz Różycki, Marcin Lisiecki (eds), Memory, State, and Past Remembering in East Central and Northern Europe: Interdisciplinary Studies in Medieval Culture, Volume II (Routledge)
Wihoda, Martin, The Making of Medieval Central Europe: Power and Political Prerequisites for the First Westernization, 791-1122 (Bloomsbury)

Gender/Sexuality

Bolton, Kirsty and Lauren Sisson (eds), Motherhood in the Medieval World: Mothers in Literary and Textual Sources, c. 300-1400 (Brepols)
Kirakosian, Racha, Linus Möllenbrink, Meret Wüthrich (eds), Women Read. Differently? Text in Women Convents from the 13th to the 15th Centuries (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht) Open access

Landscape/Architecture/Art

Boivin, Katherine M., Lindsay S. Cook, and Zachary Stewart (eds), Gothic Space: Studies in Celebration of Stephen Murray (Brill)
Carocci, Sandro and Federico Del Tredici (eds), Building and Conflict in Southern Europe (1000-1300) (Brepols) Open Access
Gearhart, Heidi C., Names to Remember: Medieval Artists in Word and Image, ca. 700-1200 (Penn State University Press)

Non-European/Global Middle Ages

Andrei, Talia, Sacred Journeys and Institutional Rivalries: Pilgrimage Mandalas and the Art of Fundraising in Medieval Japan (Harvard University Press)
Butler, Lee, Four Years in Izumi: Village Japan in the Early Sixteenth Century (University of Michigan Press)
De Weerdt, Hilde, The Arts of Governance: Sinitic Political Advice Literature from Medieval Times to the Present (University of Hawai'i Press) I know very little about the Tang but this book sounds promising.
Macomber, Andrew, Cadaverous: Postmortem Contagion and Ritual Immunity in Medieval Japanese Buddhism (University of Hawai'i Press) This looks incredibly fascinating!
Usta, Ahmet and Ömer Fatih Parlak (eds), Coexistence in Medieval Christian and Muslim Societies: Politics, Trade and Culture in Anatolia and Iberia (Routledge)
Wu, Nancy, A Franciscan Tombstone in Fourteenth-Century China: A Global History (Cambridge University Press) Free until June 8th, 2026.