What's New in Medieval Studies V (June 2026)
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.
Before we get to the list, can I ask you to subscribe? Compiling this information takes time! Your support, either free or paid, lets me know that people appreciate this work.
Here are the 2 journals and 38 books published in June 2026:
Journals
Literature/Manuscripts
- Ceccherini, Irene and Terese De Robertis (eds), The Rise of Vernacular Writing. The Palaeographical Perspective: Proceedings of the 21st Colloquium of the Comité international de paléographie latine. Firenze (19-21 February 2020) (Brepols)
- Darby, Peter, Letter Writing in the Northumbrian Kingdom, 625-786 (Manchester University Press)
- van den Hoven van Genderen, A.J., Rob Meens, and Carine van Rhijn (eds), Dynamics of Literacy in Medieval Europe: Studies in Honour of Marco Mostert (Brepols)
- Kennedy, Kathleen E., Illuminating Media: Transmitting the Renaissance in England, 1400-1550 (Concordia University Press)
- Kreager, Adèle, Transformation and Identity in Old Norse Literature: the Human and Beyond (D.S. Brewer)
- Maxwell, Robert A., The Memory of Past Acts: Picturing Presence, Loss, and History in Illuminated Cartularies, c. 1050-c.1220 (Brepols) This looks really great!
- Minnis, Alastair J. and R.F. Yeager (eds), Contextualising Gower: Texts, Books, Heritage (D.S. Brewer)
- Mosser, Daniel W., A Descriptive Catalogue of the Pre-1500 Manuscripts and Editions of the Canterbury Tales (D.S. Brewer)
Byzantium
- Buckley, Penelope, Michael Psellos' Chronographia: Rhetorical History and the Tragicomedy of Byzantium and the Self (Cambridge University Press)
- Goiana, Maria-Lucia, Krystina Kubina, Christodoulos Papavarnavas, and Guilia Rossetto (eds), Cosmopolitan Byzantium: People, Ideas, and Interactions. A ›Festschrift‹ for Claudia Rapp (De Gruyter Brill)
England
- Cresswell, Rachel, Anselm and Scripture: the Bible in the Thought of Anselm of Canterbury (Brill)
- Magnusson, Roberta J., Urban Infrastructure in Medieval England: Sustainability and Resilience (Johns Hopkins University Press)
- Marks, Richard and Christian Steer, Wills and Windows: Testamentary Evidence for Glazing and Fenestration in Medieval England (Liverpool University Press)
- Pedersen, David G., Conceiving Heroic Christianity in Early Medieval England (De Gruyter)
Digital Humanities
- Dows-Miller, Sebastian, Medieval Authorship and Statistical Analysis: Reconsidering Jehan de Saint-Quentin's "oeuvre" in the Digital Age (Arc Humanities Press) Open Access
Global Middle Ages/Mediterranean
- Banister, Mustafa and Fadi Ragheb (eds), From Cairo to Jerusalem and Beyond: Studies of the Later Islamic Middle Period in Honor of Linda Stevens Northrup (Brill)
- Berriah, Mehdi, Mamluk Art of Warfare (1250-1375): Strategies and Tactics, translated by Anna Galietti (Brill)
- Coureas, Nicholas, King Henry II of Cyprus, 1285-1324 (Routledge)
- Jolly, Karen Louise, The Ethics of Teaching Medieval Worlds: Student Engagement and Decentred Perspectives on History (Arc Humanities Press)
- Korn, Lorenz, Ana Marija Grbanovic, Iman Aghajani, and Moslem Mishmastnehi (eds), Stucco in the Architecture of Iran and Neighbouring Lands (Brill)
- Tounta, Eleni and Nikolaos Chrissis (eds), Travelling in the Eastern Mediterranean, c. 1300-1500: Politics, Agency, and the Production of Space (Brepols)
- Zhang, Cong Ellen (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Song China (Cambridge University Press)
Material Culture
- Coatsworth, Elizabeth, The Crucifixion Imagined in Stone Sculpture of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms (Brill)
- Franklin-Lyons, Adam and Timothy P. Newfield (eds), Contextualizing Medieval Food Shortages: Causes, Definitions, and Historiography (Brepols)
- Jasperse, Jitske (ed.), The Social Lives of Medieval Rings (Arc Humanities Press)
Religion/Culture
- Barton, Thomas (ed.), Ethno-Religious Interaction in the Late Medieval Iberian World (Brepols)
- Berkes, Magdalena-Maria, Jasmin Hauck, and Georg Strack (eds), Die Ehe im Früh- und Hochmittelalter: Neue Perspektiven der Forschung (Böhlau)
- Bryan Gillis, Matthew, Anja Rathman-Lutz, and Laury Sarti (eds), Beyond Time and Space: Studies by and in Memory of Miriam Czock (Trivent Publishing) Open Access
- Dragnea, Mihai, From Preaching to Sword: the Integration of the Slavs Beyond the Elbe into Imperium Christianum (10th-12th Centuries) (Routledge)
- Jamroziak, Emilia, The Cistercian Cult of Saints as a Treasury of the Living Past in the Later Middle Ages (Routledge)
- Kinch, Ashby (ed.), A Cultural History of Death in the Middle Ages (Bloomsbury)
- Laumonier, Lucie, Charity and Community in Montpellier, 13th-16th Centuries: the Multiplication of Loaves (Routledge)
- Miller, Anne-Hélène, The Invention of Frenchness: Negotiating Cultural Boundaries in the Literary Languages of Medieval France (Liverpool University Press)
- Pineau, Julia, Introducing the Medieval Snail (University of Wales Press)
- Tranter, Maria, The History and Historiography of a Late Medieval Heresy: Beghards and Heretics of the Free Spirit (Springer) Open Access
- Walden, Justine, The Sacred and the Secular in Renaissance Florence: Vallombrosan Exorcisms and the Rise of Observant Mendicancy (Brepols)
Women/Gender
- Dutton, Paul Edward, Eriugena Unbound (Trivent Publishing)
- Możejko, Beata, Aneta Pieniądz, Magdalena Biniaś-Szkopek (eds), Status and Social Roles of Women in Central Europe in the Middle Ages (Routledge)
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