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What's New in Medieval Studies VII (August 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. I also will have a designated Open Access section, 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.

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 is the 1 journal and 23 books released in August 2026:

Journals:

Journal of Medieval Military History 24, available here.

Culture:

Fentress, Elizabeth and Adam Rabinowitz, Slaving States: From West Africa to the Ancient Mediterranean (Princeton). This looks like it will be a very important book even if it is a bit outside the traditional Middle Ages dates.
Papasidero, Marco, Saints and Storms: A Cultural History of Miraculous Weather Events in Medieval Italy (Routledge)
Ropa, Anatasija, Wild Horses and Their Relatives in the Middle Ages (Bloomsbury)
Whyte, William, The University: a History in Stone, Silk, and Blood (Harvard University Press)

Religion:

Astell, Ann W., The Saint's Life and the Senses of Scripture: Hagiography as Exegesis (University of Notre Dame Press)
Blan, Noah, Carolingian Ecological Sovereignty: Theology, Empire, and Nature (Arc Humanities Press) Open access
Salmoiraghi, Davide, Hagiography and Episcopal Authority in Medieval Iceland: St Ambrose of Milan and the Militant Biskupa sögur (Brill)
Serrano del Pozo, Joaquín, Relics and War in the Eastern Roman Empire: Christian Charismatic Objects in Byzantine Military Contexts and Society (Arc Humanities Press)
Tucker, Luke Rohan, Devotio Moderna and the Medieval University: Cultures of Devotion and Learning (Routledge)

Gender/Sexuality:

Foscati, Alessandra, The Wonders of Childbirth: Giving Life between the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period (Routledge)
Mouron, Anne, Marleen Cré, Mami Kanno (eds), Medieval Women and their Spiritual Texts: Helfta Writings, Margery Kempe, and Beyond: Essays in Honour of Naoë Kukita Yoshikawa (Brepols)
Zarri, Gabriella, From Living Saints to Divine Mothers: Women's Religiosity in Italy, 1400-1550 (Routledge)

Politics:

Barton, Thomas W., Constructing Christendom: Conquest and Diocese Formation in Medieval Iberia (University of Pennsylvania Press)
Cotza, Alberto, and Giuseppe Petralia (eds), In Search of the High Middle Ages. Change and Continuity in 11th-12th-Century Italy (Firenze University Press) Open Access. This is part of a great series on Italy that is mostly open access, check out the other volumes!
Esders, Stefan and Karl Ubl (eds), Kollision und Interferenz normativer Ordnungen im frühen und hohen Mittelalter (Jan Thorbecke Verlag)

Global/Non-European:

Greenhalgh, Michael, Islamic Architecture through Western Eyes: Palaces around the Mediterranean vol. 3 (Brill)
Kaplony, Andreas, Pre-Modern Arabic Documents: A Concise Introduction into Reading and Publishing (De Gruyter) Open Access.
Pandey, Rajyashree, The Excremental Imagination: Disgust, Compassion, and Laughter in Medieval Japan (University of Hawai'i Press)
Pirtea, Adrian C., Giulia Rossetto, and Nikos Zagklas (eds), Byzantium Beyond Byzantium: Proceedings of the Plenary Sessions at the 25th International Congress of Byzantine Studies (Vienna, 24-29 August 2026) (V&R Press) Open Access.

Literature/Texts:

Ceccherini, Irene and Teresa De Robertis (eds), The Rise of Vernacular Writing. The Palaeographical Perspective / L'emersione delle scritture volgari. La prospettiva paleografica: Proceedings of the 21st Colloquium of the Comité international de paléographie latine. Firenze (19-21 February 2020) (Brepols)
Courroux, Pierre, Battle Narratives in Medieval English and French Chronicles, 1066-1500: a Study and Motif-Index (Boydell Press)
Egan, Clare and Sarah B. White (eds), Law as Literature, Literature as Law, c. 1200-1700 (Routledge)