Amalfi
A small Italian city in Campania, clinging to the rocky slopes of its peninsula dominating the bay of Salerno, Amalfi is mentioned as a bishopric in a letter of Pope ...
Anjou
A former province of western France, on the Loire. It was an English possession from 1154, when it was inherited by Henry II as count of Anjou, until 1204, when it was lost to France by King John; it ...
Arles
(city, kingdom) Situated at the mouth of the Rhône delta in southern France, Arles was an important administrative centre in the late Roman Empire. After a period of decline under ...
Bruges
A city in NW Belgium, capital of the province of West Flanders, which until the 15th century was a centre of the Flemish textile trade.Bruges Group a political pressure group formed with the ...
Catalonia
Catalonia came into being, like the other Christian principalities of the northern Iberian peninsula, after the Arab-Berber conquest of the 8th century. The expeditions made by the Franks and ...
Clement
(1342–1394)In the absence of official recognition by the Roman Church, Clement VII remains in the eyes of history the first of the Popes of Avignon to inaugurate the period ...
duchy
In the Byzantine world the dux was the military head of the provinces, especially the peripheral ones more exposed to external dangers. Once Italy had been recovered – the other ...
Durand of Mende, Guillaume, the Younger
(died 1330)Nephew of Guillaume Durand (or Durant) the Speculator, bishop of Mende from 1286 to 1296, he was archdeacon of Mende when his uncle died, and succeeded him on ...
échevin
Deliberating member of a town council. Heirs of the scabini of the Carolingian period, charged with expounding the law to the count's court, in the 12th c. the échevins became ...
Ferrara
Italian city of uncertain origin located in the east of the Po valley. In the 6th century Ferrara was controlled by the exarchate of Ravenna and in the 8th century ...
Flanders
A region in the south-western part of the Low Countries, now divided between Belgium (where it forms the provinces of East and West Flanders), France, and the Netherlands. It was a powerful medieval ...
Gregory of Tours
(538/9–94), bishop (from 573)Staunch advocate of episcopal authority in Merovingian Francia; author of Histories, the most significant source for his age. He also wrote accounts of miracle-working ...
homage
Was the formal and public acknowledgement by a vassal of his allegiance and obligations to a lord of whom he held land or whose overlordship he accepted. By making an act of homage, the vassal's own ...
honour
(honour)The institution of power- and income-sharing in 14th- and 15th-century Hungary. Court aristocrats (barones) were granted royal household offices, several counties, and royal castles for ...
immunity
N.Freedom or exemption from legal proceedings. Examples include the immunity of the sovereign personally from all legal proceedings (see royal prerogative); the immunity of members of the House of ...
Investiture
Investiture (vestitio) is the act by which a man or a woman entering religious life is clothed in the distinctive habit of this state. Originally, entry into religious life was ...
Jacob van Artevelde
(1290/1295–1345)A Flemish politician, Jacob van Artevelde was born in Ghent of a prosperous merchant family. He was chosen as leader in his town's struggle against the Francophile count Louis ...
Jonas of Orléans
(d. 843) Bishop (c.818–43), theologian, author, and hagiographer.His works include treatises on Christian principles of living for both the laity and nobility, in which he adapts juristic, monastic, ...
Luxembourg
A small country between France, Germany, and Belgium, Luxembourg has enjoyed disproportionate influnce as a founding member of the EU. Independent since 1815, Luxembourg was divided between its ...
march
Derived from the Old English mearc, meaning ‘boundary’, march denoted a tract of land along a border, notably the marches of Wales and Scotland.
