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This chapter builds on the superb documentation for some of the most well-known cases of hostageship in the Middle Ages, namely hostages granted for the ransom and release of captive kings: Baldwin II of Jerusalem and Richard I of England in the twelfth century, Louis IX of France and Charles II of Naples in the thirteenth, David II of Scotland in the fourteenth, and James I of Scotland in the fifteenth. These case studies offer a density of detail that is often missing in other contexts. Draft treaties, lists of hostages, and safe conducts allow for a careful reconstruction of the social, political, and financial networks that underlay royal authority, and on which opponents knew how to draw in shaping guarantees.

This chapter traces how impotence magic found a recognized place in the canon law and theology of marriage. This happened because it was incorporated into two works that became standard university textbooks on canon law and theology: the Decretum of Gratian and the Sentences of Peter Lombard. The chapter argues that 12th-century commentators focused mostly on whether the canon law for impotence magic (established by Hincmar of Rheims) was valid, under what circumstances an annulment could be granted, and how allegations of impotence could be proved, although a few also claimed to have encountered real cases. It also surveys the few 12th-century medical writers who discussed impotence magic, including Urso of Salerno, who offered a physical explanation for a phenomenon that other authors ascribed to magic.

Educated women, writers, poets, and orators, became a feature of the Italian cultural landscape in the 15th century, a phenomenon which was recognized Europe-wide as an aspect of the Italian Renaissance. This chapter examines the extreme variability of women's access to education between one state and another. It discusses the social context of Renaissance humanism, and the barriers it offered to women's participation. Women and scribal publication are considered. The chapter includes separate sections on women and the universities, particularly the medical school of Salerno and the law school of Bologna, particularly Novella d'Andrea; women and humanism, Latin as an aspect of demonstrating fitness to rule and woman as Latin orators; the Nogarola family and its connections among male and female Latinists in the Veneto, particularly Isotta Nogarola; Costanza Varano and educated women connected with Urbino; Veronica Gàmbara, the Gonzagas, and the Sforzas. Absence of evidence for Latin verse production in 15th-century convents is pointed out.

Pope Gregory VII died at Salerno on May 25, 1085. He seems to have fallen seriously ill at about the beginning of the year. The record of his final testament, followed by the Montecassino Chronicle, suggests that he was for a considerable period in the grip of major illness. Some days before he died, Gregory appears to have suffered a relapse. He was attended by an entourage of bishops and cardinals who seem to have been essentially those who had left Rome with him. Also present were a number of chaplains. If he died ‘poor and in exile’, his poverty was a matter of the moral indifference to possessions, which was proper for a Christian, not of enforced material need or human isolation. The only named witness throughout his last illness was Abbot Desiderius of Montecassino, who, however, according to Paul of Bernried, fulfilled Gregory's prophecy by being absent at the hour of his death in order to bring relief to one of his abbey's castles to which some Normans were laying siege.

Chapter 8 opens up a series of three exploring the Amalfitan diaspora, and takes as its subject the issue of Amalfitans elsewhere in Italy. The chapter first considers the many Amalfitans and Atranians settled in Salerno, before moving outwards from Campania to survey the evidence in the rest of Italy. References to such travellers occur in a myriad of situations, whether as sailors in fleets, servants, visitors to courts, local landowners, professional notaries, and second-home owners. The methodology of taking surnames such as ‘Amalfitanus’ at face value in external documents is examined, and the chapter concludes that only a minority of Amalfitans appear to have left in search of commercial opportunities. Moreover, their appointment of financial administrators in the Staufen kingdom may have owed more to the fact they had moved, rather than, or in addition to, their reputation for commercial acumen

This chapter concentrates on John’s uroscopic theories as presented in his On Urines. It starts by examining the structure of the work, showing John’s intention to systematize knowledge on the subject by dividing his treatise into four large thematic areas, i.e. introductory details, diagnosis, aetiology, and prognosis, thus presenting a general-to-specific approach in each section. The analysis then shifts to John’s theories on the various stages of human digestion, which had remained undisputed for centuries. It is shown that John is eager to present his own understanding, especially on the role of the liver. John’s own observations are also evident in his discussion of the different colours of urine thanks to the extra explanatory information he provides in this respect, especially on how to differentiate between various colours. The last section focuses on John’s urine vial, which although identified as an important feature of his original approach by earlier scholars, was never fully contextualized in light of a holistic reading of John’s work or of the development of other, non-Byzantine, medieval theories on the subject. Consequently, it is argued that John’s most original contribution is the introduction and detailed definition of eleven subdivisions in the urine vial compared to the three areas traditionally identified.

Chapter 7 furthers the analysis of the role of anatomical models as cultural currencies capable of transferring value. It does so by expanding the investigation of the early stages of anatomical modelling to include a new setting. In particular, it follows the journey of the Palermitan anatomist and modeller Giuseppe Salerno and his anatomical ‘skeleton’—a specimen that represented the body’s complex web of blood vessels and was presented as the result of anatomical injections. Although Salerno was headed towards Bologna, a major centre of anatomical modelling, he ended his journey in Naples after the nobleman Raimondo di Sangro purchased the skeleton for his own cabinet of curiosities. This chapter considers the creation and viewing of an anatomical display in di Sangro’s Neapolitan Palace from a comparative perspective that highlights how geography and locality played an important part in shaping the culture of mid-eighteenth-century anatomical modelling.

Robert Capa had taken a series of photographs of the paratroop mission to Sicily, but so far he had not enjoyed a happy war. His problems in getting to the front had mirrored the deeper problems the US military had encountered in getting good images of the battlefield. All this changed after Sicily. Not only did Eisenhower make a concerted effort to recruit more leading photographers, but senior officials in Washington, worried that the public had become too confident about a quick victory, also decided to allow the publication of grittier battlefield images. Capa was the first photographer to benefit from this policy change. He was soon joined by Margaret Bourke-White, also of Life magazine, who profited from Eisenhower’s willingness to allow more women journalists near the front.