Medieval Europe is growing. The boundaries of this once small world are stretching to the south, east, and north to include the Mediterranean world, Scandinavia, and eastern Europe. Scholars are taking a new look at sources to reexamine how the medieval European world was interconnected in a variety of ways, from marital ties to religion, trade, language, and culture. Part of that movement is an inherent revisionism that requires the casting out of older conceptions of a medieval Europe that had the Rhine as its eastern border, or even a medieval Europe that was merely an expanding Germanic (or Frankish) sphere of influence. What this book proposes is a revision to an ahistorical view of the medieval world. Checking and rechecking translations alongside other historical information allows modern scholars to avoid the presentism of past generations and present a more accurate view of the medieval world.

One simple example of how this change in translation is relevant and what the ramifications might be is in order. In the eleventh century, the Capetian King Henry of France (d. 1060) married Anna (d. 1089), daughter of Iaroslav the Wise of Kiev. This is recorded in a variety of sources and has been discussed frequently in secondary scholarship. However, this information can be presented in different ways that allow the reader to draw different conclusions. For instance, if we say, King Henry of France married Anna, the daughter of Prince Iaroslav of Kiev, as is often said, one perception is created in the mind of the reader. On the other hand if we say, King Iaroslav of Rus’ married his daughter Anna to King Henry of France, another perception entirely is created. In the first statement, Henry is clearly the ranking individual, not simply because of his primary place in the sentence, but because of his title having precedence in the modern mind over “prince” Iaroslav. The marriage is then not one of equals, and not one for a political purpose, but a mere historical vagary or amusement, which may have prompted the distinguished historian of dynastic marriage Constance Bouchard to dismiss this marriage as a novelty (Bouchard, pp. 277, 287).