1. Althoff, Spielregeln der Politik; ‘Zur Bedeutung symbolischer Kommunikation fur das Verständnis des Mittelalters’, FrilhmittelalterlicheStudien 31 (1997), 370— 89. Formen und Funktionen, ed. Althoff; Zeichen, Rituale, Werte, ed. Althoff.
2. Some of the most important titles are: K.J. Leyser, Rule and Conflict in an Early Medieval Society. Ottonian Saxony (Oxford, 1979); ‘Ritual, Zeremonie und Gestik: das ottonische Reich’, Frithmittelalterliche Studien 27 (1993), 1–26; Althoff, Spielregeln; P. Buc, The Dangers of Ritual (Princeton, 2001); ‘Political rituals and political imagination in the medieval West from the fourth century to the eleventh’, The Medieval World, ed. Linehan and Nelson, 432–50; ‘Rituel politique et imaginaire politique au haut Moyen Age’, Revue Historique 306 (2002), 843–83; G. Koziol, BeggingPardon and Favour. Ritual and Political Order in Early Medieval France (Ithaca, 1992); Rituals of Royalty: Power and Ceremonial in Traditional Societies, ed. D. Cannadine and S. Price (Cambridge, 1987); H.-J. Berbig, ‘Zur rechtlichen Relevanz von Ritus und Zeremoniell im romischdeutschen Imperium’, Zeitschrift furKirchengeschichte 92 (1981), 204–49; J.C. Schmitt, La raison des Gestes dans l’Occidentmedieval (Paris, 1990); Gestures, ed. J.C. Schmitt (London, 1984); and the collected articles of Janet Nelson: Politics and Ritual in Early Medieval Europe (London, 1984); Rulers and RulingFamilies in EarlyMedieval Europe (London, 1999).
3. G. Koziol, ‘England, France, and the Problem of Sacrality in Twelfth-Century Ritual’, Cultures ofPower, ed. Bisson, 124–48; C.W. Hollister, ‘Anglo-Norman political culture and the Twelfth-Century Renaissance’, Anglo-Norman Political Culture and the 12th-Century Renaissance. Proceedings of the Borchard Conference on Anglo-Norman History, 1995, ed. C.W. Hollister (Woodbridge, 1997), 1–16; M. Aurell, L’Empire des Plantagenet 1154–1224 (Paris, 2003), 123–33; Chaou, L’ideologie Plantagenet.
4. Nick Vincent, for instance, has pointed to the importance of religious symbolism in the politics of Henry II and Henry III: The Holy Blood, 188–96; ‘The pilgrimages’; Reuter, ‘Velle sibi’. Klaus van Eickels and Knut Gorich have highlighted the significance of friendship rituals and of amorphous concepts such as honour for relations between the kings of England and their neighbours: Gorich, ‘Verletzte Ehre?’; van Eickels, Vom inszenierten Konsens. See also the concluding remarks by Philippe Buc in Culture Politique des Plantagenêt (1154–1224), ed. M. Aurell (Poitiers, 2003), 377–83, and by Nicholas Vincent in Noblesses de l’espace Plantagenêt, ed. Aurell. More specifically for the thirteenth century see Weiler, ‘Symbolism and politics’ and ‘Knighting, homage’.
5. Petkov, The Kiss of Peace; van Eickels, Vom symbolischen Konsens. This has been argued against by C. Garnier, ‘Zeichen und Schrift. Symbolische Handlungen und literale Fixierung am Beispiel von Friedensschlussen des 13. Jahrhunderts’, Frithmittelalterliche Studien 32 (1998), 263–87, Weiler, ‘Knighting, homage’.