Lady with a mead cup

Ritual, prophecy and lordship in the European warband from La Tène to the Viking Age

Michael J. Enright

Lady with a Mead Cup is a broad-ranging, innovative and strikingly original study of the early medieval barbarian cup-offering ritual and its social, institutional and religious significance. Medievalists are familiar with the image of a queen offering a drink to a king or chieftain and to his retainers, the Wealhtheow scene in Beowulf being perhaps the most famous instance.

Drawing on archaeology, anthropology and philology, as well as medieval history, Professor Enright has produced the first work in English on the warband and on the significance of barbarian drinking rituals.

Michael J. Enright is Professor of Medieval History at East Carolina University. He is the author of The Sutton Hoo Sceptre and the Roots of Celtic Kingship Theory (2006) and Prophecy and kingship in Adomnán's 'Life of Saint Columba (2013).