Humour history and politics in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages Dont worry Ive got the key Guy Halsall Laughter and humour in the early Medieval Latin West Danuta Shanzer Humour and the everyday in Byzantium John Haldon The lexicon of abuse drunkenness and political illegitimacy in the late Roman world Mark Humphries Funny foreigners laughing with the barbarians in Late Antiquity Guy Halsall Liutprand of Cremonas sense of humour Ross Balzaretti He never even allowed his white teeth to be bared in laughter : the politics of humour in the Carolingian Renaissance Matthew Innes Alcuins Disputatio Pippini and the early Medieval riddle tradition Martha Bayless Laughter after Babels fall : misunderstandling and miscommunication in the ninth century West Paul Kershaw These essays range from the late Roman empire through to the tenth century and from Byzantium to Anglo Saxon England taking a historians perspective to look at the use of irony ridicule and satire as political tools; Geschichte 300 900; To 1492