150 and c. 750, came to differ from "Classical civilization."These centuries, as the author demonstrates, were the era in which the most deeply rooted of ancient institutions disappeared for all time. By 476 the Roman empire had vanished from western Europe; by 655 the Persian empire had vanished from the Near East.Peter Brown, Professor of History at Princeton University, examines these changes and men's reactions to them, but his account shows that the period was also one of outstanding new beginnings and defines the far-reaching impact both of Christianity on Europe and of Islam on the Near East. The result is a lucid answer to a crucial question in world history; how the exceptionally homogeneous Mediterranean world of c. 200 became divided into the three mutually estranged societies of the Middle Ages: Catholic Western Europe, Byzantium and Islam. We still live with the results of these contrasts.

    In the year Louis XI was born, just after the 100 Years' War, England still ruled much of France. Unifying the land became his idée fixe, and through Louis' wiliness, network of spies, and willingness to forge alliances when needed, he succeeded in pulling the country out of anarchy and achieving his goal.

    

    In them the modern reader can catch a glimpse of the genius an entire generation found irresistible.

    I want to be a wool merchant."           In those two sentences young Maude Reed expresses her most burning desire. But in fifteenth-century England, girls of good family do not go into business.          Instead, they are often sent to live in one of the great castles, where they do needlework, play the lute, and are taught the complicated customs and manners of that age of knighthood.          At Beauclaire Castle, Maude meets two people who are to have a lasting influence on her - the beautiful Melusine, who serves Lady Astallon, and Henry Rancon, destined one day for knighthood.          Nevertheless, the moment comes when she can face life there no longer, and on Christmas day she mounts her pony, steals over the drawbridge and starts on the long perilous journey home.Then her real adventures begin ...

    This practical guide to the spiritual life, cherished by monks, beguines, and lay folk for eight centuries, can still lead men and women to God.

    

    

    Like the song of Wordsworth's reaper it suggests a story of old, unhappy, far-off things and battles long ago.James V belonged to the world of the ballads, a world of courtliness and ceremony, of short life and violent death. Succeeding to the throne at the age of seventeen months as a result of his father's death at the disastrous battle of Flodden, his childhood and youth were scarred by the faction fights of the great nobles among whom his mother, Margaret Tudor, sister of Henry VIII, manoeuvred and intrigued for the English interest. Murder, abduction, treachery were incidents that the young King observed at first hand. Like so many of his family he learnt his politics in a hard school. Perhaps it was this that enabled him to obtain some sort of ascendancy over his lawless and over-mighty subjects and to maintain a fighting front against such a formidable antagonist as Henry VIII. His marriage with a daughter of Francis I of France and then with Marie de Guise brought him into contact with the most brilliant court of his time and his reign is touched with the colour of the old Catholic world that the Reformation would sweep away.Caroline Bingham does not allow nostalgia for a vanished Scotland to blind her to the iniquities and barbarities of a fierce and violent society. Her portrait of James V is the more telling for its lack of sentimentality, just as her portrayal of his age is the more vivid from the warmth of his sympathy.

    Decidedly sexist by today's standards, the volume offers the modern reader translations from seven texts, among them Ovid's "Ars amatoria," one of the earliest "practical" love guides -- a satirical treatise chockablock with shrewd tips for seducers & lovers -- as well as selections from the anonymous "On Courtesy," from Robert de Blois's "Advice to Ladies," & four other works. The illustrations -- 7 woodcuts by Robert & Corinne Borja -- are a blend of modern & medieval styles. Renowned translator Norman R. Shapiro is a prof. at Wesleyan Univ.

    Ritter.--Piety in Germany around 1500, by B. Moeller.--The crisis of the Middle Ages and the Hussites, by F. Graus.--On Luther and Ockham, by P. Vignaux.--Facientibus quod in se est Deus non denegat gratiam: Robert Holcot O. P. and the beginnings of Luther's theology, by H. A. Oberman.--Home viator: Luther and late medieval theology, by S. E. Ozment.--The Windesheimers after c. 1485: confrontation with the reformation and humanism, by R. R. Post.--Paracelsus, by A. Koyré.--Simul gemitus et raptus: Luther and mysticism, by H. A. Oberman.--Bibliography

    Sir Erec rides with his wife through the country seeking adventure in order to prove to her and King Arthur's court that he is not a coward.