Together for the first time in one volume, the omnibus contains "A Morbid Taste for Bones", "One Corpse Too Many" and "Monk's-Hood", the first three Brother Cadfael mysteries in the crime series.

    However, like most women in fourteenth-century England, she is illiterate. Three clerics contemptuously decline to be Margaret’s scribe, and only the threat of starvation persuades Brother Gregory, a Carthusian friar with a mysterious past, to take on the task. As she narrates her life, we discover a woman of startling resourcefulness. Married off at the age of fourteen to a merchant reputed to be the Devil himself, Margaret was left for dead during the Black Plague. Incredibly, she survived, was apprenticed to an herbalist, and became a midwife. But most astonishing of all, Margaret has experienced a Mystic Union—a Vision of Light that endows her with the miraculous gift of healing. Because of this ability, Margaret has become suddenly different—to her tradition-bound parents, to the bishop’s court that tries her for heresy, and ultimately to the man who falls in love with her.

    Here, her chronicles continue with a Christmas story, a tale of robbery and attempted murder, and a narrative of Brother Cadfael's early years.

    

    So when Storm Eldon was kidnapped by her family's ancestral enemies, she knew there were rules to be honored by both sides. If her stepmother agreed to the ransom, Storm would not be harmed by the handsome Highland warrior who held her captive. But as days of waiting turned into weeks, it began to be clear that in this contest of wills, no one was fighting fair.

    Glimpses in manuscript illustrations and on funerary monuments, with the occasional reference by a contemporary writer, was all that the costume historian had as evidence, not least because leather tends to perish after prolonged contact with air, and very few actual examples survived. In recent years, however, nearly 2,000 shoes, many complete and in near-perfect condition, have been discovered preserved on the north bank of the Thames, and are now housed in the Museum of London. This collection, all from well-dated archaeological contexts, fills this vast gap in knowledge, making it possible to chart precisely the progress of shoe fashion between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries.

    Also included is an essay by Marianne Richert Pfau which delineates the connection between music and text in the Symphonia.Famous throughout Europe during her lifetime, Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) was a composer and a poet, a writer on theological, scientific, and medical subjects, an abbess, and a visionary prophet. One of the very few female composers of the Middle Ages whose work has survived, Hildegard was neglected for centuries until her liturgical song cycle was rediscovered. Songs from it are now being performed regularly by early music groups, and more than twenty compact discs have been recorded.

    The status of Hebrew as the natural, intellectual, and primordial language is discussed against the background of the medieval speculations regarding this topic.Abulafia proposed an elaborate hermeneutical system, unique in the whole Kabbalistic literature, for both its systematic exposition and the eccentric exegetical devices it describes. Various versions of this sevenfold system occur in several manuscripts that are collected and analyzed here in detail for the first time.Torah was regarded by Abulafia as the most important text, reflecting the constitution of the intellectual world and being identical with the Active intellect and even to God Himself. On the other hand, Torah was interpreted in Abulafia's Kabbalah as an allegory to the psychological processes of the mystic, an approach different from the regular Kabbalistic interpretation of this text as a symbolic corpus reflecting the divine intrasefirotic life.

    Variants between the four manuscripts represent more than a century of modifications in gastronomic tastes and culinary practices in French seigneurial life. The commentary and notes trace the significance of these modifications and indicate the influence the "Viandier" exercised on more recent cookery books throughout Europe. This critical edition also includes a glossary and a bibliography. In addition, selected recipes have been adapted for modern use and arranged in a menu for six people.

    900 to c. 1125, which is considered both as a set of institutions and as a spiritual body. The first half concentrates on the structures of religious belief and practice in the period 900-1050; the second half concentrates on the revolutionary changes associated with the rise of the papacy to a new level of rulership. It shows how far one can talk of a reform movement, and how the idea and ideal of papal monarchy became both the prisoner and the leader of those who sought for a renewal of Christian life. Tellenbach's survey is the work of a scholar who has been working in the field for over sixty years. It is characterized by the freshness and maturity of its judgments, which cut through many fashionable theories. No other work on this topic offers comparable range, depth and authority.

    Within the pages of these hand-painted treasures, medieval civilisation flourished. Of all the illuminated manuscripts from this period, the Book of Hours was, by far, the most popular and among the most exquisitely made. In the words of scholar L. M. J. Delaisse, it was the best seller of its time - the most frequently commissioned book by both the aristocracy and the middle classes.A selection of these splendid pages is presented in Time Sanctified, along with a detailed discussion of their importance and their contents. A prayer book for the laity, the Book of Hours contains, at its heart, a series of prayers devoted to the Virgin Mary, which were meant to be recited at seven canonical times (or hours) during the day. The most highly skilled calligraphers and painters were commissioned to execute the finest decoration with the most luxurious materials, such as gold, silver, and lapis lazuli.An understanding of the contents in the Book of Hours, both textually and pictorially, is essential to our understanding of not only late medieval piety, but of late medieval social life as well. The contributions of four authorities on Books of Hours guide the reader: Roger Wieck provides a detailed description of the contents of the Book of Hours, Lawrence Poos discusses its social context, Virginia Reinburg sheds light on the role of the Book of Hours in late medieval, piety, and John Plummer provides essential textual analysis. The images are assembled from the Walters Collection, which contains one of the finest and largest collections of Books of Hours in the world.

    An historical mystery set around the turn of the 15th century that addresses the mystery surrounding the purported death of King Richard II.

    The theme of the book is China's relations with the non-Chinese world, not only political and economic, but cultural, social and technological as well. It seeks to show that China's history is part of everyone's history. In particular it traces China's relationship since the thirteenth century to the emergent world order and various world institutions of which that order is comprised. Each chapter discusses China's comparative place in the world, the avenues of contact between China and other civilizations, and who and what passed along these channels.

    Geoffrey's history' of the British from their first colonisation of the island under Brutus to the late 7th century AD was one of the most influential works of the 12th century, and introduced to a wider audience central figures in English literature, including King Arthur and King Lear. Wright's long introduction is a model of meticulousness and thoroughness...a fine study and edition...In a previous review I called Wright's edition of the vulgate text an auspicious beginning'' to a series that promised to become the standard scholarly treatment of Geoffrey's Historia...That promise is being kept.' Lister M. Matheson, SPECULUM April 1991 A critical edition based on the eight known First Variant manuscripts, the prime source of Wace's Roman de Brut. Geoffrey's history' of the British from thier first colonisation of the island under Brutus to the late 7th century AD was one of the most influential works of the 12th century, and introduced to a wider audience central figures in English literature, including King Arthur and King Lear.

    

    

    

    Fully annotated with notes and introductions, the selections encompass a wide range of topics--including authorship, ethics, symbolism, biography, poetics, allegory, and semiotics--and represent many important writers--including Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Grosseteste, Abelard, and Peter Lombard.

    O'Meara has brought together the results of the most recent research in this study of Eriugena's Irish background, life in France, and career as a teacher, controversialist, translator, and poet. The book also contains an extended and careful summary of the Periphyseon and the first translation into English of the Homily on the Prologue to St. John's Gospel

    Claire rode across the raw Normandy countryside, her thick blond hair floating behind her like a banner. The proud daughter of a lord, she had been raised to wage war and to rule, adn she preferred her sword and her freedom to marriage and a life of submission.Then her beloved father died - and the defense of his castle and lands fell to Alaine. Now her skills would be tested well, for from the south came Rorik Valis, a vengeful handsome warrior who dared to claim her domain - and its mistress - for his own.Her heart under siege as well as her home, Alaine would fight the battle of her life, resisting her enemy's taunting, burning embrace, even as her womanhood blossomed and begged for fulfillment...and made her secretly yearn for his love.

    Christopher Tyerman offers the first book-length study of the role of England in the Crusades. Focusing on the courtroom and council chamber rather than the battlefield, he demonstrates the impact of the Crusades on the political and economic functions of English society.Drawing on a wide range of archival, chronicle, and literary evidence, Tyerman brings to life the royal personalities, foreign policy, political intrigue, taxation and fundraising, and the crusading ethos that gripped England for hundreds of years. "An ambitious task to undertake. . . . Tyerman has done the job not only thoroughly but brilliantly. . . . A highly impressive study, deserving rich praise and wide readership."—Norman Housley, Times Literary Supplement"Christopher Tyerman has written a wonderful book. . . . [He] manages to confront thorny issues in scholarship and to contribute new perspectives on them."—William Chester Jordan, American Historical Review"Tyerman provides valuable insights into preaching, recruitment, and the funding and organisation of crusading expeditions. . . . Fascinating new perspectives on English history."—Edward Powell, Sunday Times"Impressive. . . . Tyerman's research has yielded valuable evidence, and his admirably lucid argument sheds new light on a complex and bloody period in English history."—Virginia Quarterly Review

    This realistic retelling of the legend shows Arthur severing the bonds of bastardy, vanquishing the Saxons, and loving one woman. As the daring teenage warrior prepares for the throne, he discovers true love with Morgan of Avalon, the youngest of Merlin’s daughters, but fate cruelly thwarts their hopes for a future together. Never before has a telling of the Arthur story made the breathtaking drama of this charismatic king more real or moving.

    It contributed to the revival of interest in Byzantine studies at that time, and has since remained one of the most authoritative and readable accounts of the period.

    It shows how many of the medical and moral questions that preoccupy us in the twentieth century worried our medieval ancestors as well. Through a detailed analysis of both expert and lay writings, Danielle Jacquart and Claude Thomasset examine the conceptions of sexuality that were created by doctors, by theologians, and by romantic and erotic literature.In the first section of this book, the authors discuss how ideas of physiology, venereal disease, and purity were described, and the influence of anatomical tracts on popular perceptions of the body. The second part charts a history of erotic art, and through this, the differing conceptions of Eastern and Western sexuality. Finally, the authors present a history of the body, analyzing problems of impotence and hysteria and how female sexuality in itself came to be perceived as corrupt and diseased.

    Like the English parliament, the French Estates, and the German imperial diet, the cortes of medieval Castile and Leon is an example of development of the parliamentary system.

    This book is testimony to the powerful impact of Dublin's citizens who saved large proportions of the site.