A quiet child, he is tormented by his brothers and loathed by his powerful and autocratic grandmother. In an attempt to encourage Brunin's development, his father sends him to be fostered in the household of Joscelin de Dinan, Lord of Ludlow. Here Brunin will learn knightly arts, but before he can succeed, he must overcome the deep-seated doubts that hold him back.Hawise, the youngest daughter of Lord Joscelin, soon forms a strong friendship with Brunin. Family loyalties mean that her father, with the young Brunin as his squire, must aid Prince Henry of Anjou in his battle with King Stephen for the English crown. Meanwhile, Ludlow itself comes under threat from Joscelin's rival, Gilbert de Lacy. As the war for the crown rages, and de Lacy becomes more assertive in his claims for Ludlow, Brunin and Hawise are drawn into each other's arms.Now Brunin must defeat the shadows of his childhood and put to use all that he has learned. As the pressure on Ludlow intensifies and a new Welsh threat emerges against his own family's lands, Brunin must confront the future head on, or fail on all counts....

    Fewer records were kept, leaving an often-empty legacy to historians attempting to understand the age.But modern archaeology has begun to unearth an increasing number of clues to this once-lost era. And as historians have joined them to sift through those clues—including evidence of a vast arc of Viking trade reaching from Scandinavia to Asia—new light has begun to fall across those once "dark" ages and their fascinating personalities and events.

    and the North is in turmoil. King Harald Fairhair has died, leaving the High Seat of the realm to his murderous son, Erik Bloodaxe. To solidify his claim, Erik ruthlessly disposes of all claimants to his throne, save one: his youngest brother Hakon.Erik's surviving enemies send a ship to Wessex, where the Christian court of King Athelstan is raising Hakon. Unable to avoid his fate, he returns to the Viking North to face his brother and claim his birthright, only to discover that victory will demand sacrifices beyond his wildest nightmares.I was swept up in the action and enthralled by the descriptions of Hakon’s struggle. -Roundtable Reviews-I highly recommend this historical fiction novel, both for its entertaining story and historical information. -Historical Fiction Review-

    His words set Christendom afire. Some 100,000 men, from knights to paupers, took up the call--the largest mobilization of manpower since the fall of the Roman Empire. Now, in The First Crusade, Thomas Asbridge offers a gripping account of a titanic three-year adventure filled with miraculous victories, greedy princes and barbarity on a vast scale. Readers follow the crusaders from their mobilization in Europe (where great waves of anti-Semitism resulted inthe deaths of thousands of Jews), to their arrival in Constantinople, an exotic, opulent city--ten times the size of any city in Europe--that bedazzled the Europeans. Featured in vivid detail are the siege of Nicaea and the pivotal battle for Antioch, the single most important military engagement ofthe entire expedition, where the crusaders, in desperate straits, routed a larger and better-equipped Muslim army. Through all this, the crusaders were driven on by intense religious devotion, convinced that their struggle would earn them the reward of eternal paradise in Heaven. But when a hardenedcore finally reached Jerusalem in 1099 they unleashed an unholy wave of brutality, slaughtering thousands of Muslims--men, women, and children--all in the name of Christianity. The First Crusade marked a watershed in relations between Islam and the West, a conflict that set these two world religions on a course toward deep-seated animosity and enduring enmity. The chilling reverberations of this earth-shattering clash still echo in the world today.

    She should have been afraid after all the stories she's heard at her father's knees, but from the moment she meets him, it is not fear she feels but fierce passion. Magnus has never known a lass brave enough to look him in the eye, let alone one who would plead for his help. Yet here was a sweet–spirited woman who inspires a deep yearning within him. He is willing to save her people, for a price. But once Reena uncovers his secrets, will she regret making a bargain with the devil, or find a sinful passion in his arms .?

    This text provides descriptions and discussions of over 2000 brooches, rings, buckles, pendants, buttons, purses and other accessories found in archaeological digs in London, and dating from the period 1150-1450.

    But the crusaders never made it to the Holy Land. Steered forward by the shrewd Venetian doge, they descended instead on Constantinople, wreaking terrible devastation. The crusaders spared no one: They raped and massacred thousands, plundered churches, and torched the lavish city. By 1204, one of the great civilizations of history had been shattered. Here, on the eight hundredth anniversary of the sack, is the extraordinary story of this epic catastrophe, told for the first time outside of academia by Jonathan Phillips, a leading expert on the crusades. Knights and commoners, monastic chroniclers, courtly troubadours, survivors of the carnage, and even Pope Innocent III left vivid accounts detailing the events of those two fateful years. Using their remarkable letters, chronicles, and speeches, Phillips traces the way in which any region steeped in religious fanaticism, in this case Christian Europe, might succumb to holy war.

    Rowse, Sunday Telegraph

    Twenty specialists explore the most important aspects of the age--including the mechanics and theory of empire, warfare, urbanism, and economy. They also discuss the impact of the great plague, the codification of Roman law, and the many religious upheavals taking place at the time.

    TO BRING US MURDERThe year is 1434, and preparations are under way for the Corpus Christi festival in Oxford, England. Plays are a traditional part of the celebration, and Joliffe and the rest of his troupe are to perform Isaac and Abraham. Until then, their theatrical antics are in demand by a wealthy merchant who offers them an opportunity to ply their trade for room and board.But when the body of a murdered man is found outside the barn door where the troupe is lodging, Joliffe must raise the curtain on the merchant's mysterious past and uncover the startling truth behind a murder most foul...PRAISE FOR THE PLAYER JOLIFFE SERIES "Everything I'd hoped to find: memorable characters, a meticulously detailed world, an intriguing crime, and a satisfying conclusion." - Roundtable Reviews"Will entertain and confound you with its intricately plotted mystery and richly detailed writing... Ms. Frazer knows the fifteenth century and it shows..." - Romance Readers Connection"Deftly drawn characters acting in a stage of intricate and accurate details of medieval life." - Affaire de CouerCarefully and faithfully rendered, 15th-century England and France and all the political difficulties come easily to life... Medieval mystery fans will once again enjoy the clever player Joliffe and his adventures. - The Mystery ReaderPRAISE FOR MARGARET FRAZER"Prepare to be enchanted as Margaret Frazer transports you back to the 15th century." - Romantic Times"More than just a good read. The reader comes away sadder and wiser, knowing that what tehy've read is that stuff of real life. Brava!" - Historical Novels Review"A smooth and absorbing saga of conspiracy and treachery in 15th-century England... A tantalizing secret turns out to have stunning political implications." - Publishers Weekly"Finely plotted and subtly shaded. Frazer has the detailed substance that brings an era to life, while her characters' psychological makeup is as cunningly wrought as the historical background." - Publishers Weekly"Margaret Frazer has quietly claimed her place as one of the preeminent writers of historical crime fiction, delivering the whole package - a good mystery, wonderful characters, and a fascinating period of history. Her novels are a dream to read." - Aunt Agatha's NewsletterHerodotus Award Winner.Twice nominated for the Edgar AwardTwice nominated for the Minnesota Book AwardA Romantic Times Top Pick.

    It explores romance motifs - quests and fairy mistresses, passionate heroines and rudderless boats and missing heirs - from the first emergence of the genre in French and Anglo-Norman in the twelfth century down to the early seventeenth. This is a continuous story, since the same romances that constituted the largest and most sophisticated body of secular fiction in the Middle Ages went on to enjoy a new and vibrant popularity at all social levels in black-letter prints as the pulp fiction of the Tudor age. This embedded culture was reworked for political and Reformation propaganda and for the 'writing of England', as well as providing a generous reservoir of good stories and dramatic plots. The different ways in which the same texts were read over several centuries, or the same motifs shifted meaning as understanding and usage altered, provide a revealing and sensitive measure of historical and cultural change. The book accordingly looks at those processes of change as well as at how the motifs themselves work, to offer a historical semantics of the language of romance conventions. It also looks at how politics and romance intersect - the point where romance comes true.The historicizing of the study of literature is belatedly leading to a wider recognition that the early modern world is built on medieval foundations. This book explores both the foundations and the building. Similarly, generic theory, which previously tended to operate on transhistorical assumptions, is now acknowledging that genre interacts crucially with cultural context - with changing audiences and ideologies and means of dissemination. The generation into which Spenser and Shakespeare were born was the last to be brought up on a wide range of medieval romances in their original forms, and they could therefore exploit their generic codings in new texts aimed at both elite and popular audiences. Romance may since then have lost much of its cultural centrality, but the universal appeal of these same stories has continued to fuel later works from Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress to C.S. Lewis and Tolkien.

    This book is not a traditional biography but a thematic study of the ideology and practice of queenship. It examines the motivations behind the choice of the first English-born queens, the multi-faceted rituals of coronation, childbirth, and funeral, the divided loyalties between family and king, and the significance of a position at the heart of the English power structure that could only be filled by a woman. It sheds new light on the queens' struggles to defend their children's rights to the throne, and argues that ideologically and politically a queen was integral to the proper exercise of mature kingship in this period.

    Not only a study of texts, Language, Eros, Being is perhaps the fullest confrontation of the body in Jewish studies, if not in religious studies as a whole.Elliot R. Wolfson explores the complex gender symbolism that permeates Kabbalistic literature. Focusing on the nexus of asceticism and eroticism, he seeks to define the role of symbolic and poetically charged language in the erotically configured visionary imagination of the medieval Kabbalists. He demonstrates that the traditional Kabbalistic view of gender was a monolithic and androcentric one, in which the feminine was conceived as being derived from the masculine. He does not shrink from the negative implications of this doctrine, but seeks to make an honest acknowledgment of it as the first step toward the redemption of an ancient wisdom.Comparisons with other mystical traditions-including those in Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam-are a remarkable feature throughout the book. They will make it important well beyond Jewish studies, indeed, a must for historians of comparative religion, in particular of comparative mysticism.Praise for Elliot R. Wolfson: Through a Speculum That Shines is an important and provocative contribution to the study of Jewish mysticism by one of the major scholars now working in this field.-Speculum

    Foreign invasions have devastated British society, bitter battles have been fought over social and political rights, and warlords have torn the country asunder in their struggles for dominance. In Battlefield Britain, Peter and Dan Snow tell the story of eight decisive battles that have done much to shape Britain: Boudicca’s Battle with Rome, the Battle of Hastings, the Battle for Wales, the Spanish Armada, the Battle of Naseby, the Battle of Boyne, the Battle of Culloden, and the Battle of Britain. For the first time, groundbreaking computer graphics are used to recreate the ebb and flow of these famous battles in vivid and dramatic detail.

    Aimed at specialists in Aquinas and others interested in the God-talk dialogue this book finds that Aquinas' analogy is more a matter of judgement and truth than of concept and meaning; despite his own presuppositions, Aquinas bases his theological analogy more on the insights of faith than reason.

    It was the subject of more commentaries than any other work of Christian literature besides the Bible itself. The Book of Sentences is essentially a compilation of older sources, from the Scriptures and Augustine down to several of the Lombard's contemporaries, such as Hugh of Saint Victor and Peter Abelard. Its importance lies in the Lombard's organization of the theological material, his method of presentation, and the way in which he shaped doctrine in several major areas. Despite his importance, however, there is no accessible introduction to Peter Lombard's life and thought available in any modern language. This volume fills this considerable gap. Philipp W. Rosemann begins by demonstrating how the Book of Sentences grew out of a long tradition of Christian reflection-a tradition, ultimately rooted in Scripture, which by the twelfth century had become ready to transform itself into a theological system. Turning to the Sentences, Rosemann then offers a brief exposition of the Lombard's life and work. He proceeds to a book-by-book examination and interpretation of its main topics, including the nature and attributes of God, the Trinity, creation, angelology, human nature and the Fall, original sin, Christology, ethics, and the sacraments. He concludes by exploring how the Sentences helped shape the further development of the Christian tradition, from the twelfth century through the time of Martin Luther.

    This dictionary is intended to put an end to all that: it has been designed to be of real help to general readers and specialists alike. The dictionary contains some 3,400 terms as headwords, ranging from the legal and ecclesiastic to the more prosaic words of daily life. Latin was the language of the church, law and government, and many Latin terms illustrated here are frequently found in modern books of history of the period; similarly, the precise meaning of Old English and Middle English terms may elude today's reader: this dictionary endeavours to provide clarity. In addition to definition, etymologies of many words are given, in the belief that knowing the origin and evolution of a word gives a better understanding. There are also examples of medieval terms and phrases still in use today, a further aid to clarifying meaning. CHRISTOPHER COREDON has also compiled the Dictionary of Cybernyms. Dr ANN WILLIAMS, historical consultant on the project, was until her retirement Senior Lecturer in medieval history at the Polytechnic of North London.

    Pick's book is the first to clarify the unity of purpose that drove Archbishop Rodrigo, a major figure not only as a historian and controversialist, but as a churchman whose military campaigns advanced the conquest of Muslim Spain and shifted the whole balance of power in the Iberian peninsula." ---J. N. Hillgarth, Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto"By focusing on the diversified activities of the talented mid-thirteenth-century archbishop of Toledo, Lucy Pick brilliantly illuminates the complex relations between the Christian conquerors of Spain and the conquered Muslim and Jewish populations. Students of medieval Spain, of the medieval Roman Catholic Church, of medieval Muslims and Islam, and of medieval Jews and Judaism will benefit from this excellent study."---Robert Chazan, New York University.In Conflict and Coexistence, Lucy Pick sets out to explain how Christians, Muslims, and Jews lived alongside one another in medieval Spain. By examining the life and works of Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, the Archbishop of Toledo (1209-47), Pick explains that the perceived threat of the non-Christian presence was managed through the subordination of Muslims and Jews. Rodrigo stood at the center of a transformative period of history in the Iberian peninsula. During his long and varied career as archbishop, he acted as scholar, warrior, builder, and political leader. The wave of victories he helped initiate were instrumental in turning back the tide of Muslim attacks on Christian Spain and restarting the process of Christian territorial conquest. However, Toledo was still a multiethnic city in which Christians lived side by side with Jews and Muslims. As archbishop, he was faced with the considerable challenge of maintaining peace and prosperity in a city where religious passions and intolerance were a constant threat to stability.This work seeks to examine Rodrigo's relations with the Muslims and Jews of his community both as he idealized them on paper and as he worked through them in real life. Though Rodrigo wrote an anti-Jewish polemic, and set out to conquer Muslim-held lands, he also used scholarly patronage and literary creation to combat internal and external, Christian and non-Christian threats alike. His intended and actual consequences of these varied techniques were to allow Christians, Muslims, and Jews to live together under Christian authority. Rodrigo was bound by practical necessity to find a means of accommodating these groups that was both effective and theologically satisfactory. Throughout this influential work, Pick examines the various aspects of Rodrigo's life and career that led to his policies and the consequences that his work and beliefs brought about in medieval Spain. This book will be of interest to anyone who studies the history, religion, and literature of medieval Spain, to those interested in the transmission of learning from the Muslim to the Christian world, and to those who study intellectual life and development in medieval Europe.

    They served sacred purposes or allowed their inhabitants to withdraw from the hurly burly of life— churches and monasteries. A large part of this book is dedicated to Europe's religious architecture of the Middle Ages from Pre-Romanesque to Gothic. It was only in the 11th century that the number of fortified castles, city palaces and other secular buildings began to increase. The final chapter on the secular architecture of the Middle Ages is dedicated to these buildings.

    The reliability of this material as a source for early Islam is still a highly debated issue. This selection of articles presents the different points of view in this debate and the varying methodological approaches with which scholars trained in modern secular sciences have tried to find a solution to the problem.

    Susan Bell recounts both her long search for a series of sixteenth-century tapestries that celebrated women and her efforts to understand their meaning for Queen Elizabeth I of England and the other powerful women who owned them. Opening a new window on the lives of noblewomen in the Renaissance, the brilliantly colored tapestries that were the ultimate artistic luxury of the day, and the popular and influential fourteenth-century writer Christine de Pizan, Bell pursues a compelling tale that moves from centuries past to today.The tapestries around which this story revolves are linked to Christine de Pizan's Book of the City of Ladies (1405), orginally published six hundred years ago in 1405. The book is a tribute to women that honors two hundred female warriors, scientists, queens, philosophers, and builders of cities. Though twenty-five manuscripts of the City of Ladies still exist, references to tapestries based on the book are elusive. Bell takes us along as she tracks down records of six sets of tapestries whose owners included Elizabeth I of England; Margaret of Austria; and Anne of Brittany, Queen of France. Bell examines the intriguing details of these women's lives—their arranged marriages, their power, their affairs of state—asking what interest they had in owning these particular tapestries. Could the tapestries have represented their thinking? As she reveals the historical, linguistic, and cultural aspects of this unique story, Bell also gives a fascinating account of medieval and early-Renaissance tapestry production and of Christine de Pizan's remarkable life and legacy.

    The Stained Glass of Washington National Cathedral

    More dramatic, decisive and bloody than Agincourt, it heralded a new era in warfare. This is the first book to use a ?campaign diary? to describe an entire military campaign of this period A major turning point in European history - the impact and implications of Crecy were far greater than those of Agincourt; and the story is more dramatic too An incredible and unexpected victory for the English, beating 5-1 odds and a vastly superior army Engaging army detail: who were the soldiers? how were they armed and trained? why did they fight? were they hungry/tired? Splendid cast of characters lined up behind Edward III and his son the Black Prince Concentrates on people and personalities which really makes the action come alive for the reader

    The origins of the six kindreds-MacCabes, MacDonnells, MacDowells, MacRorys, MacSheehys, and MacSweeneys-are traced and the circumstances which brought about their relocation to Ireland are investigated. The book also examines the galloglas as warriors, pointing to their distinctly Norse character and proposing their battle-fury as the last unmistakable echo of the Scandinavian impact on the Celtic west.

    An heir through her would give Edward both thrones. Alexander takes on the task despite his hatred of the Scots. He ambushes the party and forces a surrender. Just as he's about to take the sword from the small lead knight, he's knocked to the ground by the knight. He gives chase and pulls the visor from the man's head to discover he's looking into the deep green eyes of a beautiful woman. Who has sent this golden angel into his arms? The beautiful woman is Catherine. He intends to wed her, but Catherine has other plans... Two countries on the brink of war. A battle-scarred warrior. Will the love of one woman prevent one and save the other? ** "I'm a huge fan of history, especially medieval England and Scotland, and especially the struggle for Scottish freedom led by William Wallace. I took a few liberties with history but brought in the legendary characters into the correct time period. I hope you enjoy reading this book as much as I did writing it." Tracy ** A Siren Erotic Romance

    It is a story abounding with highly distinctive personalities - popes, saints, kings, sultans and heroes like Saladin and Richard Coeur de Lion, of the encounter of two great cultures and their cross-fertilization.It tells of the three great Military Orders, the Knights Hospitaller of St John, the Teutonic Knights and the Knights Templar. It does not disguise the savagery that accompanied the capture of Jerusalem by the Crusaders or the scenes of fire and carnage when the Kingdom of Jerusalem fell nearly two centuries later, and the markets of the East were so flooded with Christian slaves that a young Frankish woman might be sold for one silver coin.

    In an astonishing display of erudition, David Katz recreates the response of readers from different eras by examining the horizon of expectations that provided the lens through which they read. In the Renaissance, says Katz, learned men rushed to apply the tools of textual analysis to the Testaments, fully confident that God's Word would open up and reveal shades of further truth. During the English Civil War, there was a symbiotic relationship between politics and religion, as the practical application of the biblical message was hammered out. Science - Newtonian and Darwinian, as well as the emerging disciplines of anthropology, archaeology, and geology - also had a great impact on how the Bible was received. The rise of the novel and the development of a concept of authorial copyright were other factors that altered readers' experience. Katz discusses all of these and more, concluding with the growth of fundamentalism in America, which broug

    This volume provides a general outline of the methods of shoemaking, sheath and scabbard making and the decorative techniques employed, as well as detailed descriptions of the leather items themselves. Also included is a summary of the Anglo-Scandinavian shoe and sheath assemblages in context to the Anglo-Saxon background and contemporary material elsewhere in the British Isles, as well as similarities between York leather assemblages and those recovered throughout north-west Europe.

    He is credited with over 80 poems with structures and themes that reflect, depending on the poem, somewhere between medieval and Renaissance fascinations.Like most gentlemen poets, Dunbar's topics ranged from the devotional to works intended for public events (such as those welcoming Queen Margaret to Scotland) and private pleasure (such as two on James Dog, in which Dunbar asserts "He is na dog, he is a lam"), poetry in the courtly tradition, and a range of comical and satirical poetry. Editor Conlee works with the canonical texts in Middle Scots, with margin glossaries, and provides an extensive list of resources.

    Serena de Reincolt, a young Warrior of the Wolf, is tasked with a quest: Retrieve the sacred scrolls of Solaria and the outlawed murderer, Ziem. Failure means certain death for the Solarians.Found at age six in the Forest of the Dean with no memory of his former life, Lord Roan Aston, The Wolf, has always felt a part of him was missing. One thing Roan knows for certain--he is finished with warring. Taking up King Edward's offer to protect a castle on the Scottish border, Roan is as content as he can be. It wasn't until Roan met an incredible woman in the most extraordinary circumstances that he pieced together his purpose in life. But their journey is fraught with danger and a vengeful King who will stop at nothing less than eradication of all those he feels threaten his rule.Suddenly, Roan and Serena are protecting more than a society of gifted people; they are fighting for their lives, their love, and a fantastic legend.

    Indeed, it could he argued that, in the last half of his life, he was the most influential person in Europe. How is it that a monk dedicated to withdrawal from the world could have so much influence on the world? This book argues that Bernard could lead Europe politically, ecclesiastically, and spiritually because his life embodied so many ideals and values of his age, some of which had not crystallized until his coming. According to the author, "Bernard's ecclesiology is comprehensive. His views of the Church and of society include a sophisticated and splendidly thorough analysis of the functions and virtues of monks, clerics, and layfolk. And he does not neglect those whose theological positions or eccleslal status put them outside of the main stream of western and Christian society."Bernard's enthusiasm for all orders in the Church and society was matched by his confidence in the positive response of the members of each to God's invitation to perfection. Bernard was confident that a loving response to God's loving initiative will lead each person to his or her goal of happiness, no matter what order to which he or she belongs, no matter what path he or she follows.

    Within monastic orders, the Observant movement was one such effort to reform religious houses, sparked by the widespread fear that these houses had strayed too far from their original calling. In Convent Chronicles, Anne Winston-Allen offers a rare inside look at the Observant reform movement from the women's point of view.Although we know a great deal about the men who inhabited Observant religious houses, we know very little about their female counterparts--even though women outnumbered men in many places. Often what we do know about women comes to us through the filter of men's accounts. Recovering long-overlooked writings by women in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, Winston-Allen surveys the extraordinary literary and scribal activities in German- and Dutch-speaking religious communities in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and the Low Countries. While previous studies have relied on records left by male activists, these women's narratives offer an alternative perspective that challenges traditional views of women's role and agency. Women were, in fact, active participants in the religious conversations that dominated the day.With its rich depiction of women as transmitters of culture, Convent Chronicles will be invaluable to scholars as well as to graduate and undergraduate students interested in the history of women's monasticism and religious writing.

    This book traces the growth of the city during this period, as well as exploring the tensions that erupted during Kett's Rebellion of 1549.

    Many medieval tiles disappeared during nineteenth-century restorations but the designs lived on in the copies made by Victorian tile manufacturers. The British Museum has a collection of these tiles.

    The Franks also preserved the classical and Judaeo-Christian histories from earlier centuries. Their books reflect a highly sophisticated and many-layered understanding of the past as well as a very creative use of history. Rosamond McKitterick illuminates the extraordinarily influential role of these history texts in the formation of political ideologies and senses of identity within Europe.

    Avraham Grossman covers multiple aspects of women’s lives in medieval Jewish society, including the image of woman, the structure of the family unit, age at marriage, position in family and society, her place in economic and religious life, her education, her role in family ceremonies, violence against women, and the position of the divorcée and the widow in society. Grossman shows that the High Middle Ages saw a distinct improvement in the status of Jewish women in Europe relative to their status during the Talmudic period and in Muslim countries. If, during the twelfth century, rabbis applauded women as "pious and pure" because of their major role in the martyrdom of the Crusades of 1096, then by the end of the thirteenth century, rabbis complained that women were becoming bold and rebellious. Two main factors fostered this change: first, the transformation of Jewish society from agrarian to "bourgeois," with women performing an increasingly important function in the family economy; and second, the openness toward women in Christian Europe, where women were not subjected to strict limitations based upon conceptions of modesty, as was the case in Muslim countries. The heart of Grossman’s book concerns the improvement of Jewish women’s lot, and the efforts of secular and religious authorities to impede their new-found status. Bringing together a variety of sources including halakhic literature, biblical and talmudic exegesis, ethical literature and philosophy, love songs, folklore and popular literature, gravestones, and drawings, Grossman’s book reconstructs the hitherto unrecorded lives of Jewish women during the Middle Ages.

    "The settings, the customs and ideas of the people pictured here are as true to the period as long and careful study could make them. Whenever an historical figure does appear, like Vortigern or Charlemagne or Alfred, he is only doing what records tell us that he actually did do." - forewordThese stories inspire courage, love, endurance, hope, industry and many other virtues.

    His enquiry into India, popularly known in its original Arabic version as Tarikhu'l Hind, is erudite and, as a historic chronicle of its kind, a classic. There is much in this chronicle that reads like fiction, while being at the same time an objective record of the history, character, manners and customs of India of that time.Sachau's well-known English translation of the classic has been used in this publication, but edited specially for a large and popular readership.

    Now in the "Dark Brothers of the Light" Janrae Frank has produced a profound, chilling, thought-provoking one-of-a-kind dark fantasy that begs comparison with Anne Bishop's "Dark Jewels Trilogy," Lynn Flewelling's "Bone Doll's Twin," and George R. R. Martin's masterful "Swords of Ice and Fire." Taken as a blood-slave by Anksha the Beast, Isranon, a young necromancer descended of Isranon Dawnhand must choose between his dead father's teachings of pacifism and his lycan mentor's warrior beliefs in order to survive. Anksha is a demon-eater, who dines on flesh, blood, lives and magic, binding her slaves to her through a dominance-link set into every fiber of their beings. In a brutal world of vampires, blood-drinking sa'necari necromancers, and demons, Isranon must find the key to Anksha's inner nature, while escaping the snares set for him by both vampires and his own kind. Together with his lycan mentor, Nevin, he reaches out for allies and answers in a world growing steadily more hostile toward him for reasons he does not fully comprehend. The vampire lord, who is Anksha's master, is creating a monstrous undead creature such as has not been seen in more than 50,000 years to take the world from the gods who rule it. What can one young slave do to stop them in the face of such terrifying odds? Janrae Frank's fantasies are "ground breaking .works of genius," writers Jessica Amanda Salmonson. Find out why in "Blood Rites" the first volume of her epic new trilogy. Violence, adult situations.

    Original.

    Although he is overshadowed in popular memory by his descendant, the later “saviour” of Scotland, Robert Bruce, it was David who laid the foundations of the medieval Scottish monarchy and set in motion the changes that created the kingdom that vied with England for mastery of the British Isles. In a reign spanning nearly three decades (1124–53), David moved his kingdom from the periphery towards the heart of medieval European civilization.

    A Critical Companion to Beowulf addresses these and other issues, reviewing and synthesising previous scholarship, as well as offering fresh perspectives. After an initial introduction to the poem, attention is focused on such matters as the manuscript context and approaches to dating the poem; the particular style, diction, and structure of this most idiosyncratic of Old English texts; the background to the poem (considered not simply with respect to historical and legendary material, but also in the context of myth and fable); the specific roles of selected individual characters, both major and minor; and the original intended audience and perceived purpose of the poem. A final chapter describes the range of critical approaches which have been applied to the poem in the past, and points towards directions for future study. ANDY ORCHARD is Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon, University of Oxford

    In the final book of his Robin Hood trilogy, the author takes the reader back 'on the outlaw trail' from Sherwood Forest to the North of England, visiting many popular sites and several less well-known spots associated with Robin Hood, explaining the heritage and background of many of the best known myths and legends surrounding the life and death of the world-famous English medieval outlaw.

    One of a series of publications based on the Museum of London's collection of domestic objects used by people of the Middle Ages in their everyday life.

    and did outlaws never wear trousers?Terry Jones and Alan Ereira are your guides to this most misrepresented and misunderstood period, and they point you to things that will surprise and provoke. Did you know, for example, that medieval people didn't think the world was flat? That was a total fabrication by an American journalist in the 19th century. Did you know that they didn't burn witches in the Middle Ages? That was a refinement of the so-called Renaissance. In fact, medieval kings weren't necessarily merciless tyrants, and peasants entertained at home using French pottery and fine wine. Terry Jones' Medieval Lives reveals Medieval Britain as you have never seen it before - a vibrant society teeming with individuality, intrigue and innovation.

    hardcover with dust jacket

    300 and 900, this study examines the women, men and eunuchs who lived in the late Roman, Byzantine, Islamic and western European civilizations. It assesses the ways in which gender identity was established and manifested in written and material cultural forms, emphasizing the integral relationship between the masculine and feminine by exploring costume, attitudes to the body, social and political institutions and a wide range of literary genres.

    Here are unique views of the art and architecture of such treasured places as Mont St. Michel, a wondrous Benedictine sanctuary off the coast of Brittany, and the fabled pilgrimage site in Assisi founded by St. Francis.In an insightful text the author describes the cultural heritage of each of the monasteries portrayed and provides an introduction to monasticism and to the various orders dating from the early Christian era to the present. In addition, the volume offers plans of the sites, a glossary, and a bibliography. Historians and collectors of great books of art history will be intrigued by this unsurpassed collection of photographs and fascinating account of the artistic glory of European monasteries.

    Whether it’s William the Conqueror’s slaying of Harold Godwinson, King John’s mythic badness, or Henry VIII’s readiness to behead his unfortunate wives, these monarchs hold both legendary and symbolic positions in the public imagination, but are also integral to how history and events have shaped England today. In this new illustrated edition, expert historians vividly present the lives of the country’s monarchs from the warrior kings of the so-called Dark Ages through to the present queen.

    offers new ways of reconstructing their meaning. By bringing her knowledge of rhetoric and the art of memory to bear on the visual arts she opens up new perspectives for the study of religious art and literature of the Renaissance, and shows how these images actually functioned within the everyday context of the liturgy and of the life of the common people.

    Richard II, who ruled from 1377 to 1399, succeeded to the throne as a child after the fifty-year reign of Edward III, and found himself beset throughout his reign by military, political, religious, economic, and social problems that would have tried even the most skilled of statesmen. At the same time, these years saw some of England's most gifted courtly writers, among them Chaucer and Gower, who were keenly attuned to the political machinations erupting around them. In Languages of Power in the Age of Richard II Staley does not so much "read" literature through history as offer a way of "reading" history through its refractions in literature. In essence, the text both isolates and traces what is an actual search for a language of power during the reign of Richard II and scrutinizes the ways in which Chaucer and other courtly writers participated in these attempts to articulate the concept of princely power. As one who took it upon himself to comment on the various means by which history is made, Chaucer emerges from Staley's narrative as a poet without peer.

    The contents include the idea of childhood in the writing of Gregory of Tours, skaldic verse narratives and their implications for the understanding of kingship, Jewish communities of Northern Europe for whom children represented the continuity of a persecuted faith, children in the records of the northern Italian Humiliati, the meaning of romance narratives centred around the departure of the hero or heroine from the natal hearth, the age at which later medieval English youngsters left home, how far they travelled and where they went, literary sources revealing the politicisation of the idea of the child, and the response of young, affluent females to homiletic literature and the iconography of the virgin martyrs in the later middle ages.Contributors: FRANCES E. ANDREWS, HELEN COOPER, P.J.P.GOLDBERG, SIMCHA GOLDIN, EDWARD F. JAMES, JUDITH JESCH, KIM M. PHILLIPS, MIKE TYLER, ROSALYNN VOADEN.

    Fact…the Black Death killed almost half the population of Europe between 1347-1351.Fact…for most people, life in the Medieval times was uncertain, unpleasant and short.What hardships did people face? What was life like for kings and queens in castles? Did young people go to school? Find out these facts and much more in First Facts About the Middle Ages.

    Based on a catalogue of all such events in the East Roman/Byzantine empire between 284 and 750, it gives an authoritative analysis of the causes, effects and internal mechanisms of these crises and incorporates modern medical and physiological data on epidemics and famines. Its interest is both in the history of medicine and the history of Late Antiquity, especially its social and demographic aspects. Stathakopoulos develops models of crises that apply not only to the society of the late Roman and early Byzantine world, but also to early modern and even contemporary societies in Africa or Asia. This study is therefore both a work of reference for information on particular events (e.g. the 6th-century Justinianic plague) and a comprehensive analysis of subsistence crises and epidemics as agents of historical causation. As such it makes an important contribution to the ongoing debate on Late Antiquity, bringing a fresh perspective to comment on the characteristic features that shaped this period and differentiate it from Antiquity and the Middle Ages.

    Read about the myths, meet some famous fictional and real-life privateers, trace their routes on maps, shiver at accounts of their fearsome progress through history, and learn about archaeological pirate ship recoveries.