– Tate Crewys de Lara is the son of kings. The illegitimate son of Edward Longshanks, Tate has the qualities of a magnificent king. But fate is cruel, leaving him a mere knight protecting young Edward III during the uncertain days following the horrific murder of Edward II. While gathering allies for the young heir in Northumberland, he meets the Lady Elizabetha “Toby” Cartingdon. Daughter of the Lord Mayor of Cartingdon Parrish, Toby is a gorgeous woman with a mind for business. It is she who runs the parrish, not her father. Taken aback by the strong, bitter female, Tate is nonetheless intrigued with her. He soon discovers why Toby seems so hard; her father is a drunkard and her mother is an invalid, leaving Toby responsible to not only provide for the family, but also for the welfare of her small sister. Feeling something more than curiosity, Tate begins to break through the hard surface to discover the warm and compassionate woman beneath. Yet factions who would see the young heir dead make a sudden appearance, drawing Toby into their malevolent plan. Soon she finds herself linked to both Tate and the quest to take the throne from Roger Mortimer. It becomes Tate's destiny to not only win a throne for young Edward, but to win Toby's heart as well.

    Roger Crowley's readable and comprehensive account of the battle between Mehmed II, sultan of the Ottoman Empire, and Constantine XI, the 57th emperor of Byzantium, illuminates the period in history that was a precursor to the current jihad between the West and the Middle East.

    Although almost six centuries old, the Battle of Agincourt still captivates the imaginations of men and women on both sides of the Atlantic. It has been immortalized in high culture (Shakespeare's Henry V) and low (the New York Post prints Henry's battle cry on its editorial page each Memorial Day). It is the classic underdog story in the history of warfare, and generations have wondered how the English -- outnumbered by the French six to one -- could have succeeded so bravely and brilliantly. Drawing upon a wide range of sources, eminent scholar Juliet Barker casts aside the legend and shows us that the truth behind Agincourt is just as exciting, just as fascinating, and far more significant. She paints a gripping narrative of the October 1415 clash between outnumbered English archers and heavily armored French knights. But she also takes us beyond the battlefield into palaces and common cottages to bring into vivid focus an entire medieval world in flux. Populated with chivalrous heroes, dastardly spies, and a ferocious and bold king, Agincourt is as earthshaking as its subject -- and confirms Juliet Barker's status as both a historian and a storyteller of the first rank.

    As a result, early medieval history is much more fragmented, and there have been few convincing syntheses of socio-economic change in the post-Roman world since the 1930s. In recent decades, the rise of early medieval archaeology has also transformed our source-base, but this has not been adequately integrated into analyses of documentary history in almost any country.In Framing the Early Middle Ages Chris Wickham aims at integrating documentary and archaeological evidence together, and also, above all, at creating a comparative history of the period 400-800, by means of systematic comparative analyses of each of the regions of the latest Roman and immediately post-Roman world, from Denmark to Egypt (only the Slav areas are left out). The book concentrates on classic socio-economic themes, state finance, the wealth and identity of the aristocracy, estate management, peasant society, rural settlement, cities, and exchange. These are only a partial picture of the period, but they are intended as a framing for other developments, without which those other developments cannot be properly understood.Wickham argues that only a complex comparative analysis can act as the basis for a wider synthesis. Whilst earlier syntheses have taken the development of a single region as 'typical', with divergent developments presented as exceptions, this book takes all different developments as typical, and aims to construct a synthesis based on a better understanding of difference and the reasons for it. This is the most ambitious and original survey of the period ever written.

    "This is the story of England's birth. A great story, beautifully told." (Bernard Cornwell, author of The Pale Horseman)Alfred was England's first kin, and his rule spanned troubled times. As his shores sat under constant threat from Viking marauders, his life was similarly imperiled by conspiracies in his own court. He was an extraordinary character - a soldier, scholar, and statesman like no other in English history - and out of adversity he forged a new kind of nation. Justin Pollard's enthralling account strips back centuries of myth to reveal the individual behind the legend. He offers a radical new interpretation of what inspired Alfred to create England and how it how it has colored the nation's history to the present day.

    From Jerusalem to Vienna, the frontier between West and East saw battle and bloodshed, treachery and butchery on a scale hitherto unknown and unimagined. The pageantry of medieval knighthood, the exoticism of the Orient, the ferocity of the invaders from the steppes, the mysteries of the seraglio, the rise and fall of great dynasties—these provided a real historical backdrop for some of Robert E. Howard’s greatest fiction. This volume contains the complete Oriental stories by the creator of Conan the Barbarian and Solomon Kane. Some were published in Farnsworth Wright’s Oriental Stories between 1930 and 1934; others were left unpublished and are printed here in authoritative texts based on the author’s surviving typescripts; and still others, left unfinished at his death, are presented as suggestive evidence of the work he had yet to do. As this collection attests, no one else writes action stories with Howard’s fast-paced intensity or brooding moral outlook. Here, the fates of empires rest on the swords of exiles, vagabonds, and renegades; whether civilization will be annihilated by religious zealots or by bloodthirsty barbarians, who is to say?

    His Sherlock Holmes stories will never be forgotten. But most people don't realize that he was also very possibly the best historical novelist of his day. Sir Nigel and the White Company combines two of his best novels into one. Sir Nigel describes the early years of Nigel Loring during his initial service with King Edward III during the Hundred Years War. Doyle captures the period brilliantly-from the cadence and style of their speech, to unforgettable descriptions of court life, to the capture of the Castle of La Brohiniere, to a stirring account of the Battle of Poitiers. It is a classic adventure tale, full of romance, chivalry, battles, brutality, and humor as the impoverished Nigel Loring and his attendant Aylward seek their fortunes. In The White Company, it is now 1366 and Sir Nigel is the leader of a raucous band of English bowmen known as the White Company. It's a story of hard blows and daring feats, to be sure, but it also captures the spirit that animated the English leaders and the reasons behind the fearsome reputation of the English archers. When Conan Doyle was once asked which novel of his was his favorite, he replied, The White Company. "I was young" he said, "and full of the first joy of life and action and I think I got some of it into my pages." If you enjoy reading about chivalrous knights and glorious deeds, in a context of historical accuracy, this book is for you. "Now order the ranks, and fling wide the banners, for our souls are God's, our bodies the king's, and our swords for Saint George and for England!" - The White Company

    Bound by Divine Providence but divided by distrust, Shadoe and Rayn must find a way to save the Isle of Might and themselves from the threatening evil. A tantilizing brew of fantasy, action, and romance.

    But she demanded to be married on her own terms, not as punishment for a romantic indiscretion, and especially not to a common merchant. Yet she was in for a shock when she met David de Abyndon, a tradesman of extraordinary poise—and baffling indifference to her social status. For Christiana has no idea that she is but a prize in a royal deal between the king and a passionate man who now realizes that by winning her body, he may have lost his heart…. By Posession For years she thought he was dead. Then Addis de Valence strode into Moira Falkner’s cottage. Returned from the Crusades, the young squire who was once her hero was now her lord, a hardened man determined to reclaim the lands usurped by his stepbrother. Addis cannot afford to be distracted by a woman—even one as tempting as Moira. Yet his desire for her may be more dangerous than his deadliest battles. For by law, Moira belonged to him—but possessing her heart is another affair.…

    From before the Domesday Book, through Anglo-Saxon England, medieval Wales and Ireland, the crusades, Bannockburn and the Wars of the Roses, until the time of the Tudors, this book takes us on a wide-ranging and fascinating journey through history. Tactics, myths, origins, defense and armor are all discussed; as are the different types of bow - shortbow, longbow, composite bows and crossbow. Crucial to our understanding of archery through the ages was the discovery of the wreck of the Mary Rose. Built during Henry VIII's reign, she sank in 1545 and it was not until 1979 that a great discovery was made. On board were chests of bows, many in excellent condition, which challenged ideas of historical bow design. Robert Hardy was one of the experts consulted when the bows were found. From this evidence, as from archaeological finds and medieval illustrations, Robert Hardy and Matthew Strickland have produced the definitive work on medieval military archery. This lively and informative book is a must-read for anyone interested in the historical background of the great warbow.

    His creative style and use of language served as one of the primary foundations on which later writers built. Through his writing, Chaucer's wit, charm, and eloquence give us a deeper understanding of not only the time in which he lived, but of how human emotion, fraility, and fortitude are the base elements of human existence. There are 14 lectures on 7 tapes with a manual included which are:Lecture 1- Chaucer's Life, times, and importanceLecture 2- Language, style, and literary backgroundLecture 3- The Book of the Duchess, the Romance of the Rose, and the Minor PoemsLecture 4- The House of Fame, Anelida and Arcite, The Parliament of Fowls, and BeothiusLecture 5- Troilus and Criseyde, Books I-IILecture 6- Troilus and Criseyde, Books III-VLecture 7 The Legend of Good WomenLecture 8- The Canterbury Tales : "The General Prologue"Lecture 9- The Canterbury Tales: "The Knights Tale" "The Miller's Tale" "The Reeve's Tale" and "The Cook's Tale"Lecture 10- The Canterbury Tales: "The Tales of Law's Tale" "The Wife of Bath's Tale" "The Friar's Tale" and "The Summoner's TaleLecture 11- The Canterbury Tales: "The Clerks Tale" "The Merchant's Tale" "The Squire's Tale" and "The Franklin's Tale"Lecture 12- The Canterbury Tales: "The Physician's Tale" "The Pardoner's Tale" "The Shipman's Tale" and "The Prioress's Tale"Lecture 13- The Canterbury Tales: "Sir Thopas" The Tale of Melibee" "The Monk's Tale" "The Nun's Priest's Tale" and "The Second Nun's Tale"Lecture 14- The Canterbury Tales: "The Canon's Yeoman's Tale" "TheManciple's Tale" The Retraction" and Our conclusions

    This splendid new guide, richly illustrated with more than 175 color pictures, offers a broad introduction to the remarkable history of The Cloisters as well as a lively and informative discussion of the treasures within.Assembled with Romanesque and Gothic architectural elements dating from the twelfth through the fifteenth century, The Cloisters is itself a New York City landmark, overlooking sweeping vistas of the Hudson River in Upper Manhattan. Long cherished as a world-class museum, it also contains beautiful gardens featuring plants, fruit trees, and useful herbs familiar from the collection’s medieval tapestries and other works of art. Among the masterworks of medieval religious and domestic life housed in The Cloisters are exceptional examples of carved ivory, illuminated manuscripts, stained glass, silver- and goldsmiths’ work, and tapestries, including the famous Unicorn in Captivity.Enriched by the latest scholarship from The Cloisters’ expert staff of curators, educators, and horticulturalists, this volume will stand as the definitive source on the collection for years to come.

    Read how an aspiring knight of the fourteenth century would conduct himself and learn what he would have needed to know when traveling, fighting, appearing in court, and engaging fellow knights.Composed at the height of the Hundred Years War by Geoffroi de Charny, one of the most respected knights of his age, A Knight's Own Book of Chivalry was designed as a guide for members of the Company of the Star, an order created by Jean II of France in 1352 to rival the English Order of the Garter.This is the most authentic and complete manual on the day-to-day life of the knight that has survived the centuries, and this edition contains a specially commissioned introduction from historian Richard W. Kaeuper that gives the history of both the book and its author, who, among his other achievements, was the original owner of the Shroud of Turin.

    Seven essays offer a comprehensive survey of the legends in all of their manifestations, from theirorigins in medieval literature to their adaptation in modern literature, arts, film, and popular culture. It also demonstrates the tremendous continuity of the legends by examining the ways that they have been reinterpreted over the years. The indispensable reference on the subject, it also containsencyclopedic entries, bibliographies, and a comprehensive index. The extensive chapter-by-chapter bibliographies, which are subdivided by topic, augment the general bibliography of Arthurian resources. Comprehensive in its analysis and hypertextual in its approach, the Oxford Guide to Arthurian Literature and Legend is an essential reference book for Arthurian scholars, medievalists, and for those interested in cultural studies of myth and legend.

    This was an era of developing consciousness and profound change in Europe, Byzantium and the Arab world, an era in which the foundations of medieval society were laid and to which many of our modern myths of national and religious identity can be traced. This book offers a comprehensive regional survey of the sixth and seventh centuries, from Ireland in the west to the rise of Islam in the Middle East, and from Scandinavia in the north to the Mediterranean south. It explores the key themes pinning together the history of this period, from kingship, trade and the church, to art, architecture and education. It represents both an invaluable conspectus of current scholarship and an expert introduction to the period.

    It shaped culture and ideas, social and economic behaviour, and the organization of landscape and settlement. This book traces how the widespread foundation of monastic sites ('minsters') during c.670 - 730 gave the recently pagan English new ways of living, of exploiting their resources, and of absorbing European culture, as well as opening new spiritual and intellectual horizons.

    Yet despite the incontrovertible influence of the troubadours on the development of both poetry and music in the West, there existed no comprehensive anthology of troubadour lyrics that respected the verse form of the originals until now.Lark in the Morning honors the meter, word play, punning, and sound effects in the troubadours' works while celebrating the often playful, bawdy, and biting nature of the material. Here, Robert Kehew augments his own verse translations with those of two seminal twentieth-century poets—Ezra Pound and W. D. Snodgrass—to provide a collection that captures both the poetic pyrotechnics of the original verse and the astonishing variety of troubadour voices. This bilingual edition contains an introduction to the three major periods of the troubadours—their beginning, rise, and decline—as well as headnotes that briefly put each poet in context. Lark in the Morning will become an essential collection for those interested in learning about and teaching the origins of Western vernacular poetry.

    Focusing on 'normal' sexual activity as well as what was seen as transgressive, the chapters cover topics such as chastity, sex within marriage, the role of the church, and non-reproductive activity.Sexuality in Medieval Europe is essential reading for all those who study medieval history, or who have an interest in the way sexuality and sexual identity have been viewed in the past.

    But where did the concepts come from? Who invented them? Almost two centuries ago, Jacob Grimm assembled what was known about such creatures in his work on 'Teutonic Mythology', which brought together ancient texts such as Beowulf and the Elder Edda with the material found in Grimm's own famous collection of fairy-tales. This collection of essays now updates Grimm, adding much material not known in his time, and also challenges his monolithic interpretations, pointing out the diversity of cultural traditions as well as the continuity of ancient myth.

    and if you believe that, you'll believe anything. But she is a spy in Edward IV's intelligence service, and the author of a chronicle that casts - well, a new light, let's say, on the times of the Yorkist kings. History will never be the same after Alianore. Nor will most other novels. Brian Wainwright's debut novel The Adventures of Alianore Audley is a brilliantly funny, subversive spoof.

    Based on hundreds of hours of interviews, this book tells the story of the makers of the Bible and the community at Saint John's Abbey and University. The day-to-day struggles of such a monumental undertaking included chalenges such as the selection and preparation of more than 250 calf skins, as well as forming a team of caligraphers accustomed to working independently and communicating the concerns of the advisory council in Minnesota with the artists in Wales.Illuminating the Word: The Making of The Saint John's Bible explores a modern version of an age-old relationship between patron and sponsor, and the artistic director, scribes and artists producing this monumentalartwork. It describes lectio divina, the unique method the Benedictine monks use to read the Bible, in which the Holy Scriptures come alive through the power of imagination. It explores the chalenge of creating new images for ancient stories. It chronicles the artistic techniques, the tools and materials and the workshop practices Donald Jackson used to create his lifetime masterpiece. Illuminating the Word reveals the working process behind one of the greatest undertakings of our time and vividly brings to life its chalenges and triumphs.Christopher Calderhead is a visual artist and graphic designer who has exhibited his letter-based works in the United States and Great Britain. He graduated from Princeton with a bachelor's degree in Art History. His ealy interest in the English Arts and Crafts movement and formal pen lettering led him to the Roehampton Institute in London, where he studied caligraphy under Ann Camp. In 1988 he was elected to Fellowship in the Society of Scribes and Illuminators.In 1998 he obtained a Master of Divinity degree from Seabury-Western Theological Seminary. Ordained the same year, he has served parishes in the Church of England and the Episcopal Church USA. He is editor of Alphabet, a journal of the lettering arts published by the Friends of Caligraphy. His series of short radio pieces, Looking for Spirituality at Tate Modern," was broadcast on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire in 2002. His book, One Hundred Mirales, a collection of mirale paintings by the great masters, was published in 2004. He lives and works in New York City.The Saint John's Bible and Illuminating the Word were commissioned by SaintJohn's Abbey and University as an expression of the Benedictine monks' daly focus on scripture and commitment to books, art and religious culture. "

    Ever wonder why we kiss under the mistletoe? Are the lights on the Christmas tree just pretty decorations or do they symbolize something deeper? Answers to these questions and hundreds more can be found in this delightful and utterly unputdownable collection of fabulous Christmas trivia.

    It can be used by anyone with an interest in the writings of the Seraphic Doctor.

    As a monk and a scholar, Bede knew the psalms thoroughly and in his Abbreviated Psalter (included in the text) made his own innovative contribution to the devotional use of the 'Songs of David' and to their use in the prayer which goes beyond words.

    1160). The birth of utopic thinking, it argues, is tied to an understanding of alterity having as much to do with the ways the medieval West understood itself as the manner in which the foreign was mapped. Drawing upon the insights of cultural studies, film studies, and psychoanalysis, this book rethinks the contours of the known and the unknown in the medieval period. It demonstrates how the idea of otherness intersected in intricate ways with other categories of difference (spatial, gender, and religious). Scholars in the fields of history as well as literary and religious studies will be interested in the manner in which the book considers the formal dimensions of how histories of the Oriental "other" were written and lived.

    Offering work from both academics with long-standing reputations and newer voices in the field, it combines general essays that provide background and contextual information with detailed readings of specific Chaucerian texts. The book devotes an entire section to Chaucer's "afterlife," which considers his reputation in later periods, his influence on later writers, and his presence in modern and contemporary culture. Guides to further reading for each chapter and a chronology are also included.

    Amy Froide looks at how singlewomen's lives differed from those of wives and widows, at the social relationships of women without husbands, and at how these women supported themselves. She also examines the economic and civic contributions singlewomen made to urban life and explores the English origins of the spinster and old maid stereotype.

    But historians have focused on their political accomplishments to the exclusion of their religious life, going so far as to call them "purely secular contrivances." When religion is considered, the subjects are usually saints, heretics, theologians, and religious leaders, thereby ignoring the vast majority of those who lived in the communes. In Cities of God, Augustine Thompson gives a voice to the forgotten majority-orthodox lay people and those who ministered to them. Thompson positions the Italian republics in sacred space and time. He maps their religious geography as it was expressed through political and voluntary associations, ecclesiastical and civil structures, common ritual life, lay saints, and miracle-working shrines. He takes the reader through the rituals and celebrations of the communal year, the people's corporate and private experience of God, and the "liturgy" of death and remembrance. In the process he challenges a host of stereotypes about "orthodox" medieval religion, the Italian city-states, and the role of new religious movements in the world of Francis of Assisi, Thomas Aquinas, and Dante. Cities of God is bold, revisionist history in the tradition of Eamon Duffy's Stripping of the Altars. Drawing on a wide repertoire of ecclesiastical and secular sources, from city statutes and chronicles to saints' lives and architecture, Thompson recaptures the religious origins and texture of the Italian republics and allows their inhabitants a spiritual voice that we have never heard before.

    Often superior in construction to those built by the Crusaders, these castles withstood numerous offensives for over two centuries until the middle of the thirteenth century when most were captured and demolished by the Mongols. Peter Willey describes the discoveries he made during the course of more than 20 expeditions to these Ismaili sites spanning the past forty years. The book is illustrated with photographs, maps and plans. As well as being a piece of original scholarship, it is also a readable personal account of the challenges encountered in expeditions to remote, inaccessible and often hazardous locations.

    Essays by leading scholars from many fields examine the illustration of theological commentaries, the use of images to expound or disseminate doctrine, the role of images within theological discourse, the development of doctrine in response to images, and the place of vision and the visual in theological thought.At issue are the ways in which theologians responded to the images that we call art and in which images entered into dialogue with theological discourse. In what ways could medieval art be construed as argumentative in structure as well as in function? Are any of the modes of representation in medieval art analogous to those found in texts? In what ways did images function as vehicles, not merely vessels, of meaning and signification? To what extent can exegesis and other genres of theological discourse shed light on the form, as well as the content and function, of medieval images? These are only some of the challenging questions posed by this unprecedented and interdisciplinary collection, which provides a historical framework within which to reconsider the relationship between seeing and thinking, perception and the imagination in the Middle Ages.

    Hodges shows that Malory treats chivalry not as a static institution but rather, as a dynamic, continually evolving ideal. Le Morte D'arthur is structured to trace how communities and individuals adapt or create chivalric codes for their own purposes; in turn, Hodges asserts, codes of chivalry shape groups and their customs.

    When, two centuries later, the Normans seized control of the island, they found a Muslim state just entering its cultural prime. Rather than replace the practices and idioms of the vanquished people with their own, the Normans in Sicily adopted and adapted the Greco-Arabic culture that had developed on the island. Yet less than a hundred years later, the cultural and linguistic mix had been reduced, a Romance tradition had come to dominate, and Sicilian poets composed the first body of love lyrics in an Italianate vernacular.Karla Mallette has written the first literary history of the Kingdom of Sicily in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Where other scholars have separated out the island's literature along linguistic grounds, Mallette surveys the literary production in Arabic, Latin, Greek, and Romance dialects, in addition to the architectural remains, numismatic inscriptions, and diplomatic records, to argue for a multilingual, multicultural, and coherent literary tradition.Drawing on postcolonial theory to consider institutional and intellectual power, the exchange of knowledge across cultural boundaries, and the containment and celebration of the other that accompanies cultural transition, the book includes an extensive selection of poems and documents translated from the Arabic, Latin, Old French, and Italian. The Kingdom of Sicily, 1100-1250 opens up new venues for understanding the complexity of a place and culture at the crossroads of East and West, Islam and Christianity, tradition and innovation.

    Yet is it possible that the great Viking armies left more in their wake than carnage and destruction? The stories of two families-the Olafssons, who transformed a pirate camp in Ireland into the kingdom of Dublin, and the Haraldssons, whose rule encompassed Hebrides, Galloway, and the Isle of Man-suggest that the Vikings did indeed leave behind a much greater legacy.Between the tenth and twelfth centuries, these two Viking families, descendants of men whom earlier chroniclers dismissed as pagan pirates, established themselves as Christian rulers whose domain straddled the Scandinavian and Celtic worlds. The Olafssons and Haraldssons carved out empires that inspired fear and made their families fabulously wealthy. From their ranks came the settlers who gave name to the Danelaw in Britain, Fingal in Ireland, and Normandy in Francia. Celebrated in Icelandic sagas and poems, Irish tales, and French history, the Olafssons and Haraldssons took part in the last successful Scandinavian invasion of Britain and the overthrow of the last Old English kingdom, even as they allied with, fought against, and married their Irish neighbours.Though the families had come to these lands as conquerors, they soon learned the importance of cooperating with those they had vanquished. Even as they worshipped pagan gods, the Olafssons and Haraldssons both became important benefactors to the Christian church. They also played a crucial role in the economic revival of northern Europe as trading ships from their ports sailed throughout the Atlantic and the goods they produced traveled as far west as Canada. Under their rule, the seas became a connector for a shared culture, commercially, artistically, and socially.Challenging traditional views of the Vikings' culture, Benjamin Hudson shows the role that these two great dynasties played in the Second Viking age. The rise and transformation of the Olafssons and Haraldsssons from the tenth to the twelfth centuries highlights a period and people important for understanding the political, religious, and cultural development of Europe in the High Middle Ages.

    Through their means of production and the evidence of their utility, prints are explored in a broad social and economic context. Key topics include the complex problem of reconstructing the beginnings of the European woodcut; the practice of copying and dissemination of models endemic to the medium; and the varied functions of the print from the spiritual to the secular. A team of expert authors examines the many ways in which fifteenth-century woodcuts and  metalcuts reflect the nature of piety and visual experience. Replicated images helped to structure private religious practice, transmit beliefs, disseminate knowledge about material facts, and graph abstract ideas. Mass-produced pictures made it feasible for people of all stations to possess them, thereby initiating a change in the role of images that eventually helped alter the definition of art itself.The Origins of European Printmaking is an essential book for art historians, students, and collectors, as well as the general reader with an interest in medieval history and culture.

    In Lives of the Anchoresses, Anneke Mulder-Bakker offers a new history of these women who chose to forsake the world but did not avoid it.Unlike nuns, anchoresses maintained their ties to society and belonged to no formal religious order. From their solitary anchorholds in very public places, they acted as teachers and counselors and, in some cases, theological innovators for parishioners who would speak to them from the street, through small openings in the walls of their cells. Available at all hours, the anchoresses were ready to care for the community's faithful whenever needed.Through careful biographical studies of five emblematic anchoresses, Mulder-Bakker reveals the details of these influential religious women. The life of the unnamed anchoress who was mother to Guibert of Nogent shows the anchoress's role as a spiritual guide in an oral culture. A study of Yvette of Huy shows the myriad possibilities open to one woman who eventually chose the life of an anchoress. The accounts of Juliana of Cornillon and Eve of St. Martin raise questions about the participation of religious women in theological discussions and their contributions to church liturgy. And the biographical study of Margaret the Lame of Magdeburg explores the anchoress's role as day-to-day religious instructor to the ordinary faithful.

    It is a comprehensive study which puts the poems themselves firmly at its center, though it is always alert to relevant aspects of their literary and cultural context. John Anderson finds that the great fourteenth-century struggle, between religious and secular forces for control of men's minds, underlies all the poems. Despite its wide range of reference and the radicalism of some of its leading ideas, this book is written in a jargon-free style designed to appeal to specialist, non-specialist and student readers alike.

    Those blackface performances established dynamic theatrical conventions that were repeated from play to play, plot to plot, congealing over time and contributing to English audiences' construction of racial difference. Vaughan discusses non-canonical plays, grouping of scenes, and characters that highlight the most important conventions - appearance, linguistic tropes, speech patterns, plot situations, the use of asides and soliloquies, and other dramatic techniques - that shaped the ways black characters were 'read' by white English audiences. In plays attended by thousands of English men and women from the sixteenth century to the end of the eighteenth, including Titus Andronicus, Othello and Oroonoko, blackface was a polyphonic signifier that disseminated distorted and contradictory, yet compelling, images of black Africans during the period in which England became increasingly involved in the African slave trade.

    She longs to be a knight. The earl knows that should he die in battle while Christiana is unwed, she and Gladsbury would be at the mercy of the king. It's not only time that she marry, but that she learn a noblewoman's duties of managing as well as defending the castle. Hoping to awaken her sensuality, the earl assigns her for defense lessons to his most eligible knights--Guy de Bere and the mysterious new arrival, Rowan du Veau, the Dark Knight. What the earl does not know is that Guy's heart is tainted by lust and greed; he wants Christiana and Gladsbury. Rowan's heart has been captured by a distant noblewoman; he needs land and wealth in order to become betrothed to her. Under their tutelage, will Christiana discover the true nature of these strong men? Is a man capable of changing his loyalties? Will the earl's hopes that his daughter learn to revel in the power of her womanhood come to fruition, or will she, like many noblewomen of her day, become just a pawn for one man's greed or another man's need?

    A few years later, Amerigo Vespucci sailed west, hoping to find a new route to the East. Instead, he discovered new lands that nobody at home knew about. What did he see? Who did he tell? And why is America named after him?Outstanding illustrations from Jed Mickle complement the fabulous story, giving second-grade readers insight into the life of this discoverer.About the series: The classical curriculum introduces even the youngest student to the pleasures of true learning. Elementary students learn history not through predigested textbooks with multiple-choice answers, but through reading the stories of history. Unfortunately, biographies of great men and women of the past are almost all written for older students, limiting the ability of young students to explore history through reading. Libraries are crammed with biographies written for high school students and adults—while beginning readers are provided with a shelf full of junior-level books about football players, NASCAR drivers, and movie stars.Now, Peace Hill Press puts real history back into the grasp of the youngest historians with the Who in the World Biography Series. The first entries in the series provide young readers and their parents and teachers with biographies of great men and women of the Middle Ages. Designed to be used as part of The Story of the World curriculum, these biographies give beginning historians in grades 2–4 a chance to explore beyond the textbook. An audio version is also available separately.

    They have long been consulted by historians and other students of the fifteenth century for their information about socialhistory and politics, both within East Anglia and also nationally. The authoritative edition of Parts 1 and 2 by Professor Norman Davis was published by the Clarendon Press in 1971 (Part 1) and 1976 (Part 2), and was reissued with corrections by EETS in 2004. Part 3, edited by Dr Richard Beadle andProfessor Colin Richmond, completes the series planned by Professor Davis before his death. It contains the remaining texts with indexes to all three parts.

    This book studies the phenomena of monsters and marvels from the time of Pliny the Elder through the 14th century.

    It was seen as a social disease capable of poisoning the body politic and shattering the unity of the church. The study of heresy in late medieval England has, to date, focused largely on the heretics. In consequence, we know very little about how this crime was defined by the churchmen who passed authoritative judgement on it.By examining the drafting, publicizing, and implementing of new laws against heresy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, using published and unpublished judicial records, this book presents the first general study of inquisition in medieval England. In it Ian Forrest argues that because heresy was a problem simultaneously national and local, detection relied upon collaboration between rulers and the ruled. While involvement in detection brought local society into contact with the apparatus of government, uneducated laymen still had to be kept at arm's length, because judgements about heresy were deemed too subtle and important to be left to them. Detection required bishops and inquisitors to balance reported suspicions against canonical proof, and threats to public safety against the rights of the suspect and the deficiencies of human justice.At present, the character and significance of heresy in late medieval England is the subject of much debate. Ian Forrest believes that this debate has to be informed by a greater awareness of the legal and social contexts within which heresy took on its many real and imagined attributes.

    In this richly detailed study, Nicole Chareyron draws on more than one hundred firsthand accounts to consider the journeys and worldviews of medieval pilgrims. Her work brings the reader into vivid, intimate contact with the pilgrims' thoughts and emotions as they made the frequently difficult pilgrimage to the Holy Land and back home again.Unlike the knights, princes, and soldiers of the Crusades, who traveled to the Holy Land for the purpose of reclaiming it for Christendom, these subsequent pilgrims of various nationalities, professions, and social classes were motivated by both religious piety and personal curiosity. The travelers not only wrote journals and memoirs for themselves but also to convey to others the majesty and strangeness of distant lands. In their accounts, the pilgrims relate their sense of astonishment, pity, admiration, and disappointment with humor and a touching sincerity and honesty.These writings also reveal the complex interactions between Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the Holy Land. Throughout their journey, pilgrims confronted occasionally hostile Muslim administrators (who controlled access to many holy sites), Bedouin tribes, Jews, and Turks. Chareyron considers the pilgrims' conflicted, frequently simplistic, views of their Muslim hosts and their social and religious practices.

    In the Viking Age, to love would most often imply a submissive social position, while being loved by a woman could elevate a man above the status of her family. Women were supposed to love upwards in the social hierarchy, but could also use their desire to negotiate the social position of men. A close reading of the skaldic poetry shows the dilemma men faced when longing for women's love and approval. These ideas of love relations shaped Norse interpretations of courtly love and marriage formation by consent in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. However, new ideas of sexuality, gender and aristocratic culture changed several aspects of love and marital affection in the later middle ages. Men became the loving subject, but in a way that did not challenge the social order. For women, ideal love was attached to humility and submission to parents and husband. But even though the new ideology of love and marriage to some extent neutralized the tensions between consent and parental control, the sources show that both men and women could use the new conceptions of love to serve their own marital and social strategies.

    Sixteen authors, including many leading voices in the study of religion, offer essays on specific topics in religious weeping while also considering broader issues such as gender, memory, physiology, and spontaneity. A comprehensive, elegantly written introduction offers a key to these topics. Given the pervasiveness of its theme, it is remarkable that this book is the first of its kind--and it is long overdue.The essays ask such questions as: Is religious weeping primal or culturally constructed? Is it universal? Is it spontaneous? Does God ever cry? Is religious weeping altered by sexual or social roles? Is it, perhaps, at once scripted and spontaneous, private and communal? Is it, indeed, divine?The grief occasioned by 9/11 and violence in Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, and elsewhere offers a poignant context for this fascinating and richly detailed book. Holy Tears concludes with a compelling meditation on the theology of weeping that emerged from pastoral responses to 9/11, as described in the editors' interview with Reverend Betsee Parker, who became head chaplain for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of New York City and leader of the multifaith chaplaincy team at Ground Zero.The contributors are Diane Apostolos-Cappadona, Amy Bard, Herbert Basser, Santha Bhattacharji, William Chittick, Gary Ebersole, M. David Eckel, John Hawley, Gay Lynch, Jacob Ol�pqn� (with Sol� Aj�b�d�), Betsee Parker, Kimberley Patton, Nehemia Polen, Kay Read, and Kallistos Ware.

    Many of the essays in this volume provide compelling evidence that women in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages achieved an accomplished form of literacy, and became actively involved in literary networks of textual production and exchange. These essays also present new research on questions of the literacy and authorship of historical women. In so doing they demonstrate that medieval women, like many medieval men, did not read and write in isolation, but were surrounded and assisted by both male and female colleagues. The issue of women’s ministry is another key theme addressed in this volume. Contributors examine the conditions under which women’s spiritual leadership could extend to male-designated roles and mixed audiences. Several essays also address the ways in which late medieval religious women, though hampered by severe official legislation, managed to appropriate to themselves a surprising range of supposedly forbidden ecclesiastical roles.Voices in Dialogue challenges the historical and literary work of modern medieval scholars by questioning traditionally accepted evidence, methodologies, and conclusions. It will push those engaged in the field of medieval studies to reflect upon the manner in which they conceive, write, and teach history, as it urges them to situate historical women prominently within the intellectual and spiritual culture of the Middle Ages.

    Glenn Richardson and Susan Doran have assembled a team of scholars who bring fresh developments in cultural, gender and institutional history to bear upon the question of England's place in Europe and beyond between 1485 and 1603.

    So devastating was the Black Death across the Old World that some historians have compared its effects to those of a nuclear holocaust. As countries began to recover from the plague during the following century, sharp contrasts arose between the East, where societies slumped into long-term economic and social decline, and the West, where technological and social innovation set the stage for Europe's dominance into the twentieth century. Why were there such opposite outcomes from the same catastrophic event? In contrast to previous studies that have looked to differences between Islam and Christianity for the solution to the puzzle, this pioneering work proposes that a country's system of landholding primarily determined how successfully it recovered from the calamity of the Black Death.

    Copied out in Arabic script and concealed in walls, false floors, and remote caves, these little-known texts now offer modern readers an absorbing look into the cultural life of the moriscos during the hundred years between their forced conversion to Christianity and their eventual expulsion. Covert Gestures reveals how the traditional Islamic narratives of the moriscos both shaped and encoded a wide range of covert social activity characterized by a profound and persistent concern with time and temporality. Using a unique blend of literary analysis, linguistic anthropology, and phenomenological philosophy, Barletta explores the narratives as testimonials of past human experiences and discovers in them evidence of community resistance. In its interdisciplinary approach, Vincent Barletta's work is nothing less than a rewriting of the cultural history of Muslim Spain, as well as a replotting of the future course of medieval and early modern literary studies.