A study in the CELTIC DESIGN series of all the simplest forms of Celtic design, with instructions on how to draw and decorate letters in an authentic Celtic style as well as how to create illuminated manuscript pages.

    This elegantly bound, richly illustrated encyclopedic guide presents information about the history, land, and characters of Cadfael's world.

    A further title from the MEDIEVAL CRAFTSMEN series.

    Malcolm Miller's illuminating text is supported by Sonia Halliday and Laura Lushington's stunning photographs. Look out for more Pitkin Guides on the very best of British and French history, heritage and travel. Contents:Plan of the windows of Chartres Cathedral --The History of the Chartres Cathedral: Chartres from Roman Times Until 1194 --1194-1260: The Gothic Cathedral --The Donors' Windows --Chartres Cathedral Since 1260 --Architechture --The 12th Century: Sculpture --The Royal Portal --Glass --The Jesse Window --The Incarnation Window --The Passion and Resurrection Window --The Blue Virgin Window --The 13th Century: Sculpture --The North Proch --Glass --The North Rose Window --The Symbolic Window of the Redemption --The Joseph Window --The Noah Window --The john the Divine Window --The Mary Magdalene Window --The Good Samaritan and Adam and Eve Window --The Assumption Window --The Life of Mary Window --The Zodiac Signs Window --The Charlemagne Window --The Parable of the Prodigal Son Window --The Upper Storey Windows --Sculpture --The South Porch --Glass --The West Rose Window --The South Rose Window --The Heavenly Jerusalem --

    Stephen, the youngest page at the court of King Wenceslas, is asked to accompany his monarch on a mission of good will to a poor peasant.

    marvels at the inestimable beauty of the glass and the infinitely rich and various workmanship." (Theophilus, early twelfth century) But what do we really know of the men and women who made stained glass windows, and the methods they used?Stained glassed was an invaluable medium for communicating religion to a largely illiterate populace and the glass-painter was its creator. This book describes the fascinating origins of the cragt and the techniques emplyed - including the design, colouring, and use of pattern books. The authors explain the circumstances of commission, who the patrons were, and how the glass-painter both designed and executed the window. They then discuss evidence of the education, position in society, and working practices of glass-painters. Finally, the recount the decline of this resplendent craft and the sad destruction of the windows as the Reformation and changes in fashion both took their toll.Beautifully illustrated with examples from cathedrals, churches, and castles throughout Europe, this book will enrich the understanding of all lovers of medieval art and architecture.

    To some scholastics, alchemy seemed to arrogate the power of divinity itself in its claim that man could replicate the products of nature by means of art; others viewed alchemy as a pure technology, unworthy of inclusion in a curriculum devoted to the study of "scientiae," The "Summa perfectionis" of Pseudo-Geber, written around the end of the 13th century as a defense of the art, became 'the Bible of the medieval alchemists, 'and was still being used as late as the 17th century. The present work contains a critical edition, annotated translation, and commentary of the "Summa,"

    He writes this hoping we, on the eve of the third millennium, will take time also to look at who we are and at our world. . . . This engaging book lucidly carries the reader through an amazing amount of material. Medieval scholars will find it resourceful and challenging; the nonscholar will find it fascinating and enlightening."—A. L. Kolp, Choice"Living in the Tenth Century resembles an anthropological field study more than a conventional historical monograph, and represents a far more ambitious attempt to see behind the surface of avowals and events than others have seriously attempted even for much more voluminously documented periods. . . . It is remarkably rich and readable."—R.I. Moore, Times Higher Education Supplement"Fichtenau offers a magnificent survey of all the main spheres of life: the social order, the rural economy, schooling and religious belief and practice in both the secular and monastic church. His command, especially of the narrative sources, their fine nuances of attitude emotion and underlying norms, is masterly and he employs them here with all the sensitiveness and feel for the subject that have always been the hallmarks of his work."—Karl Leyser, Francia

    We see how their collective efforts in the centuries after 1050 added up to a more markedly territorial structure of regional power, already emerging by the thirteenth century as a result of their endeavours in the economy, internal and external colonization, and the establishment of new castles, towns, monasteries and communications; in local, ecclesiastical and imperial law, and the jurisdictional reform which they imposed in their regions; and in the uses of dynastic politics, including feuds as well as alliances, inheritance and partition.

    From the 1190s until the 1470s the island was a kingdom governed by the members of the Lusignan family. The Lusignans, who hailed from Poitou in western France, imposed a new European landowning class and a Catholic ecclesiastical hierarchy upon the indigenous Greek population. Nevertheless, their regime provided long periods of political stability and, until the late fourteenth century, a considerable period of prosperity. In the thirteenth century the island was closely linked to the Latin states in Syria and the Holy Land by political, social and economic ties and, with the fall of the last Christian strongholds to the Muslims in 1291, it became the most easterly outpost of Latin Christendom in the Mediterranean. This new study, which is based on original research, traces the fortunes of Cyprus under its royal dynasty and its role in the Crusades and in the confrontation of Christian and Muslim in the Near East until the 1370s. It is both a major contribution to the history of the Crusades in the Levant and the only scholarly study of medieval Cyprus currently available.