His wife, Marguerite, has accused squire Jacques Le Gris of rape. A deadlocked court decrees a “trial by combat” between the two men that also leaves Marguerite’s fate in the balance. For if her husband loses the duel, she will be put to death as a false accuser. While enemy troops pillage the land, and rebellion and plague threaten the lives of all, Carrouges and Le Gris meet in full armor on a walled field in Paris. What follows is a fierce duel, the final one sanctioned by governing powers, before a massive crowd that includes the teenage King Charles VI, during which both combatants are wounded—but only one fatally.Based on extensive research in Normandy and Paris, THE LAST DUEL brings to life a colorful, turbulent age and three unforgettable characters caught in a fatal triangle of crime, scandal, and revenge. THE LAST DUEL is at once a moving human drama, a captivating true crime story, and an engrossing work of historical intrigue with themes that echo powerfully centuries later.

    World History

    In his introduction, Anthony Grafton, Henry Putnam University Professor of History at Princeton University, puts this classic book in perspective.

    The city's plight had been neglected, and negligible help was sent in this crisis. To the Turks, victory not only brought a new imperial capital, but guaranteed that their empire would last. To the Greeks, the conquest meant the end of the civilisation of Byzantium, and led to the exodus of scholars stimulating the tremendous expansion of Greek studies in the European Renaissance."... an excellent tale, full of suspense and pathos... He [Sir Steven Runciman] tells the story and, as always, tells it very elegantly."- History"This is a marvel of learning lightly worn..."- The Guardian

    In 1095 Pope Urban II summoned Christian warriors to take up the cross and reconquer the Holy Land. Thus began the holy wars that would focus the power of Europe against a common enemy and become the stuff of romantic legend. In reality the Crusades were a series of rabidly savage conflicts in the name of piety. And, as Armstrong demonstrates in this fascinating book, their legacy of religious violence continues today in the Middle East, where the age-old conflict of Christians, Jews, and Muslims persists.

    At the dawn of the 21st millennium the world is still experiencing these anxieties, as seen by the onslaught of fantasies of renewal, doomsday predictions, and New Age prophecies.This fascinating book explores the millenarianism that flourished in western Europe between the eleventh and sixteenth centuries. Covering the full range of revolutionary and anarchic sects and movements in medieval Europe, Cohn demonstrates how prophecies of a final struggle between the hosts of Christ and Antichrist melded with the rootless poor's desire to improve their own material conditions, resulting in a flourishing of millenarian fantasies. The only overall study of medieval millenarian movements, The Pursuit of the Millennium offers an excellent interpretation of how, again and again, in situations of anxiety and unrest, traditional beliefs come to serve as vehicles for social aspirations and animosities.

    Second families must go into hiding or be arrested. There is even a finder's fee for those who turn in their own. Ten-year-old Mary's father, a poor farmer, abandons Mary, her nearly-blind mother, and six brothers and sisters in the hills of the Wasatch Mountains to live in a shallow dugout not much better than a cave. Close to starving, the family is rescued by a nearby polygamist. As the much older man's intentions become more threatening, Mary finds it harder and harder to resist his proposal of marriage. Her family and friends, even her own mother, turn away from her. During the six-year period, from Mary's childhood to a forced marriage at sixteen, Mary must first survive, and then choose her fate. This is the story of survival, love, and compassion in a sometimes heartless existence. It is also the story of Mary's deep conflict with the Church's teachings on plural marriage, and with her father, who has abandoned them. Based on a true story."...filled with rich description that makes its early 20th-century setting and people come alive." -The Salt Lake Tribune"...an emotionally wrenching narrative out of U.S. history."-Kirkus Reviews

    These men and women regarded themselves as professional anti-witches, who (in dream-like states) apparently fought ritual battles against witches and wizards, to protect their villages and harvests. If they won, the harvest would be good, if they lost, there would be famine. The inquisitors tried to fit them into their pre-existing images of the witchesâ�� sabbat. The result of this cultural clash which lasted over a century, was the slow metamorphosis of the benandanti into their enemies â�� the witches. Carlo Ginzburg shows clearly how this transformation of the popular notion of witchcraft was manipulated by the Inquisitors, and disseminated all over Europe and even to the New World. The peasantsâ�� fragmented and confused testimony reaches us with great immediacy, enabling us to identify a level of popular belief which constitutes a valuable witness for the reconstruction of the peasant way of thinking of this age.

    The great heritage of western civilization - from the Greek and Roman classics to Jewish and Christian works - would have been utterly lost were it not for the holy men and women of unconquered Ireland. In this delightful and illuminating look into a crucial but little-known "hinge" of history, Thomas Cahill takes us to the "island of saints and scholars, " the Ireland of St. Patrick and the Book of Kells. Here, far from the barbarian despoliation of the continent, monks and scribes laboriously, lovingly, even playfully preserved the west's written treasures. With the return of stability in Europe, these Irish scholars were instrumental in spreading learning. Thus the Irish not only were conservators of civilization, but became shapers of the medieval mind, putting their unique stamp on western culture.

    What combination of religious fervor, hatred of people of different faiths, and gall led Europeans of 1100 A.D. to make their way thousands of miles to conquer the Holy Land? Why did they continue for 200 years? How did the Crusades change the world? The intriguing story is peppered with colorful characters. Over the centuries, this well-researched and written book argues, crusaders saw - and participated in - the evolution of warfare and the transformation of society from feudal fiefdoms to nations and empires. The story of the Crusades is a reminder, too, of the horrors wrought in the name of religion. The Crusades are seen by many Christians today as an exercise in fanaticism, an episode in which the teachings of Christ were used to justify the horrors perpetrated on innocents. That judgment is accurate, but not the whole story. The whole story is in these pages.

    It is a journey into a past vividly brought to life and bursting with ideas, that pits one century against another in his quest to measure which century saw the greatest change.We journey from a time when there was a fair chance of your village being burned to the ground by invaders — and dried human dung was a recommended cure for cancer — to a world in which explorers sailed into the unknown and civilizations came into conflict with each other on an epic scale. Here is a story of godly scientists, fearless adventurers, cold-hearted entrepreneurs, and strong-minded women — a story of discovery, invention, revolution, and cataclysmic shifts in perspective.Millennium is a journey into the past like no other. Our understanding of human development will never be the same again, and the lessons we learn along the way are profound ones for us all.

    In Lucifer, Jeffrey Burton Russell continues his compelling study of the personification of evil in the figure of the Devil. The previous two volumes in this remarkable tertalogy--The Devil and Satan--trace the history of the concept of the devil comparatively as it emerged in diverse cultures and followed its development in Western thought from the ancient Hebrew religion through the first five centuries of the Christian era.The present volume charts the evolution of the concept of the devil from the fifth century through the fifteenth. Drawing on an impressive array of sources from popular religion, art, literature, and drama, as well as from scholastic philosophy, mystical theology, homiletics, and hagiography, Russell provides a detailed treatment of Christian diabology in the Middle Ages. Although he focuses primarily on Western Christian thought, Russell also includes, for the sake of comparison, material on the concept of the devil in Greek Orthodoxy during the Byzantine period as well as in Muslim thought.Russell recounts how the Middle Ages saw a refinement in detail rather than a radical alteration of diabological theory. He shows that the medieval concept of the devil, fundamentally unchanged over the course of the centuries, eventually gave rise to the unyielding beliefs that resulted in the horrifying cruelties of the witch-hunting craze in the 1500s and 1600s. This major contribution to the history of the Middle Ages and to the history of religion will enlighten scholars and students alike and will appeal to anyone concerned with the problem of evil in our world.

    "The History of the World in Bite-Sized Chunks" pulls it all together, from the world's earliest civilizations in 3500 BC to the founding of the United Nations in 1945, passing by the likes of Charlemagne, the Ottoman Empire and the Crimean War, to name a few. Here's your chance to introduce yourself to the full spectrum of world history, and discover just how the modern world came to be.

    He examines surviving copies of the personal prayer books which were used for private, domestic devotions, and in which people commonly left traces of their lives.  Manuscript prayers, biographical jottings, affectionate messages, autographs, and pious paste-ins often crowd the margins, flyleaves, and blank spaces of such books. From these sometimes clumsy jottings, viewed by generations of librarians and art historians as blemishes at best, vandalism at worst, Duffy teases out precious clues to the private thoughts and public contexts of their owners, and insights into the times in which they lived and prayed. His analysis has a special relevance for the history of women, since women feature very prominently among the identifiable owners and users of the medieval Book of Hours.Books of Hours range from lavish illuminated manuscripts worth a king’s ransom to mass-produced and sparsely illustrated volumes costing a few shillings or pence. Some include customized prayers and pictures requested by the purchaser, and others, handed down from one family member to another, bear the often poignant traces of a family’s history over several generations. Duffy places these volumes in the context of religious and social change, above all the Reformation, discusses their significance to Catholics and Protestants, and describes the controversy they inspired under successive Tudor regimes. He looks closely at several special volumes, including the cherished Book of Hours that Sir Thomas More kept with him in the Tower of London as he awaited execution.

    Seamlessly integrating coverage of social, cultural and political history, this book is presented in a flexible chronological organization, helping readers grasp the most significant developments that occurred during a single historical period, laying a useful foundation for the chapters to follow. This volume attempts to reflect the unprecedented impact of globalization on this century by featuring extensive coverage of popular culture, the relationship between Islam and the West, and the contribution of women in the history of Western Civilization. This volume contains a Special Introduction Chapter and Chs. 9-31 of the Combined Volume: " The Late Middle Ages: Social and Political Breakdown; Renaissance and Discovery; The Age of Reformation; The Age of Religious Wars; Paths to Constitutionalism and Absolutism: England and France in the 17th Century; New Directions in Thought and Culture in the 16th and 17th Centuries; Successful and Unsuccessful Paths to Power; Society and Economy under the Old Regime in the 18th Century; The Transatlantic Economy, Trade Wars, and Colonial Rebellion; The Age of Enlightenment: 18th-Century Thought; The French Revolution; The Age of Napoleon and the Triumph of Romanticism; The Conservative Order and the Challenges of Reform; Economic Advance and Social Unrest; The Age of Nation-States; The Building of European Supremacy: Society and Politics to World War I; The Birth of Modern European Thought; Imperialism, Alliances, and War; Political Experiments of the 1920s; Europe and the Great Depression of the 1930s; World War II; Faces of the Twentieth-Century: European Social Experiences; and The Cold War Era and the Emergence of the New Europe. For use by history career professionals.