Medieval English

A man may forge a blade, but destiny is forged in the heavens. The archipelago shudders on the brink of war, with the weight of its future precariously balanced in the hand of a seemingly insignificant boy. Arlen Wyth is no hero, but fate has different plans. When an unassuming map falls into his hands, revealing a dark plot against his homeland, Arlen is thrust into a world where shadows stir and secrets unravel, forcing him to choose between self-preservation and the salvation of his people. His quest is fraught with peril, from treacherous seas to the hidden machinations of unseen enemies.

You change the world, but the world changes you too. There is no getting around it. And thus, the simple wish to live changed the life of medical student Aliya irrevocably. Trapped in a body that isn’t hers, and a world in which she does not belong, Aliya has made her decision - she must survive. Similar to the Middle Ages, but not entirely, Medieval Tale takes place in the dark ages of Ativerna, a universe inhabited by different populations that worship different gods. In this world, women are deprived their voices and their abilities to pursue ambition.

Dating to the ninth century BC, Homer’s timeless poem still vividly conveys the horror and heroism of men and gods wrestling with towering emotions and battling amidst devastation and destruction, as it moves inexorably to the wrenching, tragic conclusion of the Trojan War. Renowned classicist Bernard Knox observes in his superb Introduction that although the violence of the Iliad is grim and relentless, it coexists with both images of civilized life and a poignant yearning for peace.

Leaving the safety of her nunnery walls behind, Dame Frevisse is drawn into an unholy web of treachery and deceit. Waylaid on the King's Highway by a band of outlaws, Frevisse is shocked to discover that their leader is her long-lost cousin Nicholas. When he pleads with her to help him obtain a pardon for his crimes, she finds herself trapped between the harsh edicts of the law and the mercy of her vows. But even as she struggles to restore his fortunes, Frevisse must fight to save his soul...and his life.

The Lady knows the stories: how her eyes induce madness in men. The Lady knows she will be wed to the Scottish brute, who does not leave his warrior ways behind when he comes to the marriage bed. The Lady knows his hostile, suspicious court will be a game of strategy, requiring all of her wiles and hidden witchcraft to survive. But the Lady does not know her husband has occult secrets of his own. She does not know that prophecy girds him like armor. She does not know that her magic is greater and more dangerous, and that it will threaten the order of the world.

Most of us give little thought to the back of the book - it's just where you go to look things up. But as Dennis Duncan reveals in this delightful and witty history, hiding in plain sight is an unlikely realm of ambition and obsession, sparring and politicking, pleasure and play. In the pages of the index, we might find "Butchers, to be avoided", or "Cows that shite Fire", or even catch "Calvin in his chamber with a Nonne". Here, for the first time, is the secret world of the index: an unsung but extraordinary everyday tool, with an illustrious but little-known past.

Some men strive for greatness. And some men find themselves thrust into the role of their nation's saviors. Such are the two heroes who reshaped and reconfigured the entire destiny of the kingdom of Scotland. Wallace the Braveheart would become the only legendary, heroic, commoner in medieval British history. The other, Robert Bruce, earl of Carrick, would perfect the techniques of guerrilla warfare developed by Wallace and use them to create his own place in history as the greatest king of Scots.

In Paradise Lost, Milton produced a poem of epic scale, conjuring up a vast, awe-inspiring cosmos and ranging across huge tracts of space and time. And yet, in putting a charismatic Satan and naked Adam and Eve at the centre of this story, he also created an intensely human tragedy on the fall of man....

Princess Guinevere has come to Camelot to wed a stranger: the charismatic King Arthur. With magic clawing at the kingdom's borders, the great wizard Merlin conjured a solution - send in Guinevere to be Arthur's wife...and his protector from those who want to see the young king's idyllic city fail. The catch? Guinevere's real name - and her true identity - is a secret. She is a changeling, a girl who has given up everything to protect Camelot.

As the Knights of the Prince await His triumphant return, they are steadfast in their mission to take His story into the kingdom and recruit as many as are willing. But when a new and dangerous threat is revealed, their mission is jeopardized. Sir Kendrick and his young charge, the impetuous Sir Duncan, are sent on a mission to discover the identity and origin of a secretive new order known as the Conquistero Knights.

Carved close to the original Greek, acclaimed classicist Caroline Alexander's new translation is swift and lean, with the driving cadence of its source - a translation epic in scale yet devastating in its precision and power.

If you were one of King Henry VIII's six wives, who would you be? Would you be Anne Boleyn, who literally lost her head? Would you be the subject of rumor and scandal like Catherine Howard? Or would you get away and survive like Anna of Cleves? Meet them and Henry's other queens - each bound for divorce or death - in this epic and thrilling novel that reads like fantasy but really happened.

He was a mighty Scottish warrior who lived in a world bound by ancient laws and timeless magic. But no immortal powers could prepare the laird of Castle Brodie for the lovely accursed lass who stood before him. A terrible trick of fate had sent her 700 years back in time and into his private chamber to tempt him with her beauty.

In the eighth and final installment in The Last Pendragon Saga, Cade and his companions have reached the final reckoning. He must either rise to the promise of his birth and become the legend that prophecy foretold - or face the ultimate destruction of his country and his people.

In seventh-century Ireland, a scholar priest named Artt has a dream in which God tells him to leave the sinful world behind. With two monks—young Trian and old Cormac—he rows down the River Shannon in search of an isolated spot in which to found a monastery. Drifting out into the Atlantic, the three men find the impossibly steep, bare island known today as Skellig Michael. In such a place, what will survival mean?

Throughout medieval Europe, for hundreds of years, monarchy was the way that politics worked in most countries. This meant power was in the hands of a family - a dynasty; that politics was family politics; and political life was shaped by the births, marriages, and deaths of the ruling family. Drawing on a rich and memorable body of sources, this engaging and original history of dynastic power in Latin Christendom and Byzantium explores the role played by family dynamics and family consciousness in the politics of the royal and imperial dynasties of Europe.

At the side of the most famous warlord of history, Matilda worked, not as a quiet, modest wife, but as a leader...as a ruler just as ruthless as her husband. Under her soft mask of beauty and modesty there lay the heart of a woman powered by ambition. A woman who was strong, courageous, and devious.... Through the eyes of one of the most extraordinary women of history unfold the events leading to the invasion of England and the battle that would decide its fate....

Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) is generally regarded as the greatest intellectual ever to have appeared in the Arab world - a genius who ranks as one of the world's great minds. Yet the author of the Muqaddima, the most important study of history ever produced in the Islamic world, is not as well known as he should be, and his ideas are widely misunderstood. In this groundbreaking intellectual biography, Robert Irwin provides an engaging and authoritative account of Ibn Khaldun's extraordinary life, times, writings, and ideas.

Lenora Montmayne leads a charmed life as the most beautiful woman at King Wymer's court, surrounded by admirers. And then disaster strikes. The red pox sweeps the summer palace at Caer-Lyones, and Lenora's fair face falls victim to its ravages. Without her looks, what does Lenora have left to her? If ever there was a knight the crowd loves to hate, it's Garman Orde. Even his own family despises him. Then one night a heavily veiled lady offers him an extraordinary bargain. And he finds out that Lenora Montmayne was never just a pretty face.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in collaboration with his friend, William Wordsworth, revolutionized English poetry. In 1798 they produced their Lyrical Ballads, poems of imagination and reflection using "the language of men" - pointing the way forward for a generation of Romantic poets.