Medieval History

Two friends face the Dark Knight’s deadliest scheme, but only one knight has the courage to overcome. Sir Quinlan leaves his boyhood friend to serve the Prince, fighting a battle darker and more intense than any he’s ever known. The mysterious Sir Baylor recruits him into the ranks of an elite unit of knights known as the Swords of Valor, but when tragedy strikes and everyone blames Quinlan, the Swords of Valor disband, ending a legacy of heroic deeds.

In Volume 4, Hume closes his account of ‘England Under the House of Tudor' begun in Volume 3, and devotes it entirely to the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. It was not really expected that she would survive to accede to the monarchy; and it was certainly unexpected that she would rule for so long (1558-1603) while steadfastly declining to take a husband. All in all, her reign was a remarkable achievement. Elizabeth had so much to contend with over the years. From the start, she had to oversee the reinstatement of the Protestant religion after the tumultuous reign of her sister, Mary.

Mark Pegg offers a synthesis of the most innovative scholarship on the Middle Ages of the last thirty years. Interweaving the history of Muslims with the histories of Christians and Jews, the scholarly history is propelled by a narrative of the relationship of the human and the divine within individuals and their societies between 950 and 1550. In displaying the history of the Middle Ages to be no less than a history of the formation of Western culture, Pegg offers a rethinking of what it means to talk about the medieval world that is at once vital, compelling, and necessary.

Between the infamous Lindisfarne raid in 793 CE and the Norman conquest of 1066, the peoples we know now as the Vikings became one of the most far-ranging and influential civilizations in history. The Vikings are frequently portrayed as raiders, marauding across medieval Europe and Britain, but the culture and society of the medieval Nordic peoples was so much more diverse, multifaceted and influential than it is often depicted.

For as long as language and communication have existed, humans have invented ways to mask their messages from prying eyes. One could be forgiven for assuming there are no ciphers left unsolved. On the contrary, a diverse array of both ancient and modern cryptographic challenges, which have stumped even the most seasoned code crackers of today, exist, and may exist for generations to come. Among the most famous of these memorandums is a 600-year-old document that continues to mystify: the Voynich Manuscript.

The bitter conflict between England and France we call The Hundred Years War, and lasting 116 years between 1337 and 1453, was fought over claims by the English kings to the French throne. By the end of this titanic struggle, it can fairly be said that the Middle Ages had come to an end.

By no means prepared by birth, education, or training for leadership, Wallace nevertheless rose to prominence during the Wars of Independence, leading forces which broke the sequence of English victories and re-energizing and inspiring his countrymen in the process. While others, ostensibly his betters, yielded and collaborated, Wallace set an example of constancy and perseverance and became the Guardian of Scotland. Even his terrible death in London in 1305 can be seen as a victory as it provided inspiration for the continuance of the struggle against English domination.

In the midst of the devastating Hundred Years’ War between France and England, Jean de Carrouges, a Norman knight, fresh from combat in Scotland finds his wife, Marguerite, accusing squire Jacques Le Gris of brutally raping her. A deadlocked court decrees a “trial by combat” 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.

De Brevitate Vitae (frequently referred to as On the Shortness of Life in English) is a moral essay written by Seneca the Younger, a Roman Stoic philosopher, to his father-in-law Paulinus. The philosopher brings up many Stoic principles on the nature of time, namely that men waste much of it in meaningless pursuits. According to the essay, nature gives man enough time to do what is really important and the individual must allot it properly.

The Trial and the Death of Socrates remains a powerful document not least because it gives a first-hand account of the end of one of the greatest figures in history.

In Apology, Socrates defends himself before the Athenian court against charges of corrupting youth. Phaedo is the account by a young man of the actual last words and moments of Socrates.

Life in a Medieval City is the classic account of the year 1250 in the city of Troyes, in modern-day France. Acclaimed historians Frances and Joseph Gies focus on a high point of medieval civilization - before war and the Black Death ravaged Europe - providing a fascinating window into the sophistication of a period we too often dismiss as backward. Urban life in the Middle Ages revolved around the home, often a mixed-use dwelling for burghers with a store or workshop on the ground floor and living quarters upstairs.

This paradigm-shifting book paints a spirited portrait of a restless people that challenges our established ways of looking at Europe's past. The story is more complex than at first believed, with new evidence suggesting that the European gene pool was stirred vigorously multiple times. Genetic clues are also enhancing our understanding of European mobility in epochs with written records, including the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons, the spread of the Slavs, and the adventures of the Vikings.

The Bayeux Tapestry is the world's most famous textile: an exquisite 230-foot-long embroidered panorama depicting the events surrounding the Norman Conquest of 1066. It is also one of history's most mysterious and compelling works of art. This haunting stitched account of the battle that redrew the map of medieval Europe has inspired dreams of theft, waves of nationalism, visions of limitless power, and esthetic rapture.

Imagine you were transported back in time to Medieval England and had to start a new life there. Without mobile phones, iPads, internet, and social media networks, when transport means walking or, if you're fortunate, horseback, how will you know where you are or what to do? Where will you live? What is there to eat? What shall you wear? All these questions and many more are answered in this new guidebook for time-travelers. This lively and engaging book will help the listener deal with the new experiences they may encounter and the problems that might occur.

Poet, Mystic, Widow, Wife charts the lives and times of four medieval women writers—Marie de France, a poet; Julian of Norwich, a mystic and anchoress; Christine de Pizan, a widow and court writer; and Margery Kempe, a no-good wife—who all bucked convention and forged their own paths. Largely forgotten by modern readers, these women have an astonishing amount to teach us about love, marriage, motherhood, friendship, and earning a living.

Drawing on the records of national and regional archives as well as archaeological remains, James Clark explores the little-known lives of the last men and women who lived in England's monasteries before the Reformation. Clark challenges received wisdom, showing that buildings were not immediately demolished and Henry VIII's subjects were so attached to the religious houses that they kept fixtures and fittings as souvenirs. This rich, vivid history brings back into focus the prominent place of abbeys, priories, and friaries in the lives of the English people.

The crucial importance of education in China, a prized virtue instilled in the population among all classes by beloved teacher and philosopher Confucius in the 6th century BCE, generated an unprecedented and long-lived golden age of literature and art. It also gave rise to a cornucopia of transformative innovations and groundbreaking technology, particularly following the dawn of the Common Era.

How much of our fate is tied to the status of our parents and grandparents? How much does this influence our children? More than we wish to believe. While it has been argued that rigid class structures have eroded in favor of greater social equality, The Son Also Rises proves that movement on the social ladder has changed little over eight centuries.

The twelfth and thirteenth centuries were a time of personal monarchy, when the close friendship or petty feuding between kings and queens could determine the course of history. The Capetians of France and the Angevins of England waged war, made peace, and intermarried. In this lively history, Catherine Hanley traces the great clashes, and occasional friendships, of the two dynasties. Along the way, she emphasizes the fascinating and influential women of the houses—including Eleanor of Aquitaine—and shows how personalities and familial bonds shaped the fate of two countries.

In 1187 Saladin's armies besieged the holy city of Jerusalem. He had previously annihilated Jerusalem's army at the battle of Hattin, and behind the city's high walls a last-ditch defence was being led by an unlikely trio - including Sibylla, Queen of Jerusalem. They could not resist Saladin, but, if they were lucky, they could negotiate terms that would save the lives of the city's inhabitants.