English Medieval History

In just over a hundred years - from the death of Muhammad in 632 to the beginning of the Abbasid Caliphate in 750 - the followers of the Prophet swept across the whole of the Middle East, North Africa, and Spain. Their armies threatened states as far flung as the Franks in Western Europe and the Tang Empire in China. The conquered territory was larger than the Roman Empire at its greatest expansion, and it was claimed for the Arabs in roughly half the time.

Revolutionary Ideas, Simplified. Two Books in One Powerful Volume. Step into the world of groundbreaking simplicity and intellectual clarity with The Logic of Simplicity: Ockham and Nominalism Explained. This 2-in-1 guide combines William of Ockham: A Beginner’s Guide and Nominalism for Beginners: Exploring the Roots of a Revolutionary Idea into one essential resource, perfect for anyone eager to unravel the foundations of modern thought. Discover How Simplicity Changed Everything: Explore the life and legacy of William of Ockham, the trailblazing thinker who dared to question centuries ...

Mention "Medieval knights" and people may think of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table. But these warriors weren't just heroes from fables and legend. They were real men who strapped themselves into heavy armor and bravely charged into battle. Learn what life was like as an elite armored-warrior in Medieval Europe.

In a world where loyalty is tested and power is fleeting, young Ela, only child of the Earl of Salisbury, finds herself swept out of England after the death of her father to the opulent courts of Richard Lionheart. Betrothed to William Longsword, the King's illegitimate brother, she navigates a life filled with danger and ambition. As King John’s tyranny looms, Ela's love for William and their growing family face relentless threats. When war strikes and William is presumed lost at sea, ambitious suitors circle like vultures. Will Ela’s unwavering spirit endure, or will fate tear them ...

The Angevin Empire has been claimed by a new king. Richard, the elder surviving legitimate son of King Henry II of England, is universally accepted as his father’s successor. However, Richard is not as interested in remaining in Europe to rule his inherited lands as in acquiring the money and means to travel to the middle east, where he intends to prosecute a war against those who threaten the Christians there. His younger brother John, still distressed at the death of the old king, wants desperately to find the opportunity to pay the new king back for the bitter conflict Richard had ...

The Knights Templar existed officially for less than 200 years. Founded to protect pilgrims who were travelling through the Holy Lands, their rise to power was sudden. They became some of the most feared warriors in the region, they had a mandate from God, they controlled perhaps the world's first real banking system, and they waged war against anyone who tried to wrestle Christianity and seize holy grounds from the control of the Catholic Church.

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.

In the fourth century AD, a new faith exploded out of Palestine. Overwhelming the paganism of Rome, and converting the Emperor Constantine in the process, it resoundingly defeated a host of other rivals. Almost a thousand years later, all of Europe was controlled by Christian rulers, and the religion, ingrained within culture and society, exercised a monolithic hold over its population. But, as Peter Heather shows in this compelling new history, there was nothing inevitable about Christendom's rise to Europe-wide dominance.

This famous work by Lucretius is a masterpiece of didactic poetry, and it still stands today as the finest exposition of Epicurean philosophy ever written. The poem was produced in the middle of first century B.C., a period that was to witness a flowering of Latin literature unequaled for beauty and intellectual power in subsequent ages. The Latin title, De Rerum Natura, translates literally to On the Nature of Things and is meant to impress the reader with the breadth and depth of Epicurean philosophy.

About empty thrones, a lot can be said. Throughout history, both ancient and near modern, a lack of an heir and the sudden death of a beloved monarch always meant trouble. When the position of a king is up for grabs, a lot of eager hands come forward. Pretenders and would-be heirs, cousins and nephews, bastard sons and daughters - they all came forward staking their claim to the throne. In the history of Medieval England, such episodes were many.

Thomas B. Costain's four-volume history of the Plantagenets begins with The Conquering Family and the conquest of England by William the Conqueror in 1066, closing with the reign of John in 1216. The troubled period after the Norman Conquest, when the foundations of government were hammered out between monarch and people, comes to life through Costain's storytelling skill and historical imagination.

Empire of the Normans tells the extraordinary story of how the descendants of Viking marauders in northern France came to dominate European, Mediterranean, and Middle Eastern politics. It is a tale of ambitious adventures and fierce pirates, of fortunes made and fortunes lost. Across the generations, the Normans made their influence felt across Western Europe and the Mediterranean, from the British Isles to North Africa, and even to the Holy Land, with a combination of military might, political savvy, deeply held religious beliefs, and a profound sense of their own destiny.

The Anglo-Saxon period, stretching from the fifth to the late eleventh century, begins with the Roman retreat from the Western world and ends with the Norman takeover of England. Between these epochal events, many of the contours and patterns of English life that would endure for the next millennium were shaped. In this authoritative work, N. J. Higham and M. J. Ryan reexamine Anglo-Saxon England in the light of new research in disciplines as wide ranging as historical genetics, paleobotany, archaeology, literary studies, art history, and numismatics.

This magnificent story of 1,000 years of English history is told through the lives and deeds of Kings and Queens, from the Normans to the Windsors. Understand how the power of the crown has changed as a result of both the character and ability of each monarch and evolving historical circumstances. Eight specialist contributors depict the whole spectrum of royal life in a succinct and fascinating way. Newly revised in 1998, this edition offers expanded coverage of the House of Windsor, including recent events that have greatly affected the Royal Family.

1399: England’s crown is under threat. King Richard II holds on to his power by an ever-weakening thread, with exiled Henry of Lancaster back to reclaim his place on the throne. For Elizabeth Mortimer, there is only one rightful King - her eight-year-old nephew, Edmund. Only he can guarantee her fortunes and protect her family’s rule over the precious northern lands bordering Scotland.

Empires and Barbarians presents a fresh, provocative look at how a recognizable Europe came into being in the first millennium AD. With sharp analytic insight, Peter Heather explores the dynamics of migration and social and economic interaction that changed two vastly different worlds--the undeveloped barbarian world and the sophisticated Roman Empire--into remarkably similar societies and states.

In AD 476, the last of Rome's emperors, known as "Augustulus", was deposed by a barbarian general, the son of one of Attila the Hun's henchmen. With the imperial vestments dispatched to Constantinople, the curtain fell on the Roman empire in Western Europe, its territories divided among successor kingdoms constructed around barbarian military manpower. But, if the Roman Empire was dead, Romans across much of the old empire still lived, holding on to their lands, their values, and their institutions.

In The Once and Future Sex, Janega unravels the restricting expectations on medieval women and the ones on women today. She boldly questions why, if our ideas of women have changed drastically over time, we cannot reimagine them now to create a more equitable future.

An engineer finds himself in an alternate reality, Cornwall, in the year 715 A.D. He awakens in the body of a young Baron. James Fletcher, now the Count of Cornwall, is facing new adversaries in the Franks. They try to assassinate him and his family, precipitating a full-out war.

The Vikings maintain their grip on our imagination, but their image is too often distorted by medieval and modern myth. It is true that they pillaged, looted, and enslaved. But they also settled peacefully and developed a vast trading network. They traveled far from their homelands in swift and sturdy ships, not only to raid, but also to explore. Despite their fearsome reputation, the Vikings didn’t wear horned helmets, and even the infamous berserkers were far from invincible.