Medieval Ages

What if your childhood was a lie? Girl King introduces us to the daughter of a simple cloth merchant who discovers there is a secret in her mother’s past, and her own. A line of kings, stretching back a thousand years, is at stake. But it is her destiny, not her mother’s, to set the world right – or fail in the process. Ayla’s visions were merely annoying at first. Now, they have become increasingly invasive. On the eve of her arranged marriage, they reveal a truth she’s compelled to explore. With a single decision, she discards her well-ordered life. Soon her loving family and ...

I stepped into the cage to survive. I didn’t know I’d be claimed in it. Nora Blake fights for rent money, bruises for cash and bleeds for a crowd that never cheers. She thought she knew pain. Thought she’d learned to endure. Then three minotaur kings found her in the cage. Silas is the cold one. Dax is the quiet one. Kael is the cruel one. Together they offer her an escape from the underground. But it’s not freedom they want. It’s ownership. Now Nora trains in their private gym, sleeps in their guarded compound and submits in their dungeon. They tie her with silk. Punish her with ...

Whose Middle Ages? is an interdisciplinary collection of short, accessible essays intended for the nonspecialist listener and ideal for teaching at an undergraduate level. Each of 22 essays takes up an area where digging for meaning in the medieval past has brought something distorted back into the present: in our popular entertainment; in our news, our politics, and our propaganda; and in subtler ways that inform how we think about our histories, our countries, and ourselves. Each author looks to a history that has refused to remain past and uses the tools of the academy to read and re-read familiar stories, objects, symbols, and myths.

The great poetic tradition of pre-Christian Scandinavia is known to us almost exclusively though the Prose Edda, a collection of narrative literature, and its companion, the Poetic Edda. The poems originated in Iceland, Norway, and Greenland between the ninth and 13th centuries, when they were compiled in a unique manuscript known as the Codex Regius. The poems are primarily lyrical rather than narrative.

In 1346, at the age of sixteen, he won his spurs at Crécy; nine years later he conducted a brutal raid across Languedoc; in 1356 he captured the king of France at Poitiers; as lord of Aquitaine he ruled a vast swathe of southwestern France. He was Edward of Woodstock, eldest son of Edward III, but better known to posterity as 'the Black Prince'. Michael Jones tells the remarkable story of a great warrior-prince – and paints an unforgettable portrait of warfare and chivalry in the late Middle Ages.

The Teutonic Knights were established to help the sick and injured in the Holy Land in a similar vein to the Knights Hospitaller. Once they were battle-tested in war, however, they were commissioned to be full-fledged fearsome warriors, fighting for the cause of Christendom. This audiobook follows the meteoric rise, climactic fall, and many years of rebirth undergone by the Teutonic Knights. From Jerusalem to the modern-day charitable organizations headed by the order, this audiobook covers the complete history of the Teutonic Knights in full.

The term Moor is a historical rather than an ethnic name. It is an invention of European Christians for the Islamic inhabitants of Maghreb (North Africa), Andalusia (Spain), Sicily and Malta, and was sometimes use to designate all Muslims. It is derived from Mauri, the Latin name for the Berbers who lived in the Roman province of Mauretania, which ranged across modern Algeria and Morocco. Saracen was another European term used to designate Muslims, though it usually referred to the Arabic peoples of the Middle East.

The lives of the sons of Eleanor of Aquitaine are the stuff of legend. Her daughters, however, are less well known, and the fascinating personalities of her daughters-in-law have been almost entirely overlooked, as have those of the daughters she bore Louis VII of France. The Families of Eleanor of Aquitaine redresses this balance and showcases the lives, travels, and careers of these ten very different women, who formed a great international network of political alliances that linked their parents, siblings, husbands, and children all across Europe and the Holy Land.

The journey of a young man’s determination to live out Jesus’ gospel of peace during one of Christianity’s darkest periods. Orphaned at age seven, Talen Enns vowed to complete the pilgrimage from France to Jerusalem that cost his parents their lives at the hands of Muslim Turks in the fall of 1083. Thirteen years later, his quest to fulfill the vow and discover why God spared his life unfolds in the shadow of Pope Urban II’s crusade to wrest the Holy Land from Muslim control. Believing the crusade to be an affront to Jesus’ gospel of peace, Talen wants no part of it. But when the ...

Viking Age Norway’s greatest king Harald Fairhair has unified the northern districts into a kingdom, but as he ages and his body weakens, so does his realm. To keep the kingdom from fracturing, Harald abdicates his high seat to the one son he believes capable enough - and vicious enough - to rule: Erik Bloodaxe. There is one problem. The other sons hate their brother and will not accept his kingship.

When Richard Fidler came across the account of Ibn Fadlan—a tenth-century Arab diplomat who travelled all the way from Baghdad to the cold riverlands of modern-day Russia—he was struck by how modern his voice was, like that of a 21st century time-traveller dropped into a medieval wilderness. On further investigation, Fidler discovered this was just one of countless reports from Arab and Persian travellers of their adventures in medieval China, India, Africa and Byzantium. Put together, he saw these stories formed a crazy quilt picture of a lost world.

Like the shinobi, more commonly known as the ninja, the assassin is yet another fabled figure with ancient roots that remains astonishingly relevant to this day. Assassins in the context of contemporary pop culture often conjure up images of brooding, silver-tongued individuals in peak physique, equipped with impeccable style, flawless marksmanship, and exemplary hand-to-hand combat skills.

Paul grows up in a typical village in England toward the end of the reign of Henry III. He plays in the medieval mud; he helps his doting mother to make and sell string; he befriends a basilisk. But when he is finally orphaned, Paul begins to wonder about the world outside Dundonnedon. Once he leaves home to find his fortune, Paul quickly learns that it takes more than he has to survive in ye big, olde world. He falls in with a traveling troupe of actors keeping a secret... meets a musical trio of meandering wastrels... waits tables at a family-friendly tavern in the angriest town in the ...

Slavery was widespread all over Europe during the early Middle Ages and Scandinavians, as Stefan Brink illustrates in this book, became a major player in the northern slave trade. Using a wide variety of source materials, including archaeology, runes, Icelandic sagas, early law, place names, personal names, and not least etymological and semantic analyses of the terminology of slaves, Thraldom provides the most comprehensive survey of slavery in the Viking Age.

What if 297 Years of History Never Happened? Prepare to question everything you thought you knew about the past. The Vanished Centuries: Unmasking the Phantom Time Conspiracy is an exploration of one of history’s most controversial theories—the claim that nearly three centuries were fabricated. From the rise of Charlemagne to the mysteries of the Dark Ages, this book takes you on a journey through time, uncovering the possibility that our timeline is a lie. A Theory That Shakes the Foundations of History The Phantom Time Hypothesis, proposed by German historian Heribert Illig, suggests ...

Lochlan de Atham is a young mage who serves as an acolyte to one of the four most powerful mages in the land, collectively known as "the graces." While initially considered to have virtually no talent, he soon learns he has a very special brand of magic, and one more thing that is unique to him, and that is the only thing that can save the world. This is a bit of a dark fantasy and does contain some violence, a very twisted and evil grandmaster, but no adult situations and very limited crude language. It is the first book in a five book series but can be read as a stand-alone, though some ...

In this classic of social history, the author describes the lives of six obscure men and women of the Middle Ages. She draws on account books, records, letters, diaries, and wills to make the life of those times as concrete and comprehensible as our own.

This remarkable collection contains some of William Shakespeare's most famous speeches, soliloquies, and sonnets, as performed by Sir John Gielgud, the preeminent Shakespearean actor of the 20th century. Ages of Man is a perfect introduction to Shakespeare for the uninitiated and a thrilling treat for aficionados.

A historical novel set in the early Middle Ages where the young Welsh Princess, Nesta Ferch Rhys, transforms from a naive young girl into a woman who cultivates and manipulates allies and uses her royal connections to achieve her ultimate goal of securing her family's place in history. Nesta was a consort to King Henry I, wife to Gerald of Pembroke and the captive-lover to Owain of Poweys. She is thought to be the original mother to the Tudor and Stuart Dynasties which Princess Diana and John F Kennedy are both descendants.

USA Today best-seller Tamara Leigh returns to the medieval Age of Faith series with a romance three years in the making: Sir Durand's tale.