Medieval History

For over two millennia in the West, familiarity with the literature, philosophy, and values of the Classical World has been synonymous with education itself. The traditions of the Greeks explain why Western Culture’s unique tenets of democracy, capitalism, civil liberty, and constitutional government are now sweeping the globe. Yet the general public in America knows less about its cultural origins than ever before, as Classical education rapidly disappears from our high school and university curricula.

Down swept the Vikings from the frigid North. Across the English coastlands and countryside they raided, torched, murdered, and destroyed all in their path. Farmers, monks, and soldiers all fell bloody under the Viking sword, hammer, and axe. Then, when the hour was most desperate, came an unlikely hero. King Alfred rallied the battered and bedraggled kingdoms of Britain and after decades of plotting, praying, and persisting, finally triumphed over the invaders.

From USA Today Bestselling Author May McGoldrick Two of their beloved Macpherson Clan novels in one volume for the first time… THE INTENDED A novel rich with love, intrigue, and ruthless ambition in the court of Henry VIII—the story of two Highlanders in a strange and hostile land… Jaime Macpherson learned the meaning of betrayal on the Isle of Skye when her beloved Malcolm MacLeod wed another woman to save his inheritance. Her dreams of happiness crushed, she sought refuge in the elegant palace of the Duke of Norfolk.There Jaime would find Malcolm again, a prisoner in the castle ...

Mongol leader Genghis Khan was by far the greatest conqueror the world has ever known. His empire stretched from the Pacific Ocean to Central Europe, including all of China, the Middle East, and Russia. So how did an illiterate nomad rise to such colossal power and subdue most of the known world, eclipsing Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Napoleon?

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.

Medieval knights were like armoured tanks in combat. They often made quick work of their enemies. They may not have realized it, but they owed their success to science. Learn how science helped medieval knights win victory!

"The Normans called them wild men..." 1070 AD: The English rebels in the north have sacked Jorvik and defied William the Conqueror. Now they must face the wrath of the brutal Norman king, bent on avenging the slaughter of his army. Meanwhile fresh revolts erupt all over England, from distant Northumbria to the borderlands of Wales. The war of the silvatici, outlaws and broken men of the forest, has begun. The tale of this bloody and brutal time is written by Thorkell Skaldsson, once a bard in the service of Waltheof, the last English earl. In old age, thousands of miles from England, he ...

Saints and spies, pirates and philosophers, artists and intellectuals: They all crisscrossed the grey North Sea in the so-called "dark ages", the years between the fall of the Roman Empire and the beginning of Europe's mastery over the oceans. Now the critically acclaimed Michael Pye reveals the cultural transformation sparked by those men and women: the ideas, technology, science, law, and moral codes that helped create our modern world.

Henry II had all the gifts of the gods. He was charismatic, clever, learned, empathetic, a brilliant tactician, with great physical strength and an astonishing self-belief. Henry was the creator of the Plantagenet dynasty of kings, who ruled through eight generations in command of vast lands in Britain and Europe. Virtually unbeaten in battle, and engaged in a ceaseless round of conquest and diplomacy, Henry forged an empire that matched Charlemagne's.

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 Byzantine Empire survived as a self-contained political entity longer than any other in the history of Christianity. This history by Charles Oman is a catalog of good, bad, and indifferent emperors who either pushed Byzantine Civilization to new heights or savagely drove it to defeat and dissolution. It is a strange tale populated by some of the most interesting men and women who have ever lived.

Brienna desires only two things: to master her passion and to be chosen by a patron. Growing up in Valenia at the renowned Magnalia House should have prepared her. While some are born with a talent for one of the five passions - art, music, dramatics, wit, and knowledge - Brienna struggled to find hers until she chose knowledge. However, Brienna's greatest fear comes true - she is left without a patron. But months later, her life takes an unexpected turn when a disgraced lord offers her patronage.

The story of Troy speaks to all of us - the kidnapping of Helen, a queen celebrated for her beauty, sees the Greeks launch a thousand ships against the city of Troy, to which they will lay siege for 10 whole and very bloody years. It is Zeus, the king of the gods, who triggers the war when he asks the Trojan prince Paris to judge the fairest goddess of them all. Aphrodite bribes Paris with the heart of Helen, wife of King Menelaus of the Greeks, and naturally, nature takes its course.

I must write this account, and when I have finished, I will burn it. Buried deep within the archives of a convent in medieval France is an untold story of love, loss, and wonder, and the two girls at the heart of it all. Dolssa is an upper-crust city girl with a secret lover and an uncanny gift. Branded a heretic, she’s on the run from the friar who condemned her mother to death by fire, and wants Dolssa executed, too. Botille is a matchmaker and a tavern-keeper, struggling to keep herself and her sisters on the right side of the law in their seaside town of Bajas.

TURTLE TORTOISE, IMAGE & SYMBOL is published here in two volumes Volume One: THE WEST and Volume Two: THE EAST, and each volume is divided into four books. The WEST series is presented as a chronological sequence and the EAST series as individual studies of specific cultures. Together they constitute an in-depth coverage of the image and symbol of the turtle/tortoise throughout the world from the earliest times. Reference is made to specific artifacts, documents and monuments, works of science, literature and art, which may be viewed or consulted today in museums and public places, ...

First published in 1864, this is a comprehensive history of the Holy Roman Empire by James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce, a British academic, jurist, historian, and politician.

In this indispensable volume, one of America's ranking scholars combines a life's work of research and teaching with the art of lively narration. Both authoritative and beautifully told, The Middle Ages is the full story of the thousand years between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance - a time that saw the rise of kings and emperors, the flowering of knighthood, the development of Europe, the increasing power of the Catholic Church, and the advent of the middle class.

The Wars of the Roses were a tumultuous period in English history, with family fighting family over the greatest prize in the kingdom—the throne of England. But what gave the eventual victor of these brutal and complex wars, Henry Tudor, the right to claim the crown? What made his Beaufort mother the great heiress of medieval England, and how exactly did an illegitimate line come to challenge the English monarchy? This book uncovers the rise of the Beauforts and tracks their fall during the 1460s and 1470s.

The Greek myths are amongst the greatest stories ever told, passed down through millennia and inspiring writers and artists as varied as Shakespeare, Michelangelo, James Joyce and Walt Disney. They are embedded deeply in the traditions, tales and cultural DNA of the West. You'll fall in love with Zeus, marvel at the birth of Athena, wince at Cronus and Gaia's revenge on Ouranos, weep with King Midas and hunt with the beautiful and ferocious Artemis.

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.