Medieval Life

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.

The 15th century Romanian Prince Vlad III Dracula, also known as Vlad the Impaler, is one of the most fascinating personalities of medieval history. Already during his own lifetime, his true story became obscured by a veil of myths. As a result, he has been portrayed both as a bloody tyrant - who degenerated down throughout the centuries into the fictional vampire of the same name created by Bram Stoker at the end of the 19th century - and as a national and Christian hero who bravely fought to defend his native land and all of Europe against the invading Turkish infidels.

What was life really like for women in the medieval period? How did they think about sex, death and God? Could they live independent lives? And how can we hear the stories of women from this period?

William Butler Yeats remains one of the most popular poets of the 20th century.

"The Lake Isle of Innisfree," "He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven," "Down by the Salley Gardens," "The Secret Rose": these are just a few of the poems that made William Butler Yeats an international figure. Born in Dublin in 1865, Yeats drew strength from the Irish tradition, as can be seen in this special audiobook, which presents the most important poems in the context of his life and ambitions.

This is a story of the days of chivalry in England and of young Myles Falworth, son of a lord unjustly disgraced for treason, who was forced to make his fortune as best he might in the days when men seemed made of iron. How he entered the service of a powerful lord, rose to knighthood, defeated his father's old enemy in thrilling combat, and at last won the friendship of the king is told against a background of the dangerous times of the 14th century that makes them live again.

Orphaned Matilda is not at all pleased when she arrives at Blood and Bone Alley to become an assistant to Red Peg the Bonesetter. She is a religious, well-educated girl who can't picture herself doing dirty chores or helping sickly patients. Each day is very different from her former quiet life. Matilda's not used to being around so many people who are coming and going, laughing and eating. Not one of them seems interested in prayer or study.

Long ago and far away...There was a castle. But not just any castle. This was a castle that glittered and sparkled and rose majestically above the banks of the winding Winono River: the Castle Corona.

Lady Sabine harbors a skin blemish that, if revealed, could cause her to be branded as a witch, put her life in danger, and damage her chances of making a good marriage. Sir Bennet is returning home to protect his family from an imminent attack by neighboring lords who seek repayment of debts. Without fortune or means to pay those debts, Sir Bennet realizes his only option is to make a marriage match with a wealthy noblewoman. As a man of honor, he loathes the idea of courting a woman for her money, but with time running out for his family’s safety, what other choice does he have?

The exemplary life of a noble soldier/statesman, a description of ancient Germany, and a discussion of oratory are the subjects of three short masterpieces by the brilliant Roman historian, Tacitus.

Medieval history is often written as a series of battles and territorial shifts. But the essential contributions of women during this period have been too often relegated to the dustbin of history. In Women in the Middle Ages, Frances and Joseph Gies reclaim this lost history, in a lively historical survey that charts the evolution of women’s roles throughout the period and profiles eight individual women in depth.

The motherless child of an English priest living in ninth-century Mainz, Agnes is a wild and brilliant girl with a deep, visceral love of God. At eighteen, to avoid a future as a wife or nun, Agnes enlists the help of a lovesick Benedictine monk to disguise herself as a man and secure a place at the revered Fulda monastery. So begins the life of John the Englishman: a matchless scholar and scribe of Fulda, then a charismatic heretic in an Athens commune and, by her middle years, a celebrated teacher in Rome.

Many scholars argue that Vlad III Dracula, also known as Vlad the Impaler, is the real Dracula. His story, however, is much more complicated than the oft-reported details of his atrocities would imply. This audiobook tells the story of his life and times and discusses his connection to the fictional Count Dracula in a succinct, compelling manner, which makes for an entertaining listen packed with historical information.

During the Black Death in the 14th century, plague doctors wore creepy beaked masks filled with herbs. RIGHT? WRONG! Those masks were from a plague outbreak centuries later—and most doctors never wore anything like that at all!

Adored by her parents and pampered by the court, the infant Princess Mary’s life changes suddenly and drastically when her father’s eye is taken by the enigmatic Anne Boleyn. Mary stands firm against her father’s determination to destroy both her mother’s reputation and the Catholic church. It is a battle that will last throughout both her father’s and her brother’s reign, until she is almost broken by persecution.

A historical and theological journey through one of the most transcendental dogmas of Catholic Christianity, so that with a simple and detailed language the reader can immerse himself in the interior of this disturbing belief that for centuries has questioned all of humanity about the end of man.

Virgil's Georgics ranks as one of the most precious pastoral poems ever written, and it has served as a model for its type ever since. Georgics means "of or relating to agriculture or rural life" and it comes from the Greek word, "georgicus". Virgil's main theme in this, his second great work after The Eclogues, was the importance of peace both in the spiritual and physical sense.

Sixteen hundred years ago, Britain left the Roman Empire and swiftly fell into ruin. Grand cities and luxurious villas were deserted and left to crumble, and civil society collapsed into chaos. Into this violent and unstable world came foreign invaders from across the sea and established themselves as its new masters. The Anglo-Saxons traces the turbulent history of these people across the next six centuries. It explains how their earliest rulers fought relentlessly against each other for glory and supremacy and then were almost destroyed by the onslaught of the Vikings.

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.

Plutarch’s series of biographies was the first of its kind, as much ground breaking in conception as Herodotus was with his Histories. Plutarch looked at the great men of the Ancient World and told their stories, in many cases drawing on sources no longer available to us. They offer a unique insight into the characters as well as the achievements of men who influenced their age and the empires that their culture dominated. They are as accessible now as they were when they were first written.is the companion volume to Roman Lives.

A master world-builder skilled at creating suspenseful prose, Acacia Lawson's first book, My Past Lives And How They Came Back to Haunt Me, is an epic multi-period piece based on her soul's journey into past lifetime regression; recounting beautiful (and oftentimes raw) realities, and delivered through the eyes of 10 independent characters, each coming to the end of their life, with a pulse-pounding 24 hours left to live. From a savage Mongolian warlord who is outsmarted by a clever witch to a fantasy Priestess who summons storms to stop enemy soldiers from landing on the beach and killing ...