Medieval English

Paris, 1393. A masquerade ball at the palace ends in tragedy, with four revelers burned to death. Was it an accident...or did someone deliberately hurl a flaming torch at the dancers? Convinced it was an act of murder and that the king himself was the real target, Queen Isabeau has asked Christine de Pizan to spend time at court in an attempt to uncover the identity of the would-be assassin.

Ask of Old Paths, by Grace Hamman meditates upon strange and wonderful word-pictures and explanations of virtues and vices found in medieval traditions of poetry, sermons, and treatises long confined to dusty corners of the library. It focuses on the ancient tradition of virtue language called the Seven Capital Vices and their Virtue Remedies: pride and humility, envy and love, wrath and meekness, avarice and mercy, sloth and perseverance, gluttony and abstinence, lust and chastity.

London, 1308. “All I need is a plan!” So says Oswald of Harlech, a misplaced Welshman in the heart of London. Besides his trade as a tinker, he also robs houses, cuts purses, plays a crooked shell game, and has a way with the ladies. But this time, caught in the act of robbing a house, he is blackmailed by the scheming Keeper of the King’s Wardrobe into stealing the Crown Jewels from the impenetrable Tower of London.

Baldwin and Simon are at last back on English mainland, but on their way home, they are detained by a castellan who requires their help to solve two murders on the estate. The first victim is a widow, found dead with her two children. The second is Serlo, the miller, who has recently been discovered embezzling castle money taken in tolls. As Baldwin and Simon begin a double investigation, they must look beneath the village friendships and family loyalties to find an evil killer and secure Cardinham's safety.

Lady Juliana Kinthorpe is no longer the fanciful young woman who embraced the notions of romance and chivalry nurtured at Queen Eleanor's Court of Love. Wed to a desperately bitter man, she is forced to steal from the knight who betrayed her husband during the Holy Crusade. But even to save her sister, can she do the unthinkable? That which will cost her dignity, her heart, and perhaps her soul?

In the hours just before dawn, blasphemous curses echo throughout the stone manor. A knife clatters to the floor, and a feisty young widow is bound, blindfolded, and led to the marriage altar. The king couldn't possibly have sanctioned this farce of a marriage, could he? After all, she alone transformed a few mud huts and starving serfs into a flourishing town, never once hesitating to pay generous taxes to his royal kingdom.

In 13th century Europe, political turmoil is the order of the day and the Fool's Guild and its agents - jesters, jugglers, and knaves to a man - works behind the scenes to manipulate events, trying to maintain a balance of power. Theophilos, a member of the Guild known by many names, is still recovering from his last mission during which he was severely wounded and nearly lost his life but, in the person of Viola, found himself an apprentice and a wife. But there is no rest for the wicked.

It is the autumn of 1278. The harvest is in. The air is crisp. Dusty summer breathes a last sigh before the dark seasons arrive. For Prioress Eleanor, dark times arrive early in Norfolk. The head of her order, Abbess Isabeau, has sent Father Etienne Davoir from their headquarters in France to inspect all aspects of Tyndal Priory, from its morals to its roofs. Surely the abbess would not have chosen her own brother for this rare and thorough investigation unless the cause was serious and she had reason to fear intervention from Rome.

In 1384, a poor and illiterate peasant woman named Ermine moved to the city of Reims with her elderly husband. Her era was troubled by war, plague, and schism within the Catholic Church, and Ermine could easily have slipped unobserved through the cracks of history. After the loss of her husband, however, things took a remarkable but frightening turn. For the last 10 months of her life, Ermine was tormented by nightly visions of angels and demons.

Eighteen years old and four times a widow? This is the Penwyth Curse. Become acquainted with two sets of heroes and heroines as their stories overlap. History, romantic suspense, magic, and mayhem ensue.

As the autumn storms of 1271 ravage the East Anglian coast, Crowner Ralf finds the corpse of a brutally murdered soldier in the woods near Tyndal Priory. The dagger in the man’s chest is engraved with a strange cursive design, and the body is wrapped in a crusader’s cloak. Was this the act of a member of the Assassin sect, or was the weapon meant to mislead? Ralf’s decision to take the corpse to the priory for advice may be reasonable, but he is soon caught up in a maelstrom of conflict, both personal and political.

His mother and father lived and died carrying rocks. His grandparents too. Even his neighbor's carr...well, you get the idea. Gerard's future seems carved in the rock-strewn soil, condemning him to a life of the same. When an unexpected revelation leads to his unlikely freedom, Gerard takes the opportunity to dedicate himself to the thing he loves most: listening to live music.

Since losing his knighthood, Crispin Guest has crafted a new reputation for himself. From the shadowy corners of London to the halls of the royal court he is known as the Tracker, an investigator for hire who can find anyone or anything. But when the Archbishop of Canterbury hires him to expose the culprit threatening the sacred relics of a holy martyr, Crispin finds himself a stranger in an unfamiliar land.

Al-Andalus 998 AD. Galen and Alcuin have been taken prisoner by the Moors. Galen is a Moorish doctor’s latest project. Alcuin languishes in the dungeons, watching over the bishop, who is slowly being tortured to death for a treasure. Galen and Alcuin must learn how to survive in a strange new kingdom which is rapidly turning hostile towards Christians. Martyrdom, a life of slavery, or escape are their only options. But how can they escape when they have been separated?

Surrounded once again by harsh men with full knowledge of the shocking event that led to his banishment, Galen has only one person he can depend on. But Alcuin is being pulled away by family duty and a new obsession. Is it time for Galen to stop relying upon others and solve his own problems? Will Galen survive this dangerous new world and forge a safer future for himself and his friend?

The Devil Take You is an anthology of medieval horror comprising 14 tales set in the world Rome left behind. Join us in the plague-infested streets of London and the howling expanse of the Carpathian Steppes. Explore the once-hallowed halls of fortified monasteries and bear witness to the sacrilegious Vikings who would plunder them. From the macabre corpse collectors of Al-Waset to vicious highwaymen and their blasphemous secrets, The Devil Take You offers a delicious glimpse into the hellish world of the Middle Ages. In this audio, life is fleeting, but death is never slow.

They say Earth was a place of wonders where towers pierced the clouds, cities lit up the night, and flying machines streaked across the sky. It was magic. But the magic conjured the End War. Fire fell from the sky, and metal beasts leveled the cities. That was six hundred years ago. Now the ruins of the ancient world are buried or overgrown. And the technology of the past is feared as forbidden magic.

Almost two decades have passed since Regan and Calder’s saga began in If Not for the Knight. The Normans and the Saxons now co-exist, if not happily, at least peacefully. But dark clouds are forming and danger is coming for them once again. The Wyndym children are fast becoming adults and are following their own paths towards the future, some of those destinations will take them far from home and from the loving arms of their family.

Why do good things happen to bad people? Can we prove whether God exists? What is the difference between right and wrong? Medieval philosophers were centrally concerned with such questions, questions which are as relevant today as a thousand years ago when the likes of Anselm and Aquinas sought to resolve them. In this fast-paced and enlightening guide, Sharon M. Kaye takes us on a whistle-stop tour of medieval philosophy, revealing the debt it owes to Aristotle and Plato.

When Rose's father fails to come back from an attempt to save Princess Lily from the notorious and mysterious Black Knight, she does not hesitate to strap on her father's old armor, and ride into the dark forest to defeat the knight and rescue the princess herself.