Medieval English

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.

The Argonautica, also known as Jason and the Golden Fleece or Jason and the Argonauts, is the only surviving epic poem from Hellenistic Greece. It is a masterpiece whose story was well known to the audiences of the time. Virgil and other later poets were greatly influenced by it. Its author, Apollonius, was a well-known third century BC scholar living in Alexandria during the great age of Ptolomaic scholarship, and his bold attempt at writing a Homeric epic about Jason and his quest for the Golden Fleece faced a daunting audience of knowledgeable contemporaries.

In the aftermath of Prince Rhun's death, King Owain and King Madog agreed their children should marry as a way to seal the peace between them. Two years later, the wedding date has finally arrived, though relations between the two kingdoms have improved only to the extent that they aren't actually at war.

August 1148. The wedding of Godfrid and Cait promises to be the event of the year, and even Gwen has made the journey across the Irish Sea to celebrate. Weddings can be moments around which tensions and resentments pivot, however, so when a monk turns up dead within moments of Gareth and Gwen's arrival in Ireland, the pair put on their sleuthing hats and get to work, racing to solve the mystery before it ruins Godfrid's big day.

May 1148. All Dublin is shocked by the murder of a prominent merchant, but only Prince Godfrid knows that the dead man was also a co-conspirator in his brother's plan to take the throne of Dublin. With death stalking his every move, Godfrid must call upon new friends and old to find the killer--and with their help uncover a conspiracy stretching beyond Dublin's walls to every kingdom in Ireland.

Commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature, Beowulf is an epic poem that traces the exploits of the titular hero. After coming to the aid of the king of the Danes, whose mead hall is under constant attack by the monster Grendel, Beowulf slays Grendel's mother and goes on to become the king of the Geats.

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.

Pisa, May 1364. Sir William Gold is looking forward to a lucrative career as a hired sword in the endless warring between Italy's city states. But when a message comes from the Grand Master of the Hospitaliers, William is forced to leave his dreams of fame and fortune behind him. The Hospitaliers are gathering men for a crusade, and Sir William must join them. Yet before they set out for the holy land, the knights face deadly adversaries much closer to home. In the twisting politics of Italy, no one can be trusted. And there are those who would be pleased to see the crusade fail.

When assassin Rafe Fletcher returns home to London, he can’t help falling for his brother’s woman. For a man looking for redemption, it’s the last thing he wants. Lizzie Croft has feared her friend’s brooding brother for years. She remembers him as cold, calculating and dangerous, the very last man she needs in her life. The very last man she can trust. But trust him she must when she becomes the prime suspect in a murder.

In this gripping story about the first wave of the plague, I Survived fans will travel to medieval England—a time of knights and peasants; cathedrals and castles—when the most deadly disease in world history sweeps across Europe and parts of Asia and Africa. New York Times bestselling author Lauren Tarshis tells the story of how one girl finds incredible hope amid illness and grief.

1589. Scottish housemaid Geillis and Danish courtier Margareta lead opposite lives, but they both know one thing: when a man cries “witch”, no woman is safe. Yet when the marriage of King James VI and Princess Anna of Denmark brings Geillis and Margareta together, everything they supposed about good, evil, men, and women, is cast in a strange and brilliant new light. For the first time in history, could black magic – or rumours of it – be a very real tool for women’s political gain?

Danger stalks across the surface. Tension and panic rise within the clan as whispers of a massive raider army of a size never before heard of, rallying together. They plan a grand crusade to sweep across the white wastes, eliminating any who stand in their way. Their numbers are legion, their power and resources near limitless. And their course is set to cross the clan.

The Saint of War spares the life of a servant girl so she can fulfill her destiny as the kingdom’s greatest warrior in this short story of love and loyalty by New York Times bestselling author Alix E. Harrow.

Fenella Thane is a desperate woman. Her absentee husband of eight years has served her with divorce papers, and she looks likely to lose her beloved home and be forced into a convent. There is just one slim chance to avoid this fate, one person of prominence at court who she knows has the ear of the King. Oswald Vawdrey, the man who cruelly jilted her when she was a starry-eyed 15-year-old with a head full of romantic dreams.

The Odyssey is the greatest adventure story ever written, and one of the great epic masterpieces of Western literature For almost 3,000 years, it has been a storehouse of ancient Greek folklore and myth. It is also our very first novel, if we think of it in terms of romantic plot development, realistic characterizations, frequent change of scene, and heroic dramatic devices.

1599 was an epochal year for Shakespeare and England. During that year, Shakespeare wrote four of his most famous plays: Henry the Fifth, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and, most remarkably, Hamlet; Elizabethans sent off an army to crush an Irish rebellion, weathered an Armada threat from Spain, gambled on a fledgling East India Company, and waited to see who would succeed their aging and childless queen.

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.

Three years after the Essex Dogs battled through the Siege of Calais, the Black Death has torn through Europe. Romford, basking in his new riches, now finds himself living as a knight errant. Loveday, whose businesses have been destroyed by the plague, must return to the life he vowed to abandon: fighting. And Millstone and Thorp enlist themselves on a deadly mission to escort a princess to Castille.

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!

Scotland, 1026 - Gruoch, descendant of the line of MacAlpin, should have been born into a life of ease. But fate is fickle. Her father's untimely death, rumored to have been plotted by King Malcolm, leaves her future uncertain and stained by the prophecy that she will avenge her family line. Escaping to one of the last strongholds of the old Celtic gods, Gruoch becomes an adept in arcane craft. Her encounters with the otherworld, however, suggest that magic runs stronger in Scotland than she ever imagined.