Medieval History

Stanley Edward Lane-Poole (1854 - 1931) was a British orientalist and archaeologist. The Moors in Spain is a comprehensive history about the Moorish conquest and rule of the Iberian Peninsula, until the Spanish took back the land. It includes chapters on the last Visigothic kingdom, El Cid, and the fall of Granada.

From 1337 to 1453 England repeatedly invaded France on the pretext that her kings had a right to the French throne. Though it was a small, poor country, England for most of those "100 years" won the battles, sacked the towns and castles, and dominated the war. Desmond Seward's critically acclaimed account of the Hundred Years War brings to life all of the intrigue, beauty, and royal to-the-death-fighting of that legendary century-long conflict.

Thomas B. Costain's four-volume history of the Plantagenets begins with The Conquering Family and the conquest of England by William the Conqueror in 1066, closing with the reign of John in 1216. The troubled period after the Norman Conquest, when the foundations of government were hammered out between monarch and people, comes to life through Costain's storytelling skill and historical imagination.

Western exceptionalism - the idea that European civilizations are freer, wealthier, and less violent - is a widespread and powerful political idea. It has been a source of peace and prosperity in some societies, and of ethnic cleansing and havoc in others. Yet in The Invention of Power, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita draws on his expertise in political maneuvering, deal-making, and game theory to present a revolutionary new theory of Western exceptionalism: that a single, rarely discussed event in the 12th century changed the course of European and world history.

In prose as crystalline as his view to the Pyrenees on a clear day, Allman animates Lauzerte and its surrounding communities—Cahors, Moissac, Montauban—all ever in thrall to the magnetic impulse of Paris. Witness to so many dramas over the centuries, his house comes alive as a historical protagonist in its own right, from its wine-cellar cave to the roof where he wages futile battle with pigeons, to the life lessons it conveys. “The onward march of history, my House keeps demonstrating, never takes a rest,” he observes, pulling us vividly into his world.

Homer's Iliad is the famous epic poem set among the tales of Troy. Its subject is the anger of the hero Achilles and its consequences for the warring Greeks and Trojans. Unlike other books on the Iliad, this one combines the detailed expertise of a historian with the sensitivity of a teacher of it as poetry. Lane Fox goes on to consider hallmarks of the poem, its values, implicit and explicit, its characters, its women, its gods and even its horses. He argues repeatedly for its beautiful observation and addresses its parallel use of what is, to us, the natural world.

When Ashdyke Manor is attacked, Lady Christen is forced to witness her husband's murder and the pillaging of her lands at the hands of brutal Norman invaders. It seems the pain is finally over when Miles Le Gallois, Lord of Milnham-on-Wye, calls off the attack. But he has Christen's brother under armed guard and a deal to offer: her brother's freedom for her hand in marriage. Christen finds herself hastily married into the enemy side, with her brother swearing his vengeance on her new husband.

Di tutte le civiltà che esistevano nell'anno Mille, quella dell'Europa occidentale sembrava la peggior candidata per un futuro radioso. Paragonati agli imperi scintillanti di Bisanzio o dell'Islam, i regni frammentati affacciati sull'Atlantico sembravano poveri, impauriti e poco sviluppati. Ma l'anarchia di quegli anni non era il presagio per la fine del mondo, ma la fucina di un ordine radicalmente diverso.

Timothy Venning's exploration of the alternative paths that British history might easily have taken moves on to the Wars of the Roses. What if Richard of York had not given battle in vain? How would a victory for Warwick the Kingmaker at the Battle of Barnet changed the course of the struggle for power? What if the Princes had escaped from the tower or the Stanleys had not betrayed their king at Bosworth? These are just a few of the fascinating questions posed by this book.

King Henry V’s victory over the French armies at Agincourt on 25 October 1415 is unquestionably one of the most famous battles in history. From Shakespeare’s ‘band of brothers’ speech to its appearances in numerous films, Agincourt rightfully has a place among a handful of conflicts whose names are immediately recognized around the world. Agincourt provides a new look at this battle. Mike Livingston goes back to the original sources, including the French battle plan that still survives today, to give a new interpretation, one that challenges the traditional site of the battlefield itself.

The emperor Justinian reunified Rome's fractured empire by defeating the Goths and Vandals. At his capital in Constantinople, he built the world's most beautiful building, married the most powerful empress, and wrote the empire's most enduring legal code, seemingly restoring Rome's fortunes for the next five hundred years. Then, in the summer of 542, he encountered a flea. The ensuing outbreak of bubonic plague killed 5,000 people a day in Constantinople and nearly killed Justinian himself.

Drawing on the records of national and regional archives as well as archaeological remains, James Clark explores the little-known lives of the last men and women who lived in England's monasteries before the Reformation. Clark challenges received wisdom, showing that buildings were not immediately demolished and Henry VIII's subjects were so attached to the religious houses that they kept fixtures and fittings as souvenirs. This rich, vivid history brings back into focus the prominent place of abbeys, priories, and friaries in the lives of the English people.

Nowhere else in Britain in the modern era, or indeed in Europe, did civil order break down over such a wide area, or for such a long time, as on the border country between Scotland and England. For more than a century, the hoofbeats of countless raiding parties drummed over the border. From Dumfriesshire to the high wastes of East Cumbria, from Roxburghshire to Redesdale, from the lonely valley of Liddesdale to the fortress city of Carlisle, swords and spears spoke while the law remained silent

The bulk of the audiobook will deal with what Vlad’s political career looked like, what wars he waged, and how his life eventually ended. But we’ll go one step beyond and cover some areas that historians don’t typically focus on. In addition to raw facts, we’ll also focus on what Vlad III’s character was, what drove him forward, and what his chief traits might have been.

The Roman historian Tacitus was a successful politician who eventually became governor of the province of Asia. He is thought to have died around AD 120 and benefitted from the patronage of the Flavian emperors. The Histories, of which only just over four out of 14 books survive, covers the years following the assassination of the Emperor Nero: Rome was plunged into further civil war with the Year of the Four Emperors (AD 69), which culminated in the accession of Vespasian, the first of the Flavians.

In this vivid and alluring history, medievalist Anthony Bale invites listeners on an odyssey across the medieval world. Journeying alongside scholars, spies, and saints, from Western Europe to the Far East, the Antipodes and the ends of the earth, Bale provides indispensable information on the exchange rate between Bohemian ducats and Venetian groats, medieval cures for seasickness, and how to avoid extortionist tour guides and singing sirens.

In the time period between the fall of Rome and the spread of the Renaissance across the European continent, many of today's European nations were formed, the Catholic Church rose to great prominence, some of history's most famous wars occurred, and a social class system was instituted that lasted over 1,000 years.

Gregory the Great (bishop of Rome from 590 to 604) is one of the most significant figures in the history of Christianity. His theological works framed medieval Christian attitudes toward mysticism, exegesis, and the role of the saints in the life of the church. The scale of Gregory's administrative activity in both the ecclesial and civic affairs of Rome also helped to make possible the formation of the medieval papacy.

All effective debaters, whether they know it or not, employ Aristotle's 3 basic principles of effective argument that form the spine of Rhetoric. In Poetics, Aristotle draws a dramatic distinction between poetry and history. This collection also includes Aristotle's body of work that has come to be identified as Logic.

Making a much-anticipated return to the world of Hild, Nicola Griffith’s Menewood transports listeners back to seventh-century Britain, a land of rival kings and religions poised for epochal change. Hild is no longer the bright child who made a place in Edwin Overking’s court with her seemingly supernatural insight. She is eighteen, honed and tested, the formidable lady of Elmet, now building her personal stronghold in the valley of Menewood.