Mention 'Medieval Knights' and people may think of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table. But these warriors weren't just heroes from fables and legend. They were real men who strapped themse
Mention 'Medieval Knights' and people may think of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table. But these warriors weren't just heroes from fables and legend. They were real men who strapped themse
Who was the first Roman emperor? What country had Andriantsimitoviaminandriana as its king? Who succeeded Harald Bluetooth? From Horus Aha, first king of Egypt, to Abd Allah II, present king of Jordan
Dissolving Royal Marriages adopts a unique chronological and geographical perspective to present a comparative overview of royal divorce cases from the Middle Ages through to the Reformation period. Drawing from original translations of key source documents, the book sheds new light on some of the most prominent and elite divorce proceedings in Western history, including Henry VIII's divorce from Catherine of Aragon. The comprehensive commentary that accompanies these materials allows readers to grasp, for the first time, how the constructs of canon law helped shape the legal arguments on which specific cases were founded, and better understand the events that actually unfolded in the courtrooms. In his case-by-case exploration of elaborate witness statements, extensive legal negotiations and political wrangling, d'Avray shows us how little the canonical law for the dissolution of marriage changed over time in this fascinating new study of Church-state relations and papal power over pr
"Aristocratic dynasties have long been regarded as fundamental to the development of early modern society and government. Yet recent work by political historians has increasingly questioned the domina
Published over forty years ago, the original edition of Titled Elizabethans provided a ready reference source to Elizabethan court, state, and household. This long-awaited revised edition expands cons
Dissolving Royal Marriages adopts a unique chronological and geographical perspective to present a comparative overview of royal divorce cases from the Middle Ages through to the Reformation period. Drawing from original translations of key source documents, the book sheds new light on some of the most prominent and elite divorce proceedings in Western history, including Henry VIII's divorce from Catherine of Aragon. The comprehensive commentary that accompanies these materials allows readers to grasp, for the first time, how the constructs of canon law helped shape the legal arguments on which specific cases were founded, and better understand the events that actually unfolded in the courtrooms. In his case-by-case exploration of elaborate witness statements, extensive legal negotiations and political wrangling, d'Avray shows us how little the canonical law for the dissolution of marriage changed over time in this fascinating new study of Church-state relations and papal power over pr
“The beautiful owner of this book is dearer to me than my life – August your protector.” This one sentence was the key to a mystery involving some of the greatest and most infamous figures in European
The union of the two royal houses - the Habsburgs and the Bourbons - in the early seventeenth century illustrates the extent to which marriage was a tool of government in Renaissance Europe, and festi
A new edition of Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan's memoir—the story of the "real" Lady Grantham of Downton Abbey Consuelo Vanderbilt was young, beautiful, and heir to a vast fortune. She was also in love w
"It's a nice piece of pageantry. . . . Rationally it's lunatic, but in practice, everyone enjoys it, I think."—HRH Prince Philip, Duke of EdinburghFounded by Edward III in 1348, the Most Noble Order o
The practice of feuding amongst noblemen and princes represented a substantial threat to law and order, yet it was widely accepted and deeply embedded in late medieval and early modern German society. Hillay Zmora offers a new interpretation of this violent social practice, which has long confounded historians and social scientists. His groundbreaking study explains feud violence in its social context, demonstrating that, paradoxically, nobles feuded mostly not against strangers but with neighbours, relatives and their feudal lords. Focusing on the ambivalent relationships and symbolic communication between nobles, this study explores how values, norms and moral sentiments linked to reciprocity provided the most powerful incentives to engage in violent conflict. It will be essential reading for historians, anthropologists, psychologists and anyone who seeks to understand the link between culture, moral systems and endemic violence.
Barbara Frale gives us an explosive, exhaustively researched history of the medieval world’s most powerful military order, the Templars. At its height, the Order of the Knights Templar rivaled the kin
In the spring of 1956, Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire, youngest of the six legendary Mitford sisters, invited the writer and war hero Patrick Leigh Fermor to visit Lismore Castle, the Devonshires' hou
Since its purchase in 1604 by Thomas Sackville, first Earl of Dorset, the house at Knole, Kent, has been inhabited by thirteen generations of a single aristocratic family, the Sackvilles. Here, drawi
History is not created in a vacuum, and no leader comes to power without influences from the past and an impact on the future. In this look at ten royals, beginning with Queen Hatshepsut of Egypt and
`Sheds considerable new light on the nature, development and functions of the orders in a key phase of their history, and goes a long way to explaining how such archaic institutions could flourish in
Since the early Middle Ages, the Royal and princely families of Europe have conferred a wide range of Orders of Knighthood and Chivalry both to reward loyal service to the Crown or Royal Family and to
