The Medieval Python

From the stories of wives and their lovers to those of kings and their conquests, to the overarching story of Shahrazad and Shahryar, the tales of the Arabian Nights have offered countless audiences entertainment and enjoyment as well as serving as cautionary stories. An outstanding piece of world literature, the Arabian Nights provide a lively and interesting way of exploring aspects of sexuality, romance, gender, culture, wealth, and politics. Looking at a wide range of the tales, David Ghanim offers a rigorous exploration of their profound sexuality: looking at both the context in which they were written and organised, as well as their legacy. By including accounts of heterosexuality, homosexuality, cuckoldry, insatiable lust, promiscuity, rape, incest, bestiality, demonic sexuality, and erotica, Ghanim highlights the complexity and dynamism of medieval sexuality, the active role of women in sexual activities, and the prevailing positive outlook on sexual liaison and gender mixing.

From the stories of wives and their lovers to those of kings and their conquests, to the overarching story of Shahrazad and Shahryar, the tales of the Arabian Nights have offered countless audiences entertainment and enjoyment as well as serving as cautionary stories. An outstanding piece of world literature, the Arabian Nights provide a lively and interesting way of exploring aspects of sexuality, romance, gender, culture, wealth, and politics. Looking at a wide range of the tales, David Ghanim offers a rigorous exploration of their profound sexuality: looking at both the context in which they were written and organised, as well as their legacy. By including accounts of heterosexuality, homosexuality, cuckoldry, insatiable lust, promiscuity, rape, incest, bestiality, demonic sexuality, and erotica, Ghanim highlights the complexity and dynamism of medieval sexuality, the active role of women in sexual activities, and the prevailing positive outlook on sexual liaison and gender mixing.

This groundbreaking study reveals the distinctive impact of apocalyptic ideas about time, evil and power on church and society in the Latin West, c.400–c.1050. Drawing on evidence from late antiquity, the Frankish kingdoms, Anglo-Saxon England, Spain and Byzantium and sociological models, James Palmer shows that apocalyptic thought was a more powerful part of mainstream political ideologies and religious reform than many historians believe. Moving beyond the standard 'Terrors of the Year 1000', The Apocalypse in the Early Middle Ages opens up broader perspectives on heresy, the Antichrist and Last World Emperor legends, chronography, and the relationship between eschatology and apocalypticism. In the process, it offers reassessments of the worlds of Augustine, Gregory of Tours, Bede, Charlemagne and the Ottonians, providing a wide-ranging and up-to-date survey of medieval apocalyptic thought. This is the first full-length English-language treatment of a fundamental and controversial pa

This groundbreaking study reveals the distinctive impact of apocalyptic ideas about time, evil and power on church and society in the Latin West, c.400–c.1050. Drawing on evidence from late antiquity, the Frankish kingdoms, Anglo-Saxon England, Spain and Byzantium and sociological models, James Palmer shows that apocalyptic thought was a more powerful part of mainstream political ideologies and religious reform than many historians believe. Moving beyond the standard 'Terrors of the Year 1000', The Apocalypse in the Early Middle Ages opens up broader perspectives on heresy, the Antichrist and Last World Emperor legends, chronography, and the relationship between eschatology and apocalypticism. In the process, it offers reassessments of the worlds of Augustine, Gregory of Tours, Bede, Charlemagne and the Ottonians, providing a wide-ranging and up-to-date survey of medieval apocalyptic thought. This is the first full-length English-language treatment of a fundamental and controversial pa

Is it possible to speak of western racism before the eighteenth century? The term 'racism' is normally only associated with theories, which first appeared in the eighteenth century, about inherent biological differences that made one group superior to another. In this book, however, leading historians argue that racism can be traced back to the attitudes of the ancient Greeks to their Persian enemies and that it was adopted, adjusted and re-formulated by Europeans right through until the dawn of the Enlightenment. From Greek teachings on environmental determinism and heredity, through medieval concepts of physiognomy, down to the crystallization of attitudes to Indians, Blacks, Jews and Gypsies in the early modern era, they analyse the various routes by which racist ideas travelled before maturing into murderous ideologies in the modern western world. In so doing this book offers a major reassessment of the place of racism in pre-modern European thought.

Is it possible to speak of western racism before the eighteenth century? The term 'racism' is normally only associated with theories, which first appeared in the eighteenth century, about inherent biological differences that made one group superior to another. In this book, however, leading historians argue that racism can be traced back to the attitudes of the ancient Greeks to their Persian enemies and that it was adopted, adjusted and re-formulated by Europeans right through until the dawn of the Enlightenment. From Greek teachings on environmental determinism and heredity, through medieval concepts of physiognomy, down to the crystallization of attitudes to Indians, Blacks, Jews and Gypsies in the early modern era, they analyse the various routes by which racist ideas travelled before maturing into murderous ideologies in the modern western world. In so doing this book offers a major reassessment of the place of racism in pre-modern European thought.

This book considers medieval texts that deal with ancient theater as documents of Latin Christianity's intellectual history. As an exercise in medieval historiography, this study also examines biases

An important twelfth-century treatise on algebra by medieval India's greatest mathematician, first published in English translation in 1813.

In an irreverent new series in the tradition of Monty Python, the bestselling authors of the Iron Druid Chronicles and Star Wars: Phasma reinvent fantasy, fairy tales, and floridly written feast

Nine new studies address the phenomenon of the medieval pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, the legendary burying place of St. James.

In this companion to the two-volume Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library translation of The Histories by Laonikos Chalkokondyles, Anthony Kaldellis explores the ethnic dynamics that undergird the Histories

edited by Kenneth Varty Reynard the Fox and his confrontations with other named animals were a common feature of Latin and vernacular Beast Epics throughout the medieval period.

The establishment of permanent embassies in fifteenth-century Italy has traditionally been regarded as the moment of transition between medieval and modern diplomacy. In The Refugee-Diplomat, Diego Pi

This volume, originally published in 1990, delineates the transition Descartes effects from a prevalent medieval conception of understanding to a modern conception of it. Through the examination of th

The manuscript known as the Hungarian Angevin Legendary, made for Hungarian royal patrons, is an extraordinary relic of medieval book illumination. Dispersed in four countries and six collections, the

This book recounts the remarkable history of efforts by significant medieval thinkers to accommodate the ontology of the Trinity within the framework of Aristotelian logic and ontology. These efforts

The contradictions and compromises of this legendary order of soldiers are illuminated in this revealing look at an often idealized Medieval institution, featuring details of the fanaticism and perver

Drawing on myth, religious beliefs, and a revealing selection of iconography from the Paleolithic Venus of Willendorf and ancient Egyptian images of Isis to medieval Madonnas and contemporary visions

Legend and myth surround the Order of the Temple, the first military-religious order of the Western Church, even seven centuries after it was officially destroyed. British medieval historian Ralls off

Twelve year old Amanda Ross finds herself on an elegant riverboat with her bestie, Leah, cruising down the beautiful Danube, passing medieval castles, luscious green valleys and charming villages. Whe

Not every crusader went south. Sometimes they went north. Here Fonnesberg-Schmidt (medieval history, Aalborg U., Denmark) describes the crusades against the Slavs initiated by Eugenius III in 1147 whi

In this groundbreaking critique of both traditional and Marxist notions of feudalism and of the pre-capitalist state, John Haldon considers the configuration of state and social relations in medieval

The thought and career of 19 medievalists, some of whom are very well known figures in medieval history, philology, and literature Ernst Kantorowicz, Franois Louis Ganshof, Georges Duby, Marc Bloch, a

From a legendary translator: a magnificent new rendering of Spain's national epicVenture into the heart of Islamic Spain in this vibrant, rollicking new translation of The Song of the Cid, the only surviving epic from medieval Spain. Banished from the court of King Alfonso, the noble warrior Rodrigo Diaz, know as the Cid, sets out from Castile to restore his name. In a series of battles, he earns wealth and honor for his men and his king, as well as fame and admiration for himself. But it is in rescuing his daughters from their ill-suited marriages that the Cid faces the ultimate challenge to the medieval heroic ideal.

Emerging from the confluence of Greco-Roman mythology and regional folklore, the mermaid has been an enduring motif in Western culture since the medieval period. It has also been disseminated more wid

This volume presents two complementary medieval anthologies containing lyrics by two outstanding Latin poets of the second half of the twelfth century. The poet Peter of Blois was proclaimed by a cont

The Crusades as seen through the eyes of Muslims A SIGNIFICANT CONTRIBUTION to the understanding of the medieval holy wars between Christians and Muslims, this volume brings together the best and most

Although they looked like typical medieval knights, they were also monks who took vows of chastity, poverty and obedience. These were the members of the Knights Templars, a group of French aristocrats

John the Fearless, second Duke of Burgundy, is one of the more dramatic and puzzling characters among medieval rulers. He inherited the newly created duchy from his father, and defended and developed

In this volume, the proceedings of the 2nd Trinity Medieval Ireland Symposium (marking the 700th anniversary of the invasion of Ireland by Edward, brother of King Robert Bruce of Scotland), a host of

The ruins, history, and preservation of the medieval Italian town of Ninfa are documented in this stunning photographic collection. About an hour’s drive south of Rome, on the Pontinian Plain at the f

The Vulgate Bible, compiled and translated in large part by Saint Jerome at the turn of the fifth century CE, was used continuously from early medieval times through the twentieth century in the Weste

When the council that controlled the world-spanning computer Mother fell out in civil war, it plunged the world in an instant from high-tech utopia to medieval nightmare. Now Herzer Herrick and Megan

When the council that controlled the world spanning computer Mother fell out in civil war, it plunged the world in an instant from high-tech utopia to medieval nightmare. Now Herzer Herrick and Megan

In this volume, one of the greatest medieval historians of our time continues his rich and illuminating inquiry into the lives of twelfth-century women. Georges Duby bases his account on a twelfth-cen

A vivid study of the history of the Iberian Jews follows the lives, fortunes, and influence of the Sephardic Jews from their golden age in medieval Spain through their expulsion and their odyssey thro

Whereas modern societies tend to banish the dead from the world of the living, medieval men and women accorded them a vital role in the community. The saints counted most prominently as potential inte

The Cathars and the Albigensian Crusade brings together a rich and diverse range of medieval sources to examine key aspects of the growth of heresy and dissent in southern France in the twelfth and th

The Cathars and the Albigensian Crusade brings together a rich and diverse range of medieval sources to examine key aspects of the growth of heresy and dissent in southern France in the twelfth and th

One of the most important works of Indian narrative fiction, passed down orally through the centuries and first recorded in medieval times, The Five-and-Twenty Tales of the Genie has at its center the