The Medieval Python

At the dawn of the twentieth century Henry Adams proclaimed that the machine was as central to our modem American culture as the Virgin was to medieval culture. We worshiped in our factories as our an

A book lover today might sometimes feel like the fictional medieval friar William of Baskerville in Eco’s The Name of the Rose, watching the written word become lost to time. In This Is Not the End of

The Mary Play is a beautiful and engaging piece of late medieval stagecraft. It is rich in music and spectacle and is the only English play which deals with Mary's parents and her early life; the only

For a young woman in medieval Russia, the choices are stark: marriage or a life in a convent. Vasya will choose a third way: magic... The court of the Grand Prince of Moscow is plagued by power strugg

Whilst Richard I is one of medieval England’s most famous kings he is also the most controversial. He has variously been considered a great warrior but a poor king, a man driven by the quest for

The King of the World is volume one of Wallace Wood's long out-of-print graphic novel trilogy. Wood tells the story of the Immi, a medieval society of elves, who live happily deep in the forest comple

The Briennes were a highly important aristocratic family who hailed from the Champagne region of north-eastern France, but whose reach and impact extended across Europe and into the Crusader States in the Middle East. It is a highly dramatic and wide-ranging story of medieval mobility, not only up and down the social ladder, but in geographical terms as well. Although the Briennes were one of the great dynasties of the central Middle Ages, this book represents the first comprehensive history of the family. Taking the form of parallel biographies and arranged broadly chronologically, it explores not only their rise, glory and fall, but also how they helped to shape the very nature of the emerging European state system. This book will appeal to students and scholars of medieval France, the Mediterranean world, the Crusades and the central Middle Ages.

Robin Blackburn traces European doctrines of race and slavery from medieval times to the early modern epoch.

M. R. James (1862–1936) is probably best remembered as a writer of chilling ghost stories, but he was an outstanding scholar of medieval literature and palaeography, who served both as Provost of King's College, Cambridge, and as Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, and many of his stories reflect his academic background. His detailed descriptive catalogues of manuscripts owned by colleges, cathedrals and museums are still of value to scholars today. This book, first published in 1900, lists about six hundred medieval manuscripts in the library at Lambeth Palace, most of them collected by Archbishop Bancroft (d. 1610). These were sent to Cambridge University Library during Cromwell's Protectorate, and returned to Lambeth Palace at the Restoration. Referring to several early inventories, James succeeds in tracing the ownership of many of the manuscripts back to English monastic houses dissolved at the Reformation including Durham Priory, Lanthony (near Gloucester), and Ely.

In this book, Phillip Lieberman revisits one of the foundational narratives of medieval Jewish history―that the rise of Islam led the Jews of Babylonia, the largest Jewish community prior to the rise of Islam, to abandon a livelihood based on agriculture and move into urban crafts and long-distance trade. Here, he presents an alternative account that reveals the complexity of interfaith relations in early Islam. Using Jewish and Islamic chronicles, legal materials, and the rich documentary evidence of the Cairo Geniza, Lieberman demonstrates that Jews initially remained on the rural periphery after the Islamic conquest of Iraq. Gradually, they assimilated to an emerging Islamicate identity as the new religion took shape, sapping towns and villages of their strength. Simultaneously, a small, elite group of merchants and communal leaders migrated westward. Lieberman here explores their formative influence on the Jewish communities of the southern Mediterranean that flourished under Isla

This study examines the significance of the influential High Church 'Hackney Phalanx' at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and opens up a little-explored area of Anglican history. Drawing extensively upon original correspondence, Elizabeth Varley reconstructs the work of the Hackney Phalanx and their defence of traditional Anglican ascendancy against the forces of political and religious reform during the final crisis of the English confessional state. The study focuses upon William Van Mildert, Bishop of Durham from 1826–36, and shows that, while Van Mildert's influence as 'Prince Bishop' bore little resemblance to his medieval forebears, he made effective use of it to cause considerable irritation to the Whig establishment of the day, local and national. Varley brings skilfully to life many of the tensions of that time - political and ecclesiastical - which culminated in the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829 and the passing of the Parliamentary Reform Bill in 1832.

This study examines the significance of the influential High Church 'Hackney Phalanx' at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and opens up a little-explored area of Anglican history. Drawing extensively upon original correspondence, Elizabeth Varley reconstructs the work of the Hackney Phalanx and their defence of traditional Anglican ascendancy against the forces of political and religious reform during the final crisis of the English confessional state. The study focuses upon William Van Mildert, Bishop of Durham from 1826–36, and shows that, while Van Mildert's influence as 'Prince Bishop' bore little resemblance to his medieval forebears, he made effective use of it to cause considerable irritation to the Whig establishment of the day, local and national. Varley brings skilfully to life many of the tensions of that time - political and ecclesiastical - which culminated in the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829 and the passing of the Parliamentary Reform Bill in 1832.

Before the inspired nonsense of Monty Python, David Letterman and the Far Side, there were Droodles. With a few squiggles in a simple square, these clever drawings created absurd scenes like "Ship arr

With the appearance of the demonic Christmas character Krampus in contemporary Hollywood movies, television shows, advertisements, and greeting cards, medieval folklore has now been revisited in Ameri

The privileged Muslim bodyguard employed by Castilian kings provides a fascinating episode of Muslim-Christian relations in late Medieval Spain, where frontier ideals triumphed. Conversion and assimil

Tells the story of Judaism from the Medieval ghettos through the Enlightenment to the tragedy of the Holocaust and the birth of modern Israel, with over 250 illustrations.

A specialist on the medieval Mongols and the Yuan Dynasty of China, Rachewiltz (culture, history, and language; Australian National U.) begins this supplemental volume by describing the additions and

This concise, entertaining overview of angels according to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam will appeal to readers who are interested in ancient, medieval, and Renaissance history and theology, as wel

All participants in late medieval debates recognized Holy Scripture as the principal authority in matters of Catholic doctrine. Popes, theologians, lawyers—all were bound by the divine truth it convey

In this prize-winning book for historical and cultural studies in Andalusia, Arsuaga (medieval history, U. de Educacion a Distancia, Madrid, Spain) examines the construction of the social identity of

When the traditional medieval chronicle of the papacy Liber pontificalis discontinued in 1431, Bartolomeo Platina (1421-81) was one of several writers who attempted to treat the papacy within the cont

A stimulating contribution to the field of Anglo-Saxon studies. MEDIEVAL ARCHAEOLOGY A mind-stretching read. NOTES AND QUERIES The papers contained in this volume, by leading researchers in the field,

A mathematician’s ten-year quest to tell Fibonacci’s storyIn 2000, Keith Devlin set out to research the life and legacy of the medieval mathematician Leonardo of Pisa, popularly known as Fibonacci, wh

This intriguing book tells the story of England’s great medieval Angevin dynasty in an entirely new way. Departing from the usual king-centric narrative, Richard Huscroft instead centers each of

This intriguing book tells the story of England’s great medieval Angevin dynasty in an entirely new way. Departing from the usual king-centric narrative, Richard Huscroft instead centers each of his c

In The Trial of Galileo the new science, as brilliantly propounded by Galileo Galilei, collides with the elegant cosmology of Aristotle, Aquinas, and medieval Scholasticism. The game is set in Rome in

Medieval civilization came of age in thunderous events like the Norman Conquest and the First Crusade. Power fell into the hands of men who imposed coercive new lordships in quest of nobility. Rethink

Medieval civilization came of age in thunderous events like the Norman Conquest and the First Crusade. Power fell into the hands of men around castles who imposed coercive new lordships in quest of n

Most studies on medieval courts focus on those of kings. This meticulous study examines instead the small court of the duchy of Guelders in the Low Countries which was overshadowed then, and still is

The sun and the moon, or the "luminaries," were a motif that ran through late medieval and early modern English culture. Roos (history, U. of Minnesota) examines depictions of the luminaries as a way

The transformation of the medieval European image of the world in the period following the Great Discoveries of the 15th and 16th centuries is the subject of this volume. The first studies deal specif

There are many editions of the writings of St. Francis, and biographies about him, but here in one volume are both, plus the complete text of the late medieval work, The Little Flowers, which did more

The barbarian law codes, compiled between the sixth and eighth centuries, were copied remarkably frequently in the Carolingian ninth century. They provide crucial evidence for early medieval society, including the settlement of disputes, the nature of political authority, literacy, and the construction of ethnic identities. Yet it has proved extremely difficult to establish why the codes were copied in the ninth century, how they were read, and how their rich evidence should be used. Thomas Faulkner tackles these questions more systematically than ever before, proposing new understandings of the relationship between the making of law and royal power, and the reading of law and the maintenance of ethnic identities. Faulkner suggests major reinterpretations of central texts, including the Carolingian law codes, the capitularies adding to the laws, and Carolingian revisions of earlier barbarian and Roman laws. He also provides detailed analysis of legal manuscripts, especially those assoc

This book, first published in 2000, discusses the attitudes towards Anglo-Saxons expressed by English poets, playwrights and novelists from the thirteenth century to the present day. The essays are arranged chronologically, tracing literary responses to the Anglo-Saxons in the medieval period, the Renaissance and also the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In earlier centuries the Ango-Saxons were often idealized representatives of happier times. Later, they became the epitome of a 'British' race, while an individual Anglo-Saxon, King Alfred, was inflated into a national hero. A final essay suggests the disappearance of any clear sense of the cultural roots of the English in the twentieth century. The contributors, who are specialists in their respective fields from Britain and the United States, draw on works that have frequently been ignored or overlooked. They address topical issues such as nationalism, cultural identity, myth, gender and contextualization.

A comprehensive account of the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 examines the end of the Byzantine Empire and of the medieval era in light of the rise of two separate worlds--the Wes

A unique resource for scholars of Older Scots language, literature, and historyComprehensive coverage providing information on every aspect of medieval and renaissance Scottish life and societyBased o

A unique resource for scholars of Older Scots language, literature, and history Comprehensive coverage providing information on every aspect of medieval and renaissance Scottish life and society Base

Texts and the Self in the Twelfth Century analyses key twelfth-century Latin and vernacular texts which articulate a subjective, often autobiographical, stance. The contention is that the self forged in medieval literature could not have come into existence without both the gap between Latinity and the vernacular and a shift in perspective towards a visual and spatial orientation. This results in a self which is not an agent that will act on the outside world like the Renaissance self, but, rather, one which inhabits a potential, middle ground, or 'space of agency', explained here partly in terms of object-relations theory.

John Willis Clark, a noted academic and antiquarian, published this book in 1901 after completing his work on the architectural history of Cambridge. His carefully researched study (Clark personally visited and measured every building he described, and drew many of the illustrations), provides a wide-ranging account of the history of libraries from antiquity to the early modern period. Clark describes the buildings used to store books: churches, cloisters, and purpose-built libraries; the way collections were endowed, audited and protected; the development of library furniture, including lecterns, stalls, chaining systems and wall-cases; and the characteristics of monastic, collegiate, and private collections. The book is generously illustrated, and its approachable style means it will appeal not only to academic historians of libraries, but to a wider audience of those interested in books and reading culture, historic buildings and artefacts, and medieval, renaissance and early modern

This book provides a standard reference of the major medieval Jewish philosophers, as well as an eminently readable narrative of the course of medieval Jewish philosophical thought, presented as a res