An Authoratative history of the middle ages in Europe. In 1100 Europe was open in boundaries, faith and outlook. By the middle of the 14th century it was closed - by Mongol and Turkish invasions, by the rift with Byzantium, by the intollerant dogmatism of the church. Friedrich Heer's tour de Force of scholarship and orginality recreates that world: the daily life of aristocrats and peasants, town dwellers and countryfolk; the growth of serfdom and the flowering of chivalry; the roles of cleric and courtier, painter and poet, King and Philosopher. In it we can see our own world in embryo. As Professor Heer writes: History is the present, the present is history'

A celebration of the long history, rich art and cultural traditions of the Celts. One of the oldest traditions in Europe, this ancient culture is still a thriving force in the modern world through Celtic art, music, writing and spirituality. Nigel Pennick's text describes how the Celtic tradition has developed and progressed over the centuries, from its origins in Europe to the living heritage it is today. This illustrated volume provides a source of material on every aspect of Celtic culture including lifestyle and society, mythology and folklore, as well as Celtic spirituality and what it can offer in the new millennium.

An opportunity to experience the daily hustle and bustle of life in the late Middle Ages, " A Day in a Medieval City" provides a captivating dawn-to-dark account of medieval life. A visual trek through the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries with seasoned historian and expert on medieval iconography Chiara Frugoni as guide this book offers a vast array of images and vignettes that depicts the everyday hardships and commonplace pleasures for people living in the Middle Ages. "A Day in a Medieval City" breathes life into the activities of the city streets, homes, fields, schools, and places of worship. With entertaining anecdotes and gritty details, it engages the modern reader with its discoveries of the religious, economic, and institutional practices of the day. From urban planning and education to child care, hygiene, and the more leisurely pursuits of games, food, books, and superstitions, Frugoni unearths the daily routines of the private and public lives of citizens." A Day in a Medieval City" is a charming portal to the Middle Ages that you'll surely want with you on your travels to Europe or in your armchair. With its color illustrations of rare paintings and artifacts, this thoughtful and informative, elegantly fashioned excursion into the life of a medieval city is a veritable feast of information and visual delights. Frugoni is a marvelously experienced historical travel guide. "Choice " Stunningly beautiful . . . and a good read as well. . . . It s amazing how much wealth of detail and image Ms.Frugoni has packed into this delightful, relatively small book. Steve Goode, "Washington Times " Charming and insightful. . . .Written with exceptional grace and infused with a warm sense of humanity. "Library Journal ""

Felice della Rovere was born in 1483 into an extraordinary time in Rome's history, its new Golden Age, the High Renaissance. Felice was to witness Michelangelo paint the Sistine Ceiling, her father Pope Julius II lay the foundation stone for New Saint Peter's, and herself immortalized by Raphael in the frescoes in the Vatican Palace apartments. But she was no reticent bystander. When she became regent, Felice fought off all attempts to interfere with her rule, engaging in a bitter feud with her stepson which culminated in murder. Caroline Murphy sheds fascinating light on Felice's daily life - how she dealt with squabbles amongst servants, why she always knew the exact contents of her wine cellar, and her advice on the best way to bribe a Pope.

A comprehensive AS and A-level History text on Early Modern Europe, written by a team of experienced teachers who are also examiners. Includes: *Europe 1450-1661: a synoptic assessment *The Italian Renaissance and voyages of discovery *The Ottoman Empire *The Reformation *The Holy Roman Empire under Maximilian I and Charles V, 1493-1556 *Spain 1450-1566 *Renaissance France 1450-1559 *The Catholic and Counter Reformations *Phillip of Spain 1556-1598 *The Dutch Revolt *The French Wars of Religion and the reign of Henry IV (1559-1610) *The rise of Sweden in the 16th and 17th centuries *The decline of Spain?1558-1659 *The development of France during the reign of Louis XIII and the minority of Louis XIV 1610-1661 *The Thirty Years War *Social and economic history c. 1450-1661

The reign of Alfonso VII occupied more than a quarter century during which the political landscape of medieval Spain was altered significantly. It was marked by the enhancement of royal administration, an increased papal intervention in the affairs of the peninsular church, and the development of the church's territorial structure.

With the publication of The Kingdom of Leon-Castilla Under King Alfonso VII, 1126-1157, Bernard Reilly completes a detailed, three-part history of the largest of the Christian states of the Iberian peninsula from the mid-eleventh through the mid-twelfth century. Like his earlier books on the reigns of Queen Urraca and King Alfonso VI, this will no doubt be an essential resource for all students of European and Spanish history and to anyone investigating the antecedents of Castile's eventual preeminence in Iberian affairs.

A comprehensive guide to the individual churches, catacombs, embellishments and artefacts of Early Christian Rome. The author describes precisely where the extant features are situated and provides details on what can be seen. The ground plans of each site studies allows the reader to compare the proportions of each church with another From the 1st-century visits of the Apostles Peter and Paul to the end of the 9th-century Carolingian Renaissance, the book also includes dates of emperors and popes, and important historical events relating to this period in Rome. A historical introduction places the monuments in the context of the Early Christian period and its development in Rome.

"The enigmatic link between the natural and artistic beauty that is to be contemplated but not eaten, on the one hand, and the eucharistic beauty that is both seen (with the eyes of faith) and eaten, on the other, intrigues me and inspires this book. One cannot ask theo-aesthetic questions about the Eucharist without engaging fundamental questions about the relationship between beauty, art (broadly defined), and eating." from Eating BeautyIn a remarkable book that is at once learned, startlingly original, and highly personal, Ann W. Astell explores the ambiguity of the phrase "eating beauty." The phrase evokes the destruction of beauty, the devouring mouth of the grave, the mouth of hell. To eat beauty is to destroy it. Yet in the case of the Eucharist the person of faith who eats the Host is transformed into beauty itself, literally incorporated into Christ. In this sense, Astell explains, the Eucharist was "productive of an entire 'way' of life, a virtuous life-form, an artwork, with Christ himself as the principal artist." The Eucharist established for the people of the Middle Ages distinctive schools of sanctity Cistercian, Franciscan, Dominican, and Ignatian whose members were united by the eucharistic sacrament that they received. Reading the lives of the saints not primarily as historical documents but as iconic expressions of original artworks fashioned by the eucharistic Christ, Astell puts the "faceless" Host in a dynamic relationship with these icons. With the advent of each new spirituality, the Christian idea of beauty expanded to include, first, the marred beauty of the saint and, finally, that of the church torn by division an anti-aesthetic beauty embracing process, suffering, deformity, and disappearance, as well as the radiant lightness of the resurrected body. This astonishing work of intellectual and religious history is illustrated with telling artistic examples ranging from medieval manuscript illuminations to sculptures by Michelangelo and paintings by Salvador Dali. Astell puts the lives of medieval saints in conversation with modern philosophers as disparate as Simone Weil and G. W. F. Hegel."

Trance states, prophesying, convulsions, fasting and other physical manifestations were often regarded as signs that a person was seized by spirits. In a book that sets out the pre-history of the early modern European witch craze, Nancy Caciola shows how medieval people decided whom to venerate as a saint infused with the spirit of God and whom to avoid as a demoniac possessed of an unclean spirit. This process of discrimination, known as the discernment of spirits, was central to the religious culture of Western Europe between 1200 and 1500. indistinguishable, a highly ambiguous set of bodily features and behaviours were carefully scrutinized by observers. Attempts to make decisions about individuals who exhibited supernatural powers were complicated by the fact that the most intense exemplars of lay spirituality were women, and the fragile sex was deemed especially vulnerable to the snares of the devil. Assessments of women's spirit possessions often oscillated between divine and demonic interpretations. Ultimately, although a few late medieval women visionaries achieved the prestige of canonization, many more were accused of possession by demons. Caciola analyzes a broad array of sources from saints' lives to medical treatises, exorcists' manuals to miracle accounts, to find that observers came to rely on the discernment of bodies rather than seeking to distinguish between divine and demonic possession in purely spiritual terms.

Before France became France its territories included Occitania, roughly the present-day province of Languedoc. The city of Narbonne was a center of Occitanian commerce and culture during the eleventh and twelfth centuries. For most of the second half of the twelfth century, that city and its environs were ruled by a remarkable woman, Ermengard, who negotiated her city's way through a maze of ever changing dynastic alliances. Fredric L. Cheyette's masterful and beautifully illustrated book is a biography of an extraordinary warrior woman and of a unique, vulnerable, doomed society Ermengard roamed Occitania receiving oaths of fidelity, negotiating treaties, set thing disputes among the lords of her lands, and camping with her armies before the walls of besieged cities. She was born into a world of politics and warfare, but from the Mediterranean to the North Sea her name echoed in songs that treated the arts of love.

Russia's ever-expanding imperial boundaries encompassed diverse peoples and religions. Yet Russian Orthodoxy remained inseparable from the identity of the Russian empire-state, which at different times launched conversion campaigns not only to "save the souls" of animists and bring deviant Orthodox groups into the mainstream, but also to convert the empire's numerous Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, Catholics, and Uniates.

This book is the first to investigate the role of religious conversion in the long history of Russian state building. How successful were the Church and the state in proselytizing among religious minorities? How were the concepts of Orthodoxy and Russian nationality shaped by the religious diversity of the empire? What was the impact of Orthodox missionary efforts on the non-Russian peoples, and how did these peoples react to religious pressure? In chapters that explore these and other questions, this book provides geographical coverage from Poland and European Russia to the Caucasus, Central Asia, Siberia, and Alaska.

The editors' introduction and conclusion place the twelve original essays in broad historical context and suggest patterns in Russian attitudes toward religion that range from attempts to forge a homogeneous identity to tolerance of complexity and diversity.

Contributors Eugene Clay, Arizona State University; Robert P. Geraci, University of Virginia; Sergei Kan, Dartmouth College; Agnes Kefeli, Arizona State University; Shoshana Keller, Colgate University; Michael Khodarkovsky, Loyola University, Chicago; John D. Klier, University College, London; Georg Michels, University of California, Riverside; Firouzeh Mostashari, Regis College; Dittmar Schorkowitz, Free University, Berlin; Theodore Weeks, Southern Illinois University; Paul W. Werth, University of Nevada, Las Vegas"

B. Netanyahu, one of the world's foremost medievalists, has made a lifelong project of studying the historical evolution of Marranism and seeking to ascertain the genesis of the Spanish Inquisition. In this seminal work, which opened an ongoing debate on the nature of conversion and belief in late medieval Spain, Netanyahu analyzes evidence on the Marranos contained in the Hebrew sources.

For this new edition, Netanyahu has revised and updated the book throughout and added a lengthy postscript in which he reconsiders the Marranos in light of the scholarship that has appeared since publication of the second edition in 1973.

"This book's revolutionary thesis dispels the romanticized heroic image of the Marrano found in Jewish literary and historical annals", says Isaac Barzilay, Professor Emeritus at Columbia University. "Netanyahu's conception of the Marranos is of a people whose majority hardly resisted assimilation to Spanish culture and Christianity. Consequently, he unhesitatingly rejects the Inquisition's claim that it was established for the sole purpose of preserving the integrity of Christianity against the undermining effects of Marranism".

In this book, Thomas Spaccarelli argues that the Escorial codex usually published and studied as nine separate saints' lives and romances is in fact a unified and organized whole. He shows how the codex is intimately related to the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela and to the religious, literary, and artistic traditions associated with it. Spaccarelli elucidates the Libro's ideology of pilgrimage.

Medieval society was dominated by its knights and nobles. The literature created in medieval Europe was primarily a literature of knightly deeds and the modern imagination has also been captured by these leaders and warriors. This book explores the nature of the nobility, focusing on France in the High Middle Ages (11th-13th centuries). Constance Brittain Bouchard examines their families; their relationships with peasants, townspeople and clerics; and the images of them fashioned in medieval literary texts. She incorporates throughout a consideration of noble women and the nobility's attitude toward women.

James B. Given analyzes the inquisition in one French region in order to develop a sociology of medieval politics. Established in the early thirteenth century to combat widespread popular heresy, inquisitorial tribunals identified, prosecuted, and punished heretics and their supporters. The inquisition in Languedoc was the best documented of these tribunals because the inquisitors aggressively used the developing techniques of writing and record keeping to build cases and extract confessions.

Using a Marxist and Foucauldian approach, Given focuses on three inquiries: what techniques of investigation, interrogation, and punishment the inquisitors worked out in the course of their struggle against heresy; how the people of Languedoc responded to the activities of the inquisitors; and what aspects of social organization in Languedoc either facilitated or constrained the work of the inquisitors. Punishments not only inflicted suffering and humiliation on those condemned, he argues, but also served as theatrical instruction for the rest of society about the terrible price of transgression. Through a careful pursuit of these inquires, Given elucidates medieval society's contribution to the modern apparatus of power.

Each volume includes all the necessary materials for the comprehensive study of a work of art: An illustration section showing the complete work of art, details, preliminary studies, and iconographic sources; An introductory essay by the editor; Documents and literary sources; Critical essays from the art-historical literature.

Mont Saint Michel and Chartres is a record not of a literal jouney but of a meditative journey across time and space into the medieval imagination. Using the architecture, sculpture, and stained glass of the two locales as a starting point, Adams breathes life into what others might see merely as monuments of a past civilization. With daring and inventive conceits, Adams looks at the ordinary people, places, and events in the context of the social conventions and systems of thought and belief of the thirteenth century turning the study of history into a kind of theater.

As Raymond Carney discusses in his introduction, Adams' freeedom from the European traditions of study lends an exuberance--and puckish wit--to his writings.