Medieval History

 

The Armor of Light : Stained Glass in Western France, 1250-1325
Meredith Parsons Lillich
Listed under Stained Glass

The Autumn of the Middle Ages
by Johan Huizinga
What, for medieval men and women, was life's meaning? By what codes of behavior and honor did they conduct their daily lives? In the 1920s, the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga pondered such questions in weighty tomes that were available only to scholars. This book -- the full version of Huizinga's stripped-down Waning of the Middle Ages, a required text in college courses in medieval history -- allows the reader to follow Huizinga's arguments at leisure. Huizinga introduces us to "the strict hierarchy of fabrics, colors, and furs" in courtly society," to the hidden meanings in the paintings of Van Eyck and Velazquez, to the scholarly and ecclestiastical debates that accompanied every social change. The reader emerges enriched for the experience. - Amazon.com
Paperback: 468 pages
University of Chicago Press (Trd); ISBN: 0226359948; (November )

Cistercian Europe: Architecture of Contemplation
by Terryl N. Kinder, Michael Downey
Explores the architecture and the monastic life of many famous Cisterian abbeys from the middle ages.
Hardcover: 407 pages
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.; ISBN: 0802838871; (April )

The Crusades Through Arab Eyes
by Amin Maalouf, Jon Rothschild
Listed under The Crusades

Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century
by Barbara W. Tuchman
In this sweeping historical narrative, Barbara Tuchman writes of the cataclysmic 14th century, when the energies of medieval Europe were devoted to fighting internecine wars and warding off the plague. Some medieval thinkers viewed these disasters as divine punishment for mortal wrongs; others, more practically, viewed them as opportunities to accumulate wealth and power. One of the latter, whose life informs much of Tuchman's book, was the French nobleman Enguerrand de Coucy, who enjoyed the opulence and elegance of the courtly tradition while ruthlessly exploiting the peasants under his thrall. Tuchman looks into such events as the Hundred Years War, the collapse of the medieval church, and the rise of various heresies, pogroms, and other events that caused medieval Europeans to wonder what they had done to deserve such horrors. Amazon.com
Paperback: Ballantine Books (Trd Pap); ISBN: 0345349571; Reissue edition (July 1987)
 

	The Civilization of the Middle Ages: A Completely Revised and Expanded Edition of Medieval History by Norman F. Cantor (Paperback -- August )

Early Medieval Art (Oxford History of Art)
by Lawrence Nees
(Paperback -- June )

Elizabeth : The Struggle for the Throne
by David Starkey
Listed under Elizabeth I

From Bannockburn to Flodden: Wallace, Bruce, & the Heroes of Medieval Scotland
by Walter, Sir Scott, George Grant (Introduction)
Listed under Medieval England

Hawks in the Hand : Adventures in Photography and Falconry
Frank and John Craighead
Listed under Falconry

A History of Pagan Europe
by Prudence Jones, Nigel Pennick (Contributor)
(Paperback)

Letters of Abelard and Heloise, The
by Peter Abelard, Betty Radice
Abelard and Heloise are nearly as famous a pair of tragic lovers as the fictional Romeo and Juliet; their shared passion for knowledge, religious faith, and one another sealed their destiny. Abelard was a well-respected, 12th-century Parisian scholar and teacher, and Heloise was his talented young student. The two relate their story through a set of letters to one another and intimate acquaintances. Their ardor is unmistakable; as Abelard writes to his love, "So intense were the fires of lust which bound me to you that I set those wretched, obscene pleasures, which we blush even to name, above God as above myself..." This forbidden lust resulted in a pregnancy and secret marriage, and when their union could no longer withstand the challenges in its path, each lover sought refuge in the church--Abelard became a monk and Heloise an abbess. Their correspondence continued as both achieved success in their new careers but continued to struggle with their feelings for one another; the set of letters powerfully articulates the wide range of emotions they experienced. So timeless is their love story that--after eight centuries--their passion, their devotion, and their struggle still resonate with readers. Amazon.com
Paperback from Penguin USA (Paper)

The Medieval Fortress: Castles, Forts and Walled Cities of the Middle Ages
by Joseph Kaufmann, et al
Listed under Castles & Fortresses

Medieval Celebrations: How to Plan for Holidays, Weddings, and Reenactments With Recipes, Customs, Costumes, Decorations, Songs, Dances, and Games
by Daniel Diehl, Mark Donnelly
(Paperback -- May )
 

	The Muslim Discovery of Europe by Bernard Lewis (Paperback -- October )

The North Sea World in the Middle Ages: Studies in the Cultural History of North-Western Europe
by Thomas R. Liszka (Editor), Lorna E. M. Walker (Editor)
(Hardcover -- July )

The Thirteenth Tribe: The Khazar Empire and Its Heritage
by Arthur Koestler
Listed under Medieval Russia

Medieval Siege Warfare (Elite Series, Vol 28)
by Christopher Gravett, Angus McBride (Illustrator)
Listed under Castles & Fortresses

Kings, Queens, Bones and Bastards : Who's Who in the English Monarchy from Egbert to Elizabeth II
by David Hilliam
(Paperback)

The Malleus Maleficarum of Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger.
by Henricus Institoris, Montague Summers
Originally published in Germany in 1486, this extraordinary fabrication documents the beliefs of the Catholic Church towards paganism and witchcraft during the middle ages.
Listed under History of Witchcraft

In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made
by Norman F. Cantor
Listed under The Plague

Medieval Combat: A Fifteenth-Century Illustrated Manual of Swordfighting and Close-Quarter Combat
by Hans Talhoffer, et al
Listed under Ancient Weapons

Ready-To-Use Medieval Illustrations : 424 Different Copyright-Free Designs Printed Pne Side (Dover Clip-Art Series)
by Maggie Kate (Editor)
Listed under Medieval Clip Art

The Templars: The Dramatic History of the Knights Templar, the Most Powerful Military Order of the Crusades
by Piers Paul Read
Listed under Knights Templar

The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain
by Maria Rosa Menocal, Harold Bloom
Listed under Medieval Spain

Warriors of God: Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in the Third Crusade
by James, Jr. Reston
Listed under The Crusades

A World Lit Only by Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance Portrait of an Age
by William Manchester
It speaks to the failure of medieval Europe, writes popular historian William Manchester, that "in the year 1500, after a thousand years of neglect, the roads built by the Romans were still the best on the continent." European powers were so absorbed in destroying each other and in suppressing peasant revolts and religious reform that they never quite got around to realizing the possibilities of contemporary innovations in public health, civil engineering, and other peaceful pursuits. Instead, they waged war in faraway lands, created and lost fortunes, and squandered millions of lives. For all the wastefulness of medieval societies, however, Manchester notes, the era created the foundation for the extraordinary creative explosion of the Renaissance. Drawing on a cast of characters numbering in the hundreds, Manchester does a solid job of reconstructing the medieval world, although some scholars may disagree with his interpretations. - Amazon.com
Paperback: 322 pages
Little Brown & Co (Pap); ISBN: 0316545562; Reprint edition (June 1993)

The Waning of the Middle Ages
by Johan Huizinga
Paperback: 352 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.69 x 8.48 x 5.43
Dover Pubns; ISBN: 0486404439;
 

War, Justice, and Public Order: England and France in the Later Middle Ages by Richard W. Kaeuper Hardcover from Oxford Univ Pr on Demand 1988

Water Technology in the Middle Ages: Cities, Monasteries, and Waterworks After the Roman Empire
(Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology)
by Roberta J. Magnusson
(Hardcover)

Courtly Culture: Literature and Society in the High Middle Ages
by Joachim Bumke
ASIN: 0520066340
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