Medieval Ages

If you were taught that the Middle Ages were a time of intellectual stagnation, superstition, and ignorance, you were taught a myth that has been utterly refuted by modern scholarship. As a physicist and historian of science James Hannam shows in his brilliant new book, The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution, without the scholarship of the "barbaric" Middle Ages, modern science simply would not exist. The Middle Ages were a time of one intellectual triumph after another.

The medieval Catholic Church, widely considered a source of intolerance and inquisitorial fervor, was not anti-science during the Dark Ages - in fact, the pope in the year 1000 was the leading mathematician and astronomer of his day. Called The Scientist Pope, Gerbert of Aurillac rose from peasant beginnings to lead the church. By turns a teacher, traitor, kingmaker, and visionary, Gerbert is the first Christian known to teach math using the nine Arabic numerals and zero.

I tracked a lowlife into the dark. I found monsters waiting in it. Mara Cole is a debt collector with nothing left to lose. Her sister’s medical bills are piling up and her latest mark disappears into the shadows of Chicago’s criminal underworld. She follows him into an alley, through a door, and into a den of monsters. Literal ones. Minotaurs rule the pit fights below the city. They’re brutal, ancient, and obsessed with dominance. Mara should be running. Instead, she’s surrounded. Caught. Claimed. Torin doesn’t want her fear. He wants her surrender. Gideon watches her with ...

The term Moor is a historical rather than an ethnic name. It is an invention of European Christians for the Islamic inhabitants of Maghreb (North Africa), Andalusia (Spain), Sicily and Malta, and was sometimes use to designate all Muslims. It is derived from Mauri, the Latin name for the Berbers who lived in the Roman province of Mauretania, which ranged across modern Algeria and Morocco. Saracen was another European term used to designate Muslims, though it usually referred to the Arabic peoples of the Middle East.

When a crusader army of Western European Franks took Jerusalem by storm on July 15, 1099, it was one of the more unexpected conquests in history. Everything seemed to be against them for the previous three years of crusades right up to the final siege, yet they finally prevailed. And when they did, they massacred most if not all of the population before establishing a Christian realm in a region that had been taken over by the Muslims in 634 CE.

The medieval humoral system of medicine suggested that it was possible to die from having too much - or too little - sex, while the Roman Catholic Church taught that virginity was the ideal state. Holy men and women committed themselves to lifelong abstinence in the name of religion. Everyone was forced to conform to restrictive rules about who they could have sex with, in what way, how often, and even when, and could be harshly punished for getting it wrong.

Max, a knight of Swabia in the 10th Century during the reign of Otto the Great, chronicles his life as it parallels the historical events of the time. His tale begins with his boyhood on Lake Zurich and how he develops his love for horses and his skill at training them. It is also the story of his relationship with Verena, first, when they meet as children, and then later as they grow to love each other. Finally, it is the story of how Max becomes a valued knight in the service of Otto l, Holy Roman Emperor, and travels across Europe as both a warrior and as an ambassador for one of the ...

What if your childhood was a lie? Girl King introduces us to the daughter of a simple cloth merchant who discovers there is a secret in her mother’s past, and her own. A line of kings, stretching back a thousand years, is at stake. But it is her destiny, not her mother’s, to set the world right – or fail in the process. Ayla’s visions were merely annoying at first. Now, they have become increasingly invasive. On the eve of her arranged marriage, they reveal a truth she’s compelled to explore. With a single decision, she discards her well-ordered life. Soon her loving family and ...

Slavery was widespread all over Europe during the early Middle Ages and Scandinavians, as Stefan Brink illustrates in this book, became a major player in the northern slave trade. Using a wide variety of source materials, including archaeology, runes, Icelandic sagas, early law, place names, personal names, and not least etymological and semantic analyses of the terminology of slaves, Thraldom provides the most comprehensive survey of slavery in the Viking Age.

I stepped into the cage to survive. I didn’t know I’d be claimed in it. Nora Blake fights for rent money, bruises for cash and bleeds for a crowd that never cheers. She thought she knew pain. Thought she’d learned to endure. Then three minotaur kings found her in the cage. Silas is the cold one. Dax is the quiet one. Kael is the cruel one. Together they offer her an escape from the underground. But it’s not freedom they want. It’s ownership. Now Nora trains in their private gym, sleeps in their guarded compound and submits in their dungeon. They tie her with silk. Punish her with ...

La enorme cantidad de combatientes que periódicamente zarpaban hacia el Cercano Oriente para luchar contra los musulmanes son una prueba de la popularidad generalizada del aventurerismo en el extranjero en ese momento. La idea de una cruzada, en la que grandes ejércitos procedentes de varias regiones de Europa se reunían con el fin de luchar contra los musulmanes turcos y árabes, quedó tan arraigada que se amplió para incluir a las cruzadas contra las sectas cristianas europeas heréticas.

He would sacrifice anything to possess her, the girl he’d wanted for so long. Even if he has to break her, and himself, to keep her. Prince Damon has loved the dainty serving girl Lily since they were children. She was such a lovely little thing, and so willful. The child was prone to impertinence. Nobody made him smile more. The Prince watches and waits. When he reaches an age to own property, he asks for her. He has put off choosing his Royal Concubine until this moment. Just claiming her is not enough. He has to own her, body and soul. But the responsibility is challenging. Especially ...

In the 21st century, most people associate the idea of the possession of a person or place by a malevolent supernatural entity with the medieval world, and particularly with the Catholic Church, but the truth is considerably stranger. Virtually every human culture that has ever existed has talked about both possession and exorcism, a rite or ritual used to free a person or place from possession.

What if 297 Years of History Never Happened? Prepare to question everything you thought you knew about the past. The Vanished Centuries: Unmasking the Phantom Time Conspiracy is an exploration of one of history’s most controversial theories—the claim that nearly three centuries were fabricated. From the rise of Charlemagne to the mysteries of the Dark Ages, this book takes you on a journey through time, uncovering the possibility that our timeline is a lie. A Theory That Shakes the Foundations of History The Phantom Time Hypothesis, proposed by German historian Heribert Illig, suggests ...

Like the shinobi, more commonly known as the ninja, the assassin is yet another fabled figure with ancient roots that remains astonishingly relevant to this day. Assassins in the context of contemporary pop culture often conjure up images of brooding, silver-tongued individuals in peak physique, equipped with impeccable style, flawless marksmanship, and exemplary hand-to-hand combat skills.

Ethan shouldn’t exist. Not in Agartha, or anywhere. In Agartha, people belong to six nations according to the color of their aura, each with their own abilities derived from their souls. Fourteen-year-old Ethan has a green aura. There is a significant problem with that. The Dragon Lady wiped the Green aura nation twenty years ago. Only one person knows the answer to Ethan’s mystery, The Chronicler of Agartha, but to reach him, Ethan has to travel thousands of miles in dangerous lands, infested with mythical and magical predators. Can he persevere or will he die alone? And if he ...

The great poetic tradition of pre-Christian Scandinavia is known to us almost exclusively though the Prose Edda, a collection of narrative literature, and its companion, the Poetic Edda. The poems originated in Iceland, Norway, and Greenland between the ninth and 13th centuries, when they were compiled in a unique manuscript known as the Codex Regius. The poems are primarily lyrical rather than narrative.

Thomas Bulfinch introduces us to the gods of the Greek, Roman, and Norse mythologies. We learn their stories and we also observe the similarities between the deities of yore. Comparing these stories and characters to those of some modern religions may produce some surprising results!

The journey of a young man’s determination to live out Jesus’ gospel of peace during one of Christianity’s darkest periods. Orphaned at age seven, Talen Enns vowed to complete the pilgrimage from France to Jerusalem that cost his parents their lives at the hands of Muslim Turks in the fall of 1083. Thirteen years later, his quest to fulfill the vow and discover why God spared his life unfolds in the shadow of Pope Urban II’s crusade to wrest the Holy Land from Muslim control. Believing the crusade to be an affront to Jesus’ gospel of peace, Talen wants no part of it. But when the ...

Viking Age Norway’s greatest king Harald Fairhair has unified the northern districts into a kingdom, but as he ages and his body weakens, so does his realm. To keep the kingdom from fracturing, Harald abdicates his high seat to the one son he believes capable enough - and vicious enough - to rule: Erik Bloodaxe. There is one problem. The other sons hate their brother and will not accept his kingship.