Medieval History

The extant letters of Pliny, written between AD 97 and 112, give us a unique insight into Imperial Rome under the early Antonine emperors. Organised into 10 books, the letters reflect a wide range of topics, mirroring Pliny’s own public and private interests. Among many other subjects, the letters also include an eye-witness account of the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79, with the final book containing the exchange of letters between the writer (whose career culminated as Governor of Bithynia) and the emperor Trajan.

In this intimate portrait of one of the Middle Ages' most consequential men, Brian Patrick McGuire delves into the life of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux to offer a refreshing interpretation that finds within this grand historical figure a deeply spiritual human being who longed for the reflective quietude of the monastery even as he helped shape the destiny of a church and a continent. Heresy and crusade, politics and papacies, theology and disputation shaped this astonishing man's life, and McGuire presents it all in a deeply informed and clear-eyed biography.

Sixteen hundred years ago, Britain left the Roman Empire and swiftly fell into ruin. Grand cities and luxurious villas were deserted and left to crumble, and civil society collapsed into chaos. Into this violent and unstable world came foreign invaders from across the sea and established themselves as its new masters. The Anglo-Saxons traces the turbulent history of these people across the next six centuries. It explains how their earliest rulers fought relentlessly against each other for glory and supremacy and then were almost destroyed by the onslaught of the Vikings.

The digital era is beset by distraction, and it feels like things are only getting worse. At times like these, the distant past beckons as a golden age of attention. We dream of recapturing the quiet of a world with less noise. We imagine retreating into solitude and singlemindedness, almost like latter-day monks. But although we think of early monks as master concentrators, a life of mindfulness did not, in fact, come to them easily.

From Robert Ferguson comes a comprehensive and thrilling history, based on the latest scholarship, that offers the definitive portrait of the Vikings.

Magnus has disappeared, and the truth about my bloodline still eludes me. I’m preparing for our marriage, so the timing is not perfect when I’m called away to help at a difficult birth. When I return, Magnus is gone. Soon after, I’m ordered before Dublin’s King. We’ve been refugees here since the winter. The woman I helped has died. I will have to leave Dublin. The daughter of the king takes me to a seer who can help bring forth the powers I was supposed to inherit from my mother. We travel together back to England to look for my sister, not for Magnus. You can guess who we find. ...

Nowhere else in Britain in the modern era, or indeed in Europe, did civil order break down over such a wide area, or for such a long time, as on the border country between Scotland and England. For more than a century, the hoofbeats of countless raiding parties drummed over the border. From Dumfriesshire to the high wastes of East Cumbria, from Roxburghshire to Redesdale, from the lonely valley of Liddesdale to the fortress city of Carlisle, swords and spears spoke while the law remained silent

The bitter conflict between England and France we call The Hundred Years War, and lasting 116 years between 1337 and 1453, was fought over claims by the English kings to the French throne. By the end of this titanic struggle, it can fairly be said that the Middle Ages had come to an end.

On a chilly November night in 1407, Louis of Orleans was murdered by a band of masked men. The crime stunned and paralyzed France since Louis had often ruled in place of his brother King Charles, who had gone mad. As panic seized Paris, an investigation began. In charge was the Provost of Paris, Guillaume de Tignonville, the city's chief law enforcement officer - and one of history's first detectives. As de Tignonville began to investigate, he realized that his hunt for the truth was much more dangerous than he ever could have imagined.

1599 was an epochal year for Shakespeare and England. During that year, Shakespeare wrote four of his most famous plays: Henry the Fifth, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and, most remarkably, Hamlet; Elizabethans sent off an army to crush an Irish rebellion, weathered an Armada threat from Spain, gambled on a fledgling East India Company, and waited to see who would succeed their aging and childless queen.

Mark Pegg offers a synthesis of the most innovative scholarship on the Middle Ages of the last thirty years. Interweaving the history of Muslims with the histories of Christians and Jews, the scholarly history is propelled by a narrative of the relationship of the human and the divine within individuals and their societies between 950 and 1550. In displaying the history of the Middle Ages to be no less than a history of the formation of Western culture, Pegg offers a rethinking of what it means to talk about the medieval world that is at once vital, compelling, and necessary.

Marsilius of Padua for Beginners: The Man Who Challenged Papal Power Imagine a world where the Church controls everything—laws, kings, even your freedom. Now, imagine one man bold enough to say, “No more.” Marsilius of Padua didn’t just question the authority of the Church, he took it head-on, laying the foundation for modern democracy and the separation of church and state. This book tells the story of that revolutionary thinker and his battle to shift power back to the people. Why should you care about a 14th-century philosopher? Because the ideas Marsilius championed—democratic...

The Hellenica is Xenophon’s continuation of Thucydides’ history of the Peloponnesian War, literally resuming from where the previous author’s history was abruptly left unfinished and narrating the events of the final seven years of the conflict and the war’s aftermath. Some historians consider the Hellenica to be a personal work, written by Xenophon in retirement on his Spartan estate, and intended primarily for circulation among his friends, who would have known the main protagonists and events, having most likely participated in them.

A captivating true story that chronicles the exploits of Sir Francis Walsingham - the first great English spymaster and the man who saved Elizabeth's regime and the country's independence. Elizabeth I came to the throne at a time of insecurity and unrest. Rivals threatened her reign; England was a Protestant island, isolated in a sea of Catholic countries. Spain plotted an invasion, but Elizabeth's Secretary, Sir Francis Walsingham, was prepared to do whatever it took to protect her. He ran a network of agents in England and Europe who provided him with information about invasions or assassination plots.

Cults, Secrets, Deception, Murder — In The Case of Luna, Darkness Hides More Than You Can Imagine.Beneath the moonlit gaze of the goddess Luna, a grim tableau unfolds in the heart of the Forum—a lifeless wife carried by desperate hands. Gripped by memory loss, the perpetrator seeks help from Secundus and Graccus, peeling back the layers of the enigmatic Cult of Luna in this chilling sixth installment of the series. With time slipping through their fingers and his priestly examinations looming, Secundus wrestles with a mounting burden of duties and the continued presence of his ...

Beobrand is besieged in the action-packed instalment in the Bernicia Chronicles set in AD 647 Anglo-Saxon Britain. War hangs heavy in the hot summer air as Penda of Mercia and his allies march into the north. Caught unawares, the Bernician forces are besieged within the great fortress of Bebbanburg. It falls to Beobrand to mount the defence of the stronghold, but even while the battle rages, old and powerful enemies have mobilised against him, seeking vengeance for past events.

The third novel in a meticulously researched series chronicling the life of the man behind the legend of Welsh hero, Owain Glyndŵr, who fought so valiantly for Welsh Independence. 'Can you see what sunset will bring?’ Owain murmured too low to be overheard by the men around them. ‘Death and victory.’ ‘I could predict as much. Which side has death and which victory?’ ‘Both have death and neither will have everlasting victory.’ ‘You have taken lessons from the Greek oracle,’ Owain snapped. ‘Whoever or whatever was behind it, was expert in giving ambiguous answers.’ ...

The second historical novel in a meticulously researched series chronicling the life of the man behind the legend of Welsh hero, Owain Glyndŵr, who fought so valiantly for Welsh Independence. 'In our eagerness to lead the English away from our headquarters and families, we appear to have walked into a trap, boys. We cab see the enemy looking up at us. They do not fight for the love of a land, a family, friends and freedom. Driven by greed they kill to sate the bloodlust of tyrants who enslave them with silver. 'We fight for our wives, our children, our people and Hiraeth. The sense of home...

José Javier Esparza comienza la historia de este audio libro donde terminó La gran aventura del Reino de Asturias del que lleva vendidos más de 30,000 ejemplares. Han concluido los tiempos agónicos de la primera resistencia cristiana contra el invasor musulmán y entramos en una España de moros y cristianos donde no siempre es fácil separar historia y leyenda: una España de doncellas cautivas y reinas moras, de guerreros y trovadores, de monjes y comerciantes en un tiempo en el que la vida era una apuesta continua.

The Battle of Hastings and its aftermath nearly wiped out the leading families of Anglo-Saxon England—so what happened to the children this conflict left behind? Conquered offers a fresh take on the Norman Conquest by exploring the lives of those children, who found themselves uprooted by the dramatic events of 1066. Among them were the children of Harold Godwineson and his brothers, survivors of a family shattered by violence who were led by their courageous grandmother Gytha to start again elsewhere.