Medieval Lives

Outlaw Princess of Sherwood is award-winning author Nancy Springer's third delightful tale of Rowan Hood. Her popular adventure novels provide a fresh new vision of the medieval period. When Princess Ettarde refuses to marry the man her father, King Solon, has chosen for her, she flees to Sherwood Forest and joins Rowan Hood's band of outlaws.

The first monument of real Christianity among the Saxons was the Heliand, an epic on the life of Christ in Old Saxon alliterative verse, dating from about 830. The original work attempted to make the newly imposed Christian religion intelligible to the warlike Saxons. The Heliand, extant in four manuscripts, and the fragmentary Old Saxon Genesis, are all that remain of Old Saxon poetry. This poetic harmony of the Gospels employs modern English alliterative verse couplets, in a complex structure of 75 cantos, to generate a vigorous retelling of the story of the Christ in a swaggering, epic ...

Eleven-year-old Adam loved to travel throughout 13th-century England with his father, a wandering minstrel, and his dog, Nick. But when Nick is stolen and his father disappears, Adam suddenly finds himself alone.

When assassin Rafe Fletcher returns home to London, he can’t help falling for his brother’s woman. For a man looking for redemption, it’s the last thing he wants. Lizzie Croft has feared her friend’s brooding brother for years. She remembers him as cold, calculating and dangerous, the very last man she needs in her life. The very last man she can trust. But trust him she must when she becomes the prime suspect in a murder.

Of all the Catholic Church’s great saints, few are as venerated as Saint Francis of Assisi. The founder of one of the largest religious orders in the Catholic Church today, his is a story that captivates the faithful and historians alike. This biographical work is a window into that incredible tale. Author Nick Pascoe unspools the remarkable story of the saint and his Franciscan Order with captivating prose and thorough historical research. Delve into the history of Saint Francis in The Canticle of the Sun: The Life of Saint Francis of Assisi and the Birth of the Franciscan Order by Nick ...

K.M. Grant pens an exciting tale of historical fiction set in the 12th century. Will is permitted to chose his own warhorse now that he has turned 13. Much to everyone's amusement, he selects a rather small chestnut. But Will sees something magical in this horse. As they accompany King Richard on a crusade to the Holy Land, the noble stallion galvanizes young Will with his displays of strength, courage, and loyalty.

Old English is the language you think you know until you actually hear or see it. Unlike Shakespearean English or even Chaucer's Middle English, Old English—the language of Beowulf—defies comprehension by untrained modern readers. Used throughout much of Britain more than a thousand years ago, it is rich with words that haven't changed (like word), others that are unrecognizable (such as neorxnawang, or paradise), and some that are mystifying even in translation ( gafol-fisc, or tax-fish).

On the night Ronia was born, a thunderstorm raged over the mountain, but in Matt's castle and among his band of robbers there was only joy - for Matt now had a spirited little black-haired daughter. Soon Ronia learns to dance and yell with the robbers, but it is alone in the forest that she feels truly at home. Then one day Ronia meets Birk, the son of Matt's arch-enemy. Soon after Ronia and Birk become friends the worst quarrel ever between the rival bands erupts, and Ronia and Berk are right in the middle.

The millennium between the breakup of the western Roman Empire and the Reformation was a long and hugely transformative period - one not easily chronicled within a single book. Yet distinguished historian Chris Wickham has taken up the challenge in this landmark book, and he succeeds in producing the most riveting account of medieval Europe in a generation.

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.

Edmund is the second son of Richard, Duke of York. Whisked away to Ireland as a child in troubled times, his best friend is his brother Edward, a year older, with whom his shares a special bond. Later, the family returns to England and the boys begin knightly training at Ludlow Castle, where they encounter bullying and intrigue as they grow from children to young men of royal blood and high destiny. Their father strives for peace but his motives are always questioned, and his enemy, Edmund Beaufort, fills the sickly King Henry VI's ears with slander and lies. Peace will not last. St Alban's...

Before the Reformation: Two Lives, One Legacy Dive into the extraordinary stories of two fearless pioneers who laid the foundation for a movement that would transform the world. Before the Reformation: John Wycliffe and Jan Hus brings you two books in one—a compelling look at the lives, battles, and sacrifices of the visionaries who paved the way for the Protestant Reformation. Meet John Wycliffe, the "Morning Star of the Reformation": Discover how this bold thinker defied the Church, translated the Bible into English, and dared to put divine truth into the hands of the common people. ...

In an assiduously researched biography of a 16th-century Jewish woman who managed a powerful business empire, Brooks, an associate fellow at Yale, has illuminated a mostly forgotten corner of history. Famed during her lifetime both in the Sephardic Jewish community for her unstinting philanthropy and in the wider world of the Muslim Ottoman Empire, where she fled to escape the Inquisition, Beatrice de Luna Mendes, better known as Doña Gracia Nasi (1510-1569), was a woman of formidable business acumen, personal courage, outstanding altruism and devotion to the Jewish religion, which, as a ...

For 700 years, Japan was ruled by military commanders who waged war against one another incessantly. Shogun tells the fascinating story of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the man who finally unified and brought lasting peace to the nation. He established a new central government which enabled his descendants to rule Japan for the next 260 years—a period in which Japanese culture as we know it today flourished.

Alec MacBriar crashes into the cottage of a healer and drops his wounded captain onto the table, commanding that the woman save his friend. Katie Oliver is terrified of the giants in her small home, but has no choice but to comply, hoping only to tend the wounded man and send them on their way, praying they cause no trouble to her or her son.

Henry II had all the gifts of the gods. He was charismatic, clever, learned, empathetic, a brilliant tactician, with great physical strength and an astonishing self-belief. Henry was the creator of the Plantagenet dynasty of kings, who ruled through eight generations in command of vast lands in Britain and Europe. Virtually unbeaten in battle, and engaged in a ceaseless round of conquest and diplomacy, Henry forged an empire that matched Charlemagne's.

In his dialogues, the Stoic philosopher Seneca outlines his thoughts on how to live in a troubled world. Tutor to the young emperor Nero, Seneca wrote practical philosophical exercises that draw upon contemporary Roman life and illuminate the intellectual concerns of the day. The dialogues also have much to say to the modern listener, as they range widely across subjects such as the shortness of life, tranquility of mind, anger, mercy, happiness, and grief at the loss of a loved one.

William Butler Yeats remains one of the most popular poets of the 20th century.

"The Lake Isle of Innisfree," "He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven," "Down by the Salley Gardens," "The Secret Rose": these are just a few of the poems that made William Butler Yeats an international figure. Born in Dublin in 1865, Yeats drew strength from the Irish tradition, as can be seen in this special audiobook, which presents the most important poems in the context of his life and ambitions.

"Thomas Aquinas’s Angelology in Action" offers a captivating exploration of the celestial beings that bridge the divine and the earthly. Drawing on the profound insights of St. Thomas Aquinas, this book unveils the rich tapestry of angelology, delving into the nature, hierarchy, and roles of angels in the grand cosmic order. From the fiery Seraphim and wise Cherubim to guardian angels who walk beside us, Aquinas’s theology illuminates these radiant minds as messengers, protectors, and agents of God’s providence. Blending medieval theology with timeless spiritual truths, this book ...

The Pastons were members of the English gentry, a group of roughly 1,000 households sandwiched between the ruling nobility and the peasants and a rough analog for the contemporary “middle class.” Their existence was fairly typical, except for the fact that it was recorded in an extraordinary collection of nearly 1,000 letters that have survived to this day. Through these letters, which cover the years from 1421 to 1484 and the lives of three generations of Pastons, historians Frances and Joseph Gies provide a rare window into the day-to-day life of this family.