Medieval Houses

Historian Justine Firnhaber-Baker tells the epic story of the Capetian dynasty of medieval France, showing how their ideas about power, religion, and identity continue to shape European society and politics today. Reigning from 987 to 1328, the Capetians became the most powerful monarchy of the Middle Ages. Consolidating a fragmented realm that eventually stretched from the Rhône to the Pyrenees, they were the first royal house to adopt the fleur-de-lys, displaying this lily emblem to signify their divine favor and legitimate their rule.

AD 1380. The great-grandson of the legendary William de Wolfe is not as his family had hoped; although a man of legendary skill and strength like his great-grandfather, Gates de Wolfe is something of a legendary rake as well. A man with an eye for women, he has left a string of broken hearts all across England and rumors of at least two bastards, possibly more. But Gates is also a man of humor, charm, and great charisma, making it difficult for women to resist him and making it even more difficult for men to despise him, because he is such a likable character.

Embark on an enthralling journey through the heart of Medieval England in this captivating exploration of one of history's most dynamic periods. Delve into the lives of kings and queens, knights and peasants, as the story of England unfolds against the backdrop of feudalism, chivalry, and religious upheaval. Experience the turbulence of the Magna Carta, the devastation of the Black Death, and the intrigue of the Wars of the Roses, all of which shaped the destiny of England.

Bermondsey Priory, 1114. A young chaplain succumbs to the temptations of the flesh - and suffers a gruesome punishment. From that moment, the monastery is cursed and over the next five hundred years murder and treachery abound within its hallowed walls. A beautiful young bride found dead two days before her wedding. A ghostly figure that warns of impending doom. A plot to depose King Edward II.

"It was in the first week of October in the year 1391 that I first came face to face with the man who owned me… the man whose lightest word was to us, his villeins, weightier than the King’s law or the edicts of our Holy Father…” So began the story of Martin Reed - a serf whose resentment of the automatic rule of his feudal lord finally flared into open defiance.

Sir Valor "Val" de Nerra is one of Henry II's most trusted knights. As the Itinerant Justice of East Hampshire, Val's word is law. A fair and just man, and a very handsome one, he enjoys a good deal of attention and respect. His life is a prestigious and wealthy one until he faces a decision one day that will change the course of his life.

Geoffrey Chaucer’s House of Fame is a surreal account of a dream in which the poet visits the palace where Fame herself sits in state. Chaucer’s tour-guide to this strange corner of the medieval universe is a comically garrulous eagle, and there is even time for the pair to stop by the House of Rumour. Simon Webb’s highly accessible modern English verse translation conveys the humour and colour of Chaucer’s original, and Simon’s introduction explains why the poem is worthy of comparison with Chaucer’s better-known Canterbury Tales. With introduction, glossary and bibliography.

One of the great epics of Europe's history, the story of the rise and rise of the Capetian dynasty, dominates the Middle Ages. Starting in the tenth century from an insecure foothold around Paris, the Capetians built a nation that stretched from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean and from the Rhône to the Pyrenees. They founded practices and institutions that endured until the Revolution, transformed Paris from a muddy backwater to a splendid metropole, and popularized the fleur-de-lys, the lily, as the emblem of France.

The year is 1796 and the soil of Piedmont and Tuscany runs with blood, another battle takes shape on the mysterious Adriatic Sea. Alan Lewrie and his 18-gun sloop, HMS Jester, part of a squadron of four British warships, sail into the thick of it. But with England's allies failing, Napoleon busy...

The twelfth and thirteenth centuries were a time of personal monarchy, when the close friendship or petty feuding between kings and queens could determine the course of history. The Capetians of France and the Angevins of England waged war, made peace, and intermarried. In this lively history, Catherine Hanley traces the great clashes, and occasional friendships, of the two dynasties. Along the way, she emphasizes the fascinating and influential women of the houses—including Eleanor of Aquitaine—and shows how personalities and familial bonds shaped the fate of two countries.

Kaspian is tended by a woman who offers him her breasts as way of sustaining his life. At first, he looks at the situation as a necessity, but he soon comes to crave it. He struggles to keep his feelings from the widowed woman, but it becomes increasingly difficult. For a man who has known little compassion or kindness in his life, Madelayne comes to represent everything he has been missing. She soon becomes to represent everything he wants, and he wants her.

INSTANT #1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER A rollicking history of England’s kings and queens from Arthur to Elizabeth I, a tale of power, glory, and excessive beheadings by award-winning British actor and comedian David Mitchell “Clever, amusing, gloriously bizarre and razor sharp. Mitchell...

When European missionaries first arrived in India in the sixteenth century, they entered a world both fascinating and bewildering. Hinduism, as they saw it, was a pagan mess: the worship of devils and monsters by a people who burned women alive, performed outlandish rites and fed children to...

In an Arizona desert a man wanders in a daze, speaking words that make no sense. Within twenty-four hours he is dead, his body swiftly cremated by his only known associates. Halfway around the world archaeologists make a shocking discovery at a medieval site. Suddenly they are swept off to the...

Un hombre despierta en el claro de un bosque de lo que parece ser la Inglaterra medieval, sin ningún recuerdo sobre quién es, de dónde procede ni por qué está allí. Perseguido por un grupo llegado de su propia época, su única posibilidad de sobrevivir pasa por recuperar la memoria perdida, conseguir aliados entre la gente del lugar y quizás incluso confiaren sus supersticiosos alardes. Su única ayuda del «mundo real» debería haber sido un manual titulado La guía del mago frugal para sobrevivir en la Inglaterra del Medievo, pero el ejemplar que tenía explotó en el traslado.

The Wars of the Roses were a tumultuous period in English history, with family fighting family over the greatest prize in the kingdom—the throne of England. But what gave the eventual victor of these brutal and complex wars, Henry Tudor, the right to claim the crown? What made his Beaufort mother the great heiress of medieval England, and how exactly did an illegitimate line come to challenge the English monarchy? This book uncovers the rise of the Beauforts and tracks their fall during the 1460s and 1470s.

The rise of the dragon and fall of kings. Lord Regent Geder Palliako's war has led his nation and the priests of the spider goddess to victory after victory. No power has withstood him, except for the heart of the one woman he desires. As the violence builds and the cracks in his rule begin to...

The perfect St. Patrick's Day gift, and a book in the best tradition of popular history -- the untold story of Ireland's role in maintaining Western culture while the Dark Ages settled on Europe. Every year millions of Americans celebrate St. Patrick's Day, but they may not be aware of how great...

Here is the remarkable story of how medieval Arab scholars made dazzling advances in science and philosophy, and of the itinerant Europeans who brought this knowledge back to the West. For centuries following the fall of Rome, Western Europe was a benighted backwater, a world of subsistence farming, minimal literacy, and violent conflict. Meanwhile, Arab culture was thriving, dazzling those Europeans fortunate enough to catch even a glimpse.

AD 1301. Following the great quest north with Cortez de Bretagne ( The Questing), de Bretagne's knight, Sir Drake de Winter, returns home to the great de Winter empire in Norfolk, but it is not the safe and wonderful haven he remembers. Family unrest causes him to flee to London and into the service of the elderly King Edward I, a personal friend of Drake's father. In Edward's service, Drake finds himself in Scotland as a major player in the Siege of Caerlaverock Castle.