Medieval Britain

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Nigel Saul

The world of medieval chivalry is at once glamorous and violent, alluring yet alien. Our popular views of the period are largely inherited from the nineteenth-century romantics, for whom chivalry evoked images of knights in shining armour, competing for the attention of fair ladies - with pennons and streamers fluttering from castle battlements. But what is the reality? Were the rituals and romance of chivalry designed to provide an escape from the brutal facts of almost continuous warfare? Or did they instead help regulate the conduct of war and moderate its violent excesses? Nigel Saul charts the introduction of chivalry by the Normans, the rise of the knightly class as a social elite, the fusion of chivalry with kingship in the fourteenth century and the influence of chivalry on literature, religion and architecture. He shows us a world of kings and barons, castles and cathedrals - a world shaped by Richard the Lionheart and the Crusades, by Magna Carta and the rule of law, by battles like Bannockburn and Crecy, by the Black Death and by tournaments, round tables and the cult of Arthurianism. Structured around the related themes of war, politics and knighthood, For Honour and Fame tells the story of England from the Norman Conquest to the aftermath of Henry VII's triumph at Bosworth in the Wars of the Roses. Wide-ranging, vivid and authoritative, this is the first book to treat chivalry as part of the wider history of medieval England. - Publisher.

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S. H. Rigby

Whilst the Canterbury Tales are universally acknowledged as one of the great texts of English literature, there is perhaps less critical agreement about their meaning than for any other work in the English literary canon. In particular, critics and historians have been unable to reach any consensus about the social, political and religious values which Chaucer favoured. Did his writings represent a challenge to the dominant social outlook of his day or were they intended to reinforce the contemporary status quo? Was Chaucer a poet of profound religious piety or a sceptic who questioned all religious and moral certainties? Was he a defender of women or a misogynist whose writings reproduced the antifeminism characteristic of his time? How do Chaucer's works relate to medieval ideas about the nature and purposes of poetry? Do his pilgrims reflect the social reality of his day or were they the expression of traditional literary conventions? Writing as an historian, Rigby argues that instead of seeking to modernise Chaucer, we need to locate his work in the context of the thought, social issues and political controversies of Chaucer's own day.

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Marguerite De Angeli

From the back cover of Scholastic Inc. copy of this book: By Marguerite de Angeli, recipient of the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award, the Regina Medal, and the Newberry Medal. The bells clang above plague-ridden London as Robin lies helpless, cold, and hungry. The great house is empty, his father is fighting the Scots in the north, his mother is traveling with the Queen, and the servants have fled. He calls for help but only the stones hear his cries. Suddenly someone else is in the house, coming towards Robin to St. Mark's Monastery, where he will be cared for until his father sends for him. At last a message comes – Robin is to meet his father at Castle Lindsay. The journey is dangerous, and the castle is located near the hostile Welsh border. Perched high in the hills, the castle appears invincible. But it is not. Under the cover of a thick fog the Welsh attack the castle. And robin is the only one who can save it... “An enthralling and inspiring tale...Unusually beautiful illustrations, full of detail, combine with the text to make life in England during the Middle Ages come alive.” ~ *The New York Times*

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Veronica Ortenberg

A study of the connections between the English and continental Churches during the 10th and 11th centuries. The author draws on a range of sources to establish the strong and continual links between England and the countries of Christian Europe.