Through examination of artefacts, writings, and possessions, this reappraisal of medieval femininity presents countless cases of influential women such as Jadwiga, the only female King in Europe, whose names were struck from history.

A fascinating look at life in the Middle Ages that focuses on eight extraordinary medieval men and women through realistically invented conversations between them and their counterparts.

The thirteen-year-old daughter of an English country knight keeps a journal in which she records the events of her life, particularly her longing for adventures beyond the usual role of women and her efforts to avoid being married off.

"The beauty and levity that Perry and Gabriele have captured in this book are what I think will help it to become a standard text for general audiences for years to come....The Bright Ages is a rare thing—a nuanced historical work that almost anyone can enjoy reading."—Slate

"Incandescent and ultimately intoxicating." —The Boston Globe

A lively and magisterial popular history

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"Lively, absorbing, often outrageously funny, Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales is a work of genius, an undisputed classic that has held a special appeal for each generation of readers. The Tales gathers twenty-nine of literature’s most enduring (and endearing) characters in a vivid group portrait that captures the full spectrum of medieval society, from the exalted Knight to the humble Plowman."--

"An epic reappraisal of the medieval world--and the rich and complicated legacy left to us by the rise of the West--from the New York Times bestselling author of The Templars. When the once-mighty city of Rome was sacked by barbarians in 410 and lay in ruins, it signaled the end of an era--and the beginning of a thousand years of profound transformation. In a gripping narrative bursting with big names--from St Augustine and Attila the Hun to the Prophet...

Presents a chronological analysis of the world's most important events and developments from 477 through 1453 c.e.

From the schism between Rome and Constantinople to the rise of the T'ang Dynasty, from the birth of Muhammad to the crowning of Charlemagne, this erudite book tells the fascinating, often violent story of kings, generals, and the peoples they ruled.In her earlier work, The History of the Ancient World, Susan Wise Bauer wrote of the rise of kingship based on might. But in the years between the fourth and the twelfth centuries, rulers had to find new...

From tales of chivalrous knights to the barbarity of trial by ordeal, no era has been a greater source of awe, horror, and wonder than the Middle Ages. In handsomely crafted prose and with the grace and authority of his extraordinary gift for narrative history, William Manchester leads us from a civilization tottering on the brink of collapse to the grandeur of its rebirth, the Renaissance, a dense explosion of energy that spawned some of history's...