Throughout Europe, medieval forces were either engaged in conflict or preparing for it through training. Arising from the need to keep the skills of warriors sharp and battle-ready, medieval jousting for knights on horseback became a widespread pastime. This book details how the culture of medieval tournaments arose around jousting and other games of combat, including both for the mounted cavalry (knights) and foot soldiers (in events such as melees)...

A retelling of the medieval poem about a group of travelers on a pilgrimage to Canterbury and the tales they tell each other. With their astonishing diversity of tone and subject matter, The Canterbury Tales have become one of the touchstones of medieval literature. Translated here into modern English, these tales of a motley crowd of pilgrims drawn from all walks of life-from knight to nun, miller to monk-reveal a picture of English life in the fourteenth...

The lives of England's medieval queens were packed with incident--love, intrigue, betrayal, adultery, and warfare--but their stories have been largely obscured by centuries of myth and omission. Now esteemed biographer Alison Weir provides a fresh perspective and restores these women to their rightful place in history. Spanning the years from the Norman conquest in 1066 to the dawn of a new era in 1154, when Henry II succeeded to the throne and Eleanor...

A spirited and sweeping account of how the crusades really worked-and a revolutionary attempt to rethink how we understand the Middle Ages. The story of the wars and conquests initiated by the First Crusade and its successors is itself so compelling that most accounts move quickly from describing the Pope's calls to arms to the battlefield. In this highly original and enjoyable new book, Christopher Tyerman focuses on something obvious but overlooked:...

"A vibrant and illuminating exploration of medieval thinking on women's beauty, sexuality, and behavior. What makes for the ideal woman? How should she look, love, and be? In this vibrant, high-spirited history, medievalist Eleanor Janega turns to the Middle Ages, the era that bridged the ancient world and modern society, to unfurl its suppositions about women and reveal what's shifted over time-and what hasn't. Enshrined medieval thinkers, almost...

Story of the deformed bellringer Quasimodo who rescues a gypsy girl from the evil intentions of his guardian who wants to kill her.