Why The Middle Ages Matter
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Medieval Horizons
The essential introduction to the Middle Ages by the bestselling author of The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England We tend to think of the Middle Ages as a dark, backward and unchanging time characterised by violence, ignorance and superstition. By contrast we believe progress arose from science and technological innovation, and that inventions of recent centuries created the modern world. We couldn't be more wrong. As Ian Mortimer shows in this fascinating book, people's horizons - their knowledge, experience and understanding of the world - expanded dramatically. Life was utterly transformed between 1000 and 1600, marking the transition from a warrior-led society to that of Shakespeare. Just as The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England revealed what it was like to live in the fourteenth century, Medieval Horizons provides the perfect primer to the era as a whole. It outlines the enormous cultural changes that took place - from literacy to living standards, inequality and even the developing sense of self - thereby correcting misconceptions and presenting the period as a revolutionary age of fundamental importance in the development of the Western world. Praise for Ian Mortimer: 'The endlessly inventive Ian Mortimer is the most remarkable medieval historian of our time' - The Times
Why the Middle Ages Matter
"The word "medieval" is often used in a negative way when talking about contemporary issues; Why the Middle Ages Matter refreshes our thinking about this historical era, and our own, by looking at some pressing concerns from today's world, asking how these issues were really handled in the medieval period, and showing why the past matters now. The contributors here cover topics such as torture, animal rights, marriage, sexuality, imprisonment, refugees, poverty and end of life care. They shed light on relations between Christians and Muslims and on political leadership. This collection challenges many negative stereotypes of medieval people, revealing a world from which, for instance, much could be learned about looking after the spiritual needs of the dying, and about integrating prisoners into the wider community with the emphasis on reconciliation between victim and criminal. It represents a new level of engagement with issues of social justice by medievalists and provides a highly engaging way into studying the middle ages for students"--
The Matter of Araby in Medieval England
Author: Dorothee Metlitzki
language: en
Publisher: Yale University Press
Release Date: 2005-07-01
To understand the significance of Arabic material in medieval literature, we must recognize the concrete reality of Islam in the medieval European experience. Intimate contacts beginning with the Crusades yielded considerable knowledge about "Araby" beyond the merely stereotypical and propagandistic. Arabian culture was manifest in scientific and philosophical investigations; and the Arab presence pervaded medieval romance, where caricatures of Saracens were not merely a catering to popular taste but were a way of coping emotionally with a real threat. In England as well as in continental Europe, Islam figured in the best intellectual efforts of the age. Dorothee Metlitzki considers "Scientific and Philosophical Learning" in Part One of this book and discusses the transmission of Arabian culture, by way of the Crusades, and through the courts of Sicily and Spain. She sees the work of Latin translators from the Arabic in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as the background of a medieval heritage of learning that expressed itself in the subject matter, theme, and imagery not only of a scholar-poet like Chaucer but also of the poets of popular romance. In Part Two, "The Literary Heritage," Metlitzki deals with Arabian source books, with Araby in history and romance, and with Mandeville's Travels. She concludes with a general assessment of the cultural force of Araby in England during the middle Ages.