"With technical advancements including the widespread use of metal-detectors and a recent increase in the number of archaeological excavations nationwide, Britain in the Middle Ages draws on a depth of knowledge and research to dispel the common misconception of the 'Dark Ages' as an era characterized by chaos and violence. Redefining everything from the role of the Vikings - conventionally depicted as rapists and pillagers but here shown to have...

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...

"Castles may conjure up a romantic fairy tale world; however, in real life, during the Middle Ages, castles were fortresses, providing shelter and protection for the lord as well as for the peasants who lived on his land. For an army, a lord depended on young soldiers in armor called knights who spent years at the castle learning the skills of warfare"-- Provided by publisher.

Virtually nothing is said about the European scholars who came before. In reality, more than a millennium before the Renaissance, a succession of scholars paved the way for the exciting discoveries usually credited to Galileo, Newton, Copernicus, and others. In Before Galileo, physicist and historian John Freely examines the pioneering research of the first European scientists, many of them monks whose influence ranged far beyond the walls of the...

Loyal knight Fulke Fitzwarin loses his opportunity to become a castle-owner after a violent quarrel with King John.

The early Middle Ages have been dismissed as a step backwards for civilization-a barbaric time in which warfare and conquest eclipsed learning and progress. But were the Dark Ages really so bleak? Art historian Waldemar Januszczak says no, and then takes us on an artistic journey back to this much-maligned epoch to reveal the evidence. He travels the world, finding beauty and refinement where one might have expected only brutality and destruction....

Discusses the structure and functions of castles and describes everyday life inside a medieval castle.