"This book also includes biographies of key personalities, from Charlemagne to Wycliffe, timelines, maps, glossary, gazetteer, and bibliography."--BOOK JACKET.

This 1938 book by distinguished medievalist G. G. Coulton, comprises fifty-two chapters based on a lifetime of research that cover every aspect of medieval life, from the emergence of feudalism to 'the bursting of the dykes' at the Reformation. The focus is on England, but the European context is also defined.

Mappa mundi texts and images present a panorama of the medieval world-view, c.1300; the Hereford map studied in close detail. Filled with information and lore, mappae mundi present an encyclopaedic panorama of the conceptual "landscape" of the middle ages. Previously objects of study for cartographers and geographers, the value of medieval maps to scholars in other fields is now recognised and this book, written from an art historical perspective, illuminates the medieval view of the world represented in a group of maps of c.1300. Naomi Kline's detailed examination of the literary, visual, oral and textual evidence of the Hereford mappa mundi and others like it, such as the Psalter Maps, the '"Sawley Map", and the Ebstorf Map, places them within the larger context of medieval art and intellectual history. The mappa mundi in Hereford cathedral is at the heart of this study: it has more than one thousand texts and images of geographical subjects, monuments, animals, plants, peoples, biblical sites and incidents, legendary material, historical information and much more; distinctions between "real" and "fantastic" are fluid; time and space are telescoped, presenting past, present, and future. Naomi Kline provides, for the first time, a full and detailed analysis of the images and texts of the Hereford map which, thus deciphered, allow comparison with related mappae mundi as well as with other texts and images. NAOMI REED KLINE is Professor of Art History at Plymouth State College.

Some of the great and lasting achievements of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance are the architectural wonders of soaring cathedrals and grand castles and palaces. While many of these edifices survive, many more are lost, and it is within the pages of illuminated manuscripts that we often find the best record of the appearance of these amazing buildings. This volume illustrates the creative ways in which medieval artists represented architecture, offering insight into what these buildings meant for medieval people. Such structures were not just made to be inhabited--they symbolized grandeur, power, and even heaven on earth. Building the Medieval World accompanies an exhibition of the same name on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum from March 2 through May 16, 2010. Building the Medieval World is the fourth in the popular Medieval Imagination series of small, affordable books drawing on manuscript illumination in the collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum and the British Library. Each volume focuses on a particular theme and provides an accessible, delightful introduction to the imagination of the medieval world.