Many Christians today tend to view the story of medieval faith as a cautionary tale. Too often, they dismiss the Middle Ages as a period of corruption and decay in the church. They seem to assume that the church apostatized from true Christianity after it gained cultural influence in the time of Constantine, and the faith was only later recovered by the sixteenth-century Reformers or even the eighteenth-century revivalists. As a result, the riches and wisdom of the medieval period have remained largely inaccessible to modern Protestants. Church historian Chris Armstrong helps readers see beyond modern caricatures of the medieval church to the animating Christian spirit of that age. He believes today's church could learn a number of lessons from medieval faith, such as how the gospel speaks to ordinary, embodied human life in this world. Medieval Wisdom for Modern Christians explores key ideas, figures, and movements from the Middle Ages in conversation with C. S. Lewis and other thinkers, helping contemporary Christians discover authentic faith and renewal in a forgotten age.

Ramer plays and grapples with traditional midrashim, drawing inspiration from the homoerotic love poems of medieval Spain, and envisioning alternate versions of the present. Inspired by the pioneering work of Jewish feminists, he has crafted stories that anchor LGBT lives in the 3,000-year-old history of the Jewish people.

Over the course of the Middle Ages, the economies of Europe, Asia, and northern Africa became more closely integrated, fostering the international and intercontinental journeys of merchants, pilgrims, diplomats, missionaries, and adventurers. During a time in history when travel was often difficult, expensive, and fraught with danger, these wayfarers composed accounts of their experiences in unprecedented numbers and transformed traditional conceptions of human mobility. Exploring this phenomenon, The Medieval Invention of Travel draws on an impressive array of sources to develop original readings of canonical figures such as Marco Polo, John Mandeville, and Petrarch, as well as a host of lesser-known travel writers. As Shayne Aaron Legassie demonstrates, the Middle Ages inherited a Greco-Roman model of heroic travel, which viewed the ideal journey as a triumph over temptation and bodily travail. Medieval travel writers revolutionized this ancient paradigm by incorporating practices of reading and writing into the ascetic regime of the heroic voyager, fashioning a bold new conception of travel that would endure into modern times. Engaging methods and insights from a range of disciplines, The Medieval Invention of Travel offers a comprehensive account of how medieval travel writers and their audiences reshaped the intellectual and material culture of Europe for centuries to come.

A "lively and engaging" history of the Middle Ages (Dallas Morning News) from the acclaimed historian William Manchester, author of The Last Lion. 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 dense explosion of energy that spawned some of history's greatest poets, philosophers, painters, adventurers, and reformers, as well as some of its most spectacular villains. "Manchester provides easy access to a fascinating age when our modern mentality was just being born." --Chicago Tribune

"The common, simplistic view of the Middle Ages as religion-centered and materially backward is challenged by Jean Gimpel in this milestone study, originally published in 1976. The Medieval Machine tells how, between the years 900 and 1300, Europeans created their first industrial revolution, which set Western civilization on the road to global dominance. Gimpel describes the main features of this early machine age: the pervasive use of waterpower (the oil of the medieval era); the agricultural innovations that energized the population through better nourishment; the spread of mining along with mechanized iron mills; and the appearance of modern industrial problems such as labor unrest and pollution. This is a story of technology triumphant: architect-engineers were adulated; there were tallest-building contests like those of the twentieth century. The climax comes with the invention of the key modern device - the mechanical clock. The subsequent technological decline, Gimpel explains, was due to a plague, famine, and a reversion to mysticism. In the epilogue, Gimpel asserts that the West in his time faced another technological decline; he did not forsee the digital boom of the 1980s and 90s and the development of post-industrial economies. Nevertheless, his predictions may provide valuable material for historians of the recent past"--Page 4 of cover.

The stories in this collection constitute just a small portion of a vast body of some four hundred short narratives known as otogizoshi. They represent a cross section of medieval Japan in its richness and complexity, a panoply of life teeming with all the possibilities and contradictions of the age.

A collection of well-known tales from medieval Europe, including "Beowulf," "The Sword in the Stone," "The Song of Roland," and "The Island of the Lost Children."

This book argues for a radically new approach to the history of reading and literacy in the Middle Ages.

Contrary to popular opinion, the bulk of Islamic law does not come from the Quran but from hadith, first-hand reports of the Prophet Muhammad’s words and deeds, passed from generation to generation. However, with varying accounts often only committed to paper a century after the death of Muhammad, Islamic scholars, past and present, have been faced with complex questions of historical authenticity. In this wide-ranging introduction, Jonathan A. C. Brown explores the collection and criticism of hadith, and the controversy surrounding its role in modern Islam. This edition, revised and updated with additional case studies and attention to the very latest scholarship, also features a new chapter on how hadiths have been used politically, both historically and in the Arab Spring and its aftermath. Informative and accessible, it is perfectly suited to students, scholars and general readers interested in this critical element of Islam.