Misconceptions About the Middle Ages

Misconceptions About the Middle Ages
Author: Stephen Harris
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 309
Release: 2010-05-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 1135986673

Brought together by an impressive, international array of contributors this book presents a representative study of some of the many misinterpretations that have evolved concerning the medieval period.

Mythology in the Middle Ages

Mythology in the Middle Ages
Author: Christopher R. Fee
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2011-01-20
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0313027250

Placing heroes from a wide range of medieval traditions shoulder to shoulder, this title provides the opportunity to examine what is common across medieval mythic, legendary, and folkloric traditions, as well as what seems unique. Myths of gods, legends of battles, and folktales of magic abound in the heroic narratives of the Middle Ages. Mythology in the Middle Ages: Heroic Tales of Monsters, Magic, and Might describes how Medieval heroes were developed from a variety of source materials: Early pagan gods become euhemerized through a Christian lens, and an older epic heroic sensibility was exchanged for a Christian typological and figural representation of saints. Most startlingly, the faces of Christian martyrs were refracted through a heroic lens in the battles between Christian standard-bearers and their opponents, who were at times explicitly described in demonic terms. The book treats readers to a fantastic adventure as author Christopher R. Fee guides them on the trail of some of the greatest heroes of medieval literature. Discussing the meanings of medieval mythology, legend, and folklore through a wide variety of fantastic episodes, themes, and motifs, the journey takes readers across centuries and through the mythic, legendary, and folkloric imaginations of different peoples. Coverage ranges from the Atlantic and Baltic coasts of Europe, south into the Holy Roman Empire, west through the Iberian peninsula, and into North Africa. From there, it is east to Byzantium, Russia, and even the far reaches of Persia.

Curious Myths of the Middle Ages

Curious Myths of the Middle Ages
Author: Sabine Baring-Gould
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
Total Pages: 204
Release: 2020-09-28
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1465608427

I do not refer to the first illustration as striking, where the Jewish shoemaker is refusing to suffer the cross-laden Savior to rest a moment on his door-step, and is receiving with scornful lip the judgment to wander restless till the Second Coming of that same Redeemer. But I refer rather to the second, which represents the Jew, after the lapse of ages, bowed beneath the burden of the curse, worn with unrelieved toil, wearied with ceaseless travelling, trudging onward at the last lights of evening, when a rayless night of unabating rain is creeping on, along a sloppy path between dripping bushes; and suddenly he comes over against a wayside crucifix, on which the white glare of departing daylight falls, to throw it into ghastly relief against the pitch-black rain-clouds. For a moment we see the working of the miserable shoemaker’s mind. We feel that he is recalling the tragedy of the first Good Friday, and his head hangs heavier on his breast, as he recalls the part he had taken in that awful catastrophe. Or, is that other illustration more remarkable, where the wanderer is amongst the Alps, at the brink of a hideous chasm; and seeing in the contorted pine-branches the ever-haunting scene of the Via Dolorosa, he is lured to cast himself into that black gulf in quest of rest,—when an angel flashes out of the gloom with the sword of flame turning every way, keeping him back from what would be to him a Paradise indeed, the repose of Death? Or, that last scene, when the trumpet sounds and earth is shivering to its foundations, the fire is bubbling forth through the rents in its surface, and the dead are coming together flesh to flesh, and bone to bone, and muscle to muscle—then the weary man sits down and casts off his shoes! Strange sights are around him, he sees them not; strange sounds assail his ears, he hears but one—the trumpet-note which gives the signal for him to stay his wanderings and rest his weary feet. I can linger over those noble woodcuts, and learn from them something new each time that I study them; they are picture-poems full of latent depths of thought. And now let us to the history of this most thrilling of all mediæval myths, if a myth. If a myth, I say, for who can say for certain that it is not true? “Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom,” are our Lord’s words, which I can hardly think apply to the destruction of Jerusalem, as commentators explain it to escape the difficulty. That some should live to see Jerusalem destroyed was not very surprising, and hardly needed the emphatic Verily which Christ only used when speaking something of peculiarly solemn or mysterious import. Besides, St. Luke’s account manifestly refers the coming in the kingdom to the Judgment, for the saying stands as follows: “Whosoever shall be ashamed of Me, and of My words, of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed, when He shall come in His own glory, and in His Father’s, and of the holy angels. But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death till they see the kingdom of God.”

Those Terrible Middle Ages

Those Terrible Middle Ages
Author: Régine Pernoud
Publisher: Ignatius Press
Total Pages: 188
Release: 2000
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780898707816

As she examines the many misconceptions about the "Middle Ages", the renown French historian, Regine Pernoud, gives the reader a refreshingly original perspective on many subjects, both historical (from the Inquisition and witchcraft trials to a comparison of Gothic and Renaissance creative inspiration) as well as eminently modern (from law and the place of women in society to the importance of history and tradition). Here are fascinating insights, based on Pernoud's sound knowledge and extensive experience as an archivist at the French National Archives. The book will be provocative for the general readers as well as a helpful resource for teachers. Scorned for centuries, although lauded by the Romantics, these thousand years of history have most often been concealed behind the dark clouds of ignorance: Why, didn't godiche (clumsy, oafish) come from gothique (Gothic)? Doesn't "fuedal" refer to the most hopeless obscurantism? Isn't "Medieval" applied to dust-covered, outmoded things? Here the old varnish is stripped away and a thousand years of history finally emerge -- the "Middle Ages" are dead, long live the Middle Ages!

Classical Myths and Legends in the Middle Ages and Renaissance

Classical Myths and Legends in the Middle Ages and Renaissance
Author: H. David Brumble
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 480
Release: 1998-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 1136797386

While numerous classical dictionaries identify the figures and tales of Greek and Roman mythology, this reference book explains the allegorical significance attached to the myths by Medieval and Renaissance authors. Included are several hundred alphabetically arranged entries for the gods, goddesses, heroes, heroines, and places of classical myth and legend. Each entry includes a brief account of the myth, with reference to the Greek and Latin sources. The entry then discusses how Medieval and Renaissance commentators interpreted the myth, and how poets, dramatists, and artists employed the allegory in their art. Each entry includes a bibliography and the volume concludes with appendices and an extensive bibliography of primary and secondary sources.

The Middle Ages

The Middle Ages
Author: Eleanor Janega
Publisher: Icon Books
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2021-06-03
Genre: Comics & Graphic Novels
ISBN: 1785785923

A unique, illustrated book that will change the way you see medieval history The Middle Ages: A Graphic History busts the myth of the 'Dark Ages', shedding light on the medieval period's present-day relevance in a unique illustrated style. This history takes us through the rise and fall of empires, papacies, caliphates and kingdoms; through the violence and death of the Crusades, Viking raids, the Hundred Years War and the Plague; to the curious practices of monks, martyrs and iconoclasts. We'll see how the foundations of the modern West were established, influencing our art, cultures, religious practices and ways of thinking. And we'll explore the lives of those seen as 'Other' - women, Jews, homosexuals, lepers, sex workers and heretics. Join historian Eleanor Janega and illustrator Neil Max Emmanuel on a romp across continents and kingdoms as we discover the Middle Ages to be a time of huge change, inquiry and development - not unlike our own.

The Myth of the Medieval Jewish Moneylender

The Myth of the Medieval Jewish Moneylender
Author: Julie L. Mell
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 346
Release: 2017-10-14
Genre: History
ISBN: 1137397780

This book challenges a common historical narrative, which portrays medieval Jews as moneylenders who filled an essential economic role in Europe. It traces how and why this narrative was constructed as a philosemitic narrative in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in response to the rise of political antisemitism. This book also documents why it is a myth for medieval Europe, and illuminates how changes in Jewish history change our understanding of European history. Each chapter offers a novel interpretation of central topics, such as the usury debate, commercial contracts, and moral literature on money and value to demonstrate how the revision of Jewish history leads to new insights in European history.