The Letters of Abélard and Héloïse
10 best books like The Letters of Abélard and Héloïse (Pierre Abélard): The Treasure of the City of Ladies, The Heptameron, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, The History of the Kings of Britain, The Lais of Marie de France, The Book of Margery Kempe, The History of the Franks, Piers Plowman, Laxdæla Saga, The Romance of the Rose
| Author | Christine de Pizan |
| ISBN | 0140449507 |
Written by Europe’s first professional woman writer, The Treasure of the City of Ladies offers advice and guidance to women of all ages and from all levels of medieval society, from royal courtiers to prostitutes. It paints an intricate picture of daily life in the courts and streets of fifteenth-century...
| Author | Marguerite de Navarre |
In the early 1500s five men and five women find themselves trapped by floods and compelled to take refuge in an abbey high in the Pyrenees. When told they must wait days for a bridge to be repaired, they are inspired - by recalling Boccaccio's Decameron - to pass the time in a cultured manner by each telling...
One night a group of monks from Durham cathedral seized Bede's remains and took them back to Durham for reburial there, making Bede one of those people who have ended up travelling further in death than they ever did while alive.
The give away fact about this book is it's title. What Bede wants...
| Author | Geoffrey of Monmouth |
| ISBN | 0140441700 |
Completed in 1136, The History of the Kings of Britain traces the story of the realm from its supposed foundation by Brutus to the coming of the Saxons some two thousand years later. Vividly portraying legendary and semi-legendary figures such as Lear, Cymbeline, Merlin the magician and the most famous...
| Author | Marie de France |
| ISBN | 0140447598 |
This is a prose translation of the lais or poems attributed to Marie de France. Little is known of her but she was probably the Abbess of the abbey at Shaftesbury in the late 12th century, illegitimate daughter of Geoffrey Plantagenet and hence the half-sister of Henry II of England. It was to a king, and...
The Book of Margery Kempe
| Author | Margery Kempe |
| ISBN | 0393976394 |
The Book of Margery Kempe (c. 1436-8) is the extraordinary account of a medieval wife, mother, and mystic. Known as the earliest autobiography written in the English language, Kempe's Book describes the dramatic transformation of its heroine from failed businesswoman and lustful young wife to devout...
| Author | Gregory of Tours |
| ISBN | 0140442952 |
Written following the collapse of Rome's secular control over western Europe, the History of Gregory (c. AD 539-594) is a fascinating exploration of the events that shaped sixth-century France. This volume contains all ten books from the work, the last seven of which provide an in-depth description...
| Author | William Langland |
| ISBN | 0393975592 |
Astonishing in its cultural and theological scope, William Langland's iconoclastic masterpiece is at once a historical relic and a deeply spiritual vision, probing not only the social and religious aristocracy but also the day-to-day realities of a largely voiceless proletariat class. E. Talbot...
| Author | Unknown |
| ISBN | 0140442189 |
Written around 1245 by an unknown author, the Laxdaela Saga is an extraordinary tale of conflicting kinships and passionate love, and one of the most compelling works of Icelandic literature. Covering 150 years in the lives of the inhabitants of the community of Laxriverdale, the saga focuses primarily...
| Author | Guillaume de Lorris |
| ISBN | 0192839489 |
This is a new translation of The Romance of the Rose, an allegorical account of the progress of a courtly love affair which became the most popular and influential of all medieval romances. In the hands of Jean de Meun, who continued de Lorris's work, it assumed vast proportions and embraced almost every...
| Author | Gottfried von Straßburg |
Gottfried's version of this legendary romance--in which Tristan and Isolde chance to drink a magic potion that causes them to fall in love--portrays Tristan in the round as an attractive and sophisticated pre-Renaissance man. While Gottfried adheres faithfully to the events as set down by Thomas,...
| Author | Gerald of Wales |
| ISBN | 0140443398 |
Gerald of Wales was one of the most dynamic and colorful churchmen of the 12th century. His JOURNEY describes a mission to Wales undertaken in 1188 by Baldwin, Archbishop of Canterbury, with Gerald as his companion. THE DESCRIPTION provides a picture of the day-to-day existence of ordinary Welshmen...
| Author | Einhard |
| ISBN | 0140442138 |
Two revealingly different accounts of the life of the most important figure of the Roman Empire
Charlemage, known as the father of Europe, was one of the most powerful and dynamic of all medieval rulers. The biographies brought together here provide a rich and varied portrait of the king from...
| Author | Thomas Malory |
| ISBN | 1401307809 |
Le Morte d'Arthur (originally spelled Le Morte Darthur, Middle French for "the death of Arthur"[1]) is a reworking of existing tales by Sir Thomas Malory about the legendary King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, Merlin, and the Knights of the Round Table. Malory interprets existing French and English...
| Author | John Mandeville |
| ISBN | 0141441437 |
Ostensibly written by an English knight, the Travels purport to relate his experiences in the Holy Land, Egypt, India and China. Mandeville claims to have served in the Great Khan's army, and to have travelled in 'the lands beyond' - countries populated by dog-headed men, cannibals, Amazons and Pygmies....
| Author | Asser |
| ISBN | 0140444092 |
This is a great book to get hold of if you are interested in the Anglo-Saxons or early medieval history. It's packed full of source material - enough to get the curious going, not just Asser's life of Alfred which fascinatingly stops well before Alfred's death (did Asser just die unbeknown to us before...
| Author | Jean Froissart |
| ISBN | 0140442006 |
The Chronicles of Froissart (1337-1410) are one of the greatest contemporary records of fourteenth-century England and France. Depicting the great age of Anglo-French rivalry from the deposition of Edward II to the downfall of Richard II, Froissart powerfully portrays the deeds of knights in battle...
| Author | Chrétien de Troyes |
| ISBN | 0820307580 |
This verse translation of Yvain; or, The Knight with the Lion brings to life a fast-paced yet remarkably subtle work often considered to be the masterpiece of the twelfth-century French writer Chrétien de Troyes. The creator of the Arthurian romance as a genre, Chrétien is revealed in this work as...
| Author | Jean de Joinville |
| ISBN | 0140441247 |
Two famous, firsthand accounts of the holy war in the Middle Ages translated by Margaret R. B. Shaw
Originally composed in Old French, the two chronicles brought together here offer some of the most vivid and reliable accounts of the Crusades from a Western perspective. Villehardouin's Conquest...
| Author | Anna Comnena |
| ISBN | 0140442154 |
'The shining light of the world, the great Alexius'
Anna Comnena (1083-1153) wrote The Alexiad as an account of the reign of her father, the Byzantine Emperor Alexius I. It is also an important source of information on the Byzantine war with the Normans, and the First Crusade, in which Alexius...
| Author | Peter R.L. Brown |
| ISBN | 0226076229 |
Following the fall of the Roman Empire in the West, the cult of the saints was the dominant form of religion in Christian Europe. In this elegantly written work, Peter Brown explores the role of tombs, shrines, relics, and pilgrimages connected with the sacred bodies of the saints. He shows how men and...
| Author | R.W. Southern |
| ISBN | 0300002300 |
An acknolwedged classic of european history, R.W. Southern's "The Middle Ages" focuses on the period between 900 and 1200 A.D. His geopgraphic focus is mostly northern france, with some asides to Germany, Italy, Southern France and England. His main thesis is the idea that this period saw the emergence...
Heloise & Abelard: A New Biography
| Author | James Burge |
| ISBN | 0060816139 |
New Revelations about One of the Greatest Romances in History
Peter Abelard was arguably the greatest poet, philosopher, and religious teacher in all of twelfth-century Europe. In an age when women were rarely educated, Heloise was his most gifted young student. Their private tutoring...
