Tobias Capwell continues his history of jousting through surviving artefacts at the Royal Armouries. He reveals how the jousts and tournaments of the Renaissance transported knightly combat into a performance art, with demonstrations of aristocratic skill, superhuman strength and cutting-edge equipment.
The Royal Armouries is Britain's oldest museum, still partly housed in its original buildings in the Tower of London. The core of the collection is the medieval arsenal that was restocked by Henry VIII and on show to privileged visitors as early as the reign of Elizabeth I. After 1660, the general public was admitted and a series of spectacular ......
Explores the sociogenesis and development of the French royal mistress, examining the careers of nine of the most significant holders of that title between 1444 and the final years of the ancien regime.
In the waters around China, the "golden age of piracy" stretched for nearly three centuries. Over those years, there was an unprecedented advance in Chinese piracy unsurpassed in size and scope anywhere else in the world. This book uses primary source documents to uncover the history of "dwarf bandits," "sea rebels," and "ocean bandits."
The Golden Age of Piracy in China, 1520–1810 exposes readers to the little-known history of Chinese piracy in the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries through a short narrative and selection of documentary evidence. In this three-hundred-year period, Chinese piracy was unsurpassed in size and scope anywhere else in the world.
Like previous works by the authors, Thomas North's 1555 Travel Journal uses original digital research to analyze Thomas North's previously unpublished journal, arguing that its descriptions, especially of northern Italy, provided a template for Shakespeare's Henry VIII and The Winter's Tale.
Martin Luther's relationship to music has been largely downplayed, yet music played a vital role in Luther's life -- and he in turn had a deep and lasting effect on Christian hymnody. In Luther's Liturgical Music Robin Leaver comprehensively explores these connections.
Deception, Entrapment, and Execution of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots
The Walsingham Gambit provides the reader with a new and unique insight into the hidden history associated with the regicide of Mary, Queen of Scots. This hidden history is revealed in great detail by R. Kent Tiernan, who describes how the English deception planners led by Sir Francis Walsingham designed, engineered, and executed a complex ......
This study examines the close cultural, economic, and military relationship between the Russian Empire and the Netherlands in the early modern period. The author argues that the Netherlands had an outsized impact on Russia's early development into a powerful state.
Deception, Entrapment, and Execution of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots
Through the lens of a contemporary deception model, The Walsingham Gambit describes how the English deception planners led by Sir Francis Walsingham designed, engineered, and executed a complex seven-year operation to expand Queen Elizabeth I's power by ending the life of Mary, Queen of Scots.
English Catholic Books During the Reign of Philip II
Examines how English Catholic exiles in Spain used print and other written media to promote the conquest of England and the spiritual renewal of Christendom.
Religious Conversion and the Languages of the Early Spanish Empire
Examines how the Spanish monarchy managed an empire of unprecedented linguistic diversity, making only sporadic efforts to propagate Spanish during the sixteenth century. Challenges the assumption that the pervasiveness of the Spanish language resulted from deliberate linguistic colonization.
Explores how certain educated northern Europeans in the first half of the sixteenth century increasingly saw their world as disharmonious and inclusive of mutual contradiction. Examines how early modern writers grappled with the problem of cultural, religious, and cosmological difference in relation to notions of universals and the divine.
Like previous works by the authors, Thomas North's 1555 Travel Journal uses original digital research to analyze Thomas North's previously unpublished journal, arguing that its descriptions, especially of northern Italy, provided a template for Shakespeare's Henry VIII and The Winter's Tale.
Galvanized by Erasmus' teaching on free will, Martin Luther wrote The Bondage of the Will, insisting that the sinful human will could not turn itself to God. Robert Kolb unpacks Luther's theology and recounts his followers' ensuing disputes until their resolution in the Lutheran churches' 1577 "Formula of Concord".
In The Early Luther Berndt Hamm, armed with expertise both in late-medieval intellectual life and in Luther, presents new perspectives that leave old debates behind.
With great clarity and insight, James M. Estes illuminates Luther's call to secular authorities to help with the reform of the church in this important 1520 treatise. To combat Rome's intransigent opposition to reform of any sort, Luther appealed to secular rulers to intervene and clear the way for ecclesiastical reform.
Timothy J. Wengert shows Luther's Treatise on Good Works to be one of the clearest introductions to Luther's reforming work and theology. Luther's goal was to commend a new, down-to-earth piety to all Christians through a radically different meaning of good works that would transform the way believers practiced their faith.
This biography, begun by Timothy F. Lull prior to the death of Martin Luther and capably finished by Derek Nelson, is marked for its invigorating style. In this telling, Luther is an energetic, resilient actor, driven by very human strengths and failings, always wishing to do right by his understanding of God and the witness of the Scriptures.
Signs of Power in Habsburg Spain and the New World explores the representation of political, economic, military, religious, and juridical power in texts and artifacts from early modern Spain and her American viceroyalties. In addition to analyzing the dynamics of power in written texts, chapters also examine pieces of material culture including ......
Intercultural Alliance, Imperial Expansion, and Warfare in the Early Mod
Shows how intercultural interactions between Europeans and indigenous people influenced military choices and strategic action. Ranging from the Muscovites on the western steppe to the French and English in North America, it analyzes how diplomatic and military systems were designed to accommodate the demands and expectations of local peoples.
Intercultural Alliance, Imperial Expansion, and Warfare in the Early Mod
Shows how intercultural interactions between Europeans and indigenous people influenced military choices and strategic action. Ranging from the Muscovites on the western steppe to the French and English in North America, it analyzes how diplomatic and military systems were designed to accommodate the demands and expectations of local peoples.
Dating from the sixteenth century, there were hundreds of shtetls - Jewish settlements - in Eastern Europe that were home to a large and compact population that differed from their gentile, mostly peasant neighbors in religion, occupation, language, and culture. This volume takes a look at this most important facet of East European Jewish life.
Dating from the sixteenth century, there were hundreds of shtetls - Jewish settlements - in Eastern Europe that were home to a large and compact population that differed from their gentile, mostly peasant neighbors in religion, occupation, language, and culture. This volume takes a look at this most important facet of East European Jewish life.
This anthology provides a multicultural focus on witchcraft from the 15th to 18th century. The book builds upon information regarding both Christian and non-Christian beliefs about possession and the demonic and is organized into sections on folklore, magic, possession, gender and Christianity.
Wrested from the rule of the Venetians, the island of Cyprus took on cultural shadings of enormous complexity as a new province of the Ottoman empire. This title uncovers the island society as seen through local law courts, public works, and charitable institutions.
