In this martial world dominated by men, women had little place. The Church’s teachings might underpin feudal morality, yet when it came to the practicalities of life, a ruthless pragmatism often came into play. Kings...

Do I perceive a softening in your heart for me, damoiselle?” He laughed at her scowl. “Beware maid. I will tell you true. After you will come another and then another. There are no strings...

The medievalist has the capacity, and the desire, to harmonize. He believes the planets sing in harmony; why cannot technology also sing?

The Study of philosophy is not that we may know what men have thought, but what the truth of things is.

Theologians and other clerks, You won’t understand this book, — However bright your wits — If you do not meet it humbly, And in this way, Love and Faith Make you surmount Reason, for They...

Court life for a queen of France at that time was, however, stultifyingly routine. Eleanor found that she was expected to be no more than a decorative asset to her husband, the mother of his...

He was a strong and noble lord with piercing eyes of grey. He sat upon his noble throne shining like the dawn. His sword flashed like the brightest star. He led our people well. Yet...

Light – both physical and moral – was a central concern to the men and women living in the medieval age. They attempted to explore its properties in the colors of a stained glass canopy,...

The atheist, agnostic, or secularist … should guard against the encroachment of religion in areas where it has no place, and in particular the control of education by religious authority. The attempts to ban the...

Reason, you’ll always be half-blind.

When you consider the superstitions and the imaginings of the old Cornish country-folk up to my grandmother’s day, how their lives were swaddled in them from the cradle to the grave, their daily actions in...

I am not yet come of age, my lord. How can I be queen?” asked Constance fearfully.

I’ve always like Medieval literature. As a young girl I read mythologies and Norse legends, that sort of thing. I loved Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. While I was studying at Middle Tennessee State...

There once was a time when all people believed in God and the church ruled. This time was called the Dark Ages.

Most of the tools from medieval times were extensions of the physical self. Tools are now extensions of the mental self.

Those darling byegone times, Mr Carker,’ said Cleopatra, ‘with their delicious fortresses, and their dear old dungeons, and their delightful places of torture, and their romantic vengeances, and their picturesque assaults and sieges, and everything...

No offense, Jaron, but I don’t want your life. Even locked away behind closed doors I got a taste for how awful it can be.””Did anyone try to kill you while I was gone?””No.””Then you...

Ah, life in medieval times! Yeah, we only have to worry about losing our heads every day.

Lying is a thriving vocation.

Whoever has received knowledgeand eloquence in speech from Godshould not be silent or secretivebut demonstrate it willingly.When a great good is widely heard of,then, and only then, does it bloom,and when that good is praised...

You are not blamed for your unwilling ignorance, but because you fail to ask about what you do not know…. For no one is prevented from leaving behind the disadvantage of ignorance and seeking the...

Loose and forbear!

The modern mind is merely a blank about the philosophy of toleration; and the average agnostic of recent times has really had no notion of what he meant by religious liberty and equality. He took...

Does it make you brave to stick your hand in a bear’s mouth? Would you do it again just because you didn’t die?

I remember the fire, it burns bright, always around me. I close my eyes, and tears stream out. The tides of the past seize me, bear me out to sea.

‎W. H. Auden once suggested that to understand your own country you need to have lived in at least two others. One can say something similar for periods of time: to understand your own century...

Life was a destiny waiting to be seized.

Thus Arthur achieved the adventure of the sword that day and entered into his birthright of royalty. Wherefore, may God grant His Grace unto you all that ye too may likewise succeed in your undertakings....

The way back will come but once. Be steadfast.

In the end, I listen to my fear. It keeps me awake, resounding through the frantic beating in my breast. It is there in the dry terror in my throat, in the pricking of the...

Such planetary alignments are thought to lead to local miasmas: concentrations of fetid air and noxious vapors. These miasmas are then blown on the wind and enter men’s and women’s bodies through the pores of...

In the cities of the European Franks, women roam about exposing not only their faces, but also their brightly shining hair (after their necks, their most attractive feature), their arms, their beautiful throats, and even,...

I love you enough to keep you from dying with me… ~ Dane de Falaise

I am a knight riding from tower to tower seeking a princess to rescue but all the dragons are slain, the towers are empty and the princesses taken.

Rooks have clustered on either side of the long road. It is as if they line a grand parade route for our passage. Their black feathers are stark as soot against the white road and...

En la forest de Longue Attentechevauchant par divers sentiersm’en voys, ceste année présenteoù voyage de Desiriers.Devant sont aller mes fourrierspour appareiller mon logisen la Cité de Destinée.Et pout mon cœur et moy ont prisl’ostellerie de...

Science, which is only another name for truth, now holds religious charlatans, self-deceivers and God agents in a certain degree of check–agents and employees, I mean, of a mythical, medieval, man-made God, anthropomorphic in constitution.

How was she created? I’m not sure if you realize this, but it was in God’s image. How can anybody dare to speak ill of something which bears such a noble imprint?

Under the sanctuary are the catacombs where the dead wait for resurrection. The living do not venture there. The caverns here underneath the Sanctuary are illuminated only by dim shafts of light from the sanctuary....

Discover how to visit the past and bring yesterday’s stories into our lives today

Maimed but still magnificent… Europe’s mightiest medieval cathedral.

The next time somebody announces that he plans to get Medieval on your ass, tell him you’re going to get Renaissance on his gonads.

It is easy to understand that in the dreary middle ages the Aristotelian logic would be very acceptable to the controversial spirit of the schoolmen, which, in the absence of all real knowledge, spent its...

Stars flicker above, points of bright ice in a dark river. I pull a heavy sheepskin around my legs and stretch my feet toward the fire. Despite the cold, Liam plays his flute, the sound...

It meant that I have not been honest with you, Jon Calder, and if you are to understand the danger you are in now, I must tell you everything, no matter if you believe me...

Perhaps the palms had been whispering warnings in the sultry breeze.

The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God’s eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.

I cannot tell whether diamonds appeared in his eyes or mine as the shine of adoration became the icon one sees in history, a Byzantine sparkle, Medieval armor against all odds.

I must learn to be as the bear in a cage with the stick that pokes it always, through the bars. The bear acts as if the stick is made of air, and takes no...

1150 AD, the north of EnglandMelina avoided the eyes of her bodyguard. It was something she was becoming adept at, since her father had brought him into the household and given him the task of...