12th and 13th century French chants, Latin carols and absorbing gothic music including Gaudete! from the 15th century, a carol performed by The Richmond Consort are among the 19 tracks on the CD enclosed inside the front cover of this Pitkin Guide. The very word Gothic brings to mind fairy tale castles and baronial halls of Merrie England, yet there is an undercurrent of dungeons and dragons, and torture. This slim introduction looks at the art and architecture of the Middle Ages with examples of church interiors and magnificent cathedrals built to the glory of God, village churches, Englishmen's homes with tracery and gabbled windows such as Stokesay Castle in Shropshire, a look at cults and symbols, the medieval Round Table and a revival with Georgian Gothick. 20 page softback, colour illus.

The author of this hard-hitting contribution to Arthurian studies does not shrink from controversy and sets out his debating points clearly before developing his ideas with detailed research. King Arthur is commonly regarded by historians as a legendary figure deriving from the 12th century chronicles of Geoffrey of Monmouth featuring a heroic British ruler in the declining years of the Roman occupation of Britain. Syvänne argues that Geoffrey's history is based on a real character and lambasts conservative historians for their questionable methodology in dismissing ideas that do not correspond with preconceived solutions, arguing that the value of a source does not disappear when it is judged to be unreliable in some aspects. An example is the late 4th century Historia Augustae, nowadays generally believed to be a forgery. Syvänne argues that Geoffrey of Monmouth includes valuable pieces of evidence, for instance the military hierarchy under kings such as Vortigern and Vortimer extending through the ranks of archbishops and duces and backed up by a fleet of medium sized scouting ships and biremes with two decks of oarsmen. The author's detailed diagrams show the structure of the Saxon army, its encampments and its strategies such as the pike phalanx or the classically inspired wedge formation. Analysis of narrative sources, including Gildas, Nennius and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, allows Syvänne to revise Arthur's two battles of Badon to an earlier date. The archaeology of sites such as Silchester and Caerleon, the battles against the Picts and Scots and the influence of Norway and Jutland on the building of hill-forts are all evidence used by Syvänne. He concludes with Arthur's last battle against Mordred in 472 near Camelford, discussing the Arthurian legacy as far afield as Finland. 278pp, numerous maps and diagrams, colour reproductions.

When we think of the medieval world we picture spectacular events such as knightly jousting, or mystery plays winding through the streets on the feast of Corpus Christi. This absorbing study of public spectacles in southern Spain in the 15th century gives us a very different picture. The adjacent regions of Castile and Granada represented the Catholic and Muslim worlds: Granada was the only Muslim region left after the north African conquest of Spain six centuries earlier. Until the 15th century co-existence had been relatively peaceful, but the mid 15th century saw a hardening of attitudes and with the advent of the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella the Inquisition was on the horizon. Public spectacles took place on the borders between different religions and cultures, and were a demonstration of power and territorial claims. In the knightly tournaments of 1428 and 1434 at Valladolid, King Juan II appeared in the costume of God the Father, pouring blessings on the military efforts of the knights, who might engage in pageantry one day and raid Granada the next. In the 1450s the exiled Miguel Lucas, constable of Castile, settled in the city of Jaen and mounted lavish spectacles in which Muslims were religious enemies but cultural brethren, the ambiguity reflecting the reality of society at the frontier. By 1480 Ferdinand and Isabella had stabilised Castile ready for sustained aggression towards Granada. In the Castilian city of Murcia all citizens paid tax towards the Christian military, including Muslims and Jews, who in Murcia had escaped the 1391 pogrom, and the Corpus Christi play traditionally involved all citizens mixing together, including those of religious minorities. By 1492, after the city had been used as a base for the assault on Granada, the Corpus Christi processions were a victory gala in which the role of Jews and Muslims was to be humiliated. 246pp, black and white reproductions.

Christopher Hill was an undisputed giant among scholars of the 17th century, and this 1996 book was his last published work. In it he investigates the lives of those who operated outside the law, including highwaymen, smugglers and pirates, and devoting a chapter to the phenomenon of Robin Hood. Starting with the 17th century drama A Jovial Crew, and comparing it with the better-known Beggar's Opera a century later, Hill examines the paradoxical claim that a beggar may be more free than a wealthy and landed person. The claim is disproved by all the evidence, but the political point is made that courtiers are parasites on their own society. Playwrights had to be careful in satirising kings and rulers, and in many Shakespeare plays the Fool is licensed to expose corruption under the guise of jesting. Vagabondage was a live issue in the era when the enclosure of common land meant that many ordinary people were left without means of supporting themselves. Vagabonds came to be regarded as anti-religion and anti-government and therefore a public threat, and an act of 1597 included itinerants such as jugglers, tinkers, pedlars and actors in the category of vagabond. Players like Shakespeare's company made a point of getting royal or aristocratic patronage in order to escape being apprehended as rogues. Although stories about Robin Hood started in the 15th century, there was an explosion of Robin Hood ballads in the early 17th century, and their provenance is so wide that the author to concludes they are unlikely to have been inspired by just one individual. The forest symbolises freedom and Robin's character as a benefactor emerged over time. The book examines the Ranters and Diggers of the English Revolution, together with later responses to similar issues, such as the poetry of John Clare. 354pp, footnotes, paperback.

The image of Annie "Get Your Gun" Oakley symbolises the capable, athletic, self-sufficient woman of the west, and the legend is based on the true story of an uneducated servant girl who beat a professional sharpshooter in a contest. With an eye to profit the professional married her and hired her out to Buffalo Bill's Circus, where she was paid an equal wage to the male stars. Oakley maintained a demure image in private and never publicly endorsed the "votes for women" movement that was sweeping the west of America well ahead of the demand for women's suffrage that arose on the east coast. The popular 19th century doctrine of "women's proper sphere", separate from that of men, was challenged in the west by a number of factors, including the independence of Native American women, the prominence of women in the abolitionist movement, and the need for women to go west and run farm-based domestic businesses for male settlers. The suffrage movement, as the author acknowledges, was not a straightforward march of progress but was a messy and fragmented phenomenon with a range of ideological views on women's roles. During the Civil War of the 1860s two important laws were passed, one allowing women to claim free land in the west alongside male homesteaders and secondly the creation of a hundred tuition-free colleges where women could get an education. In 1869, the Wyoming Territory women became the first in Euro-American history to be enfranchised, closely followed by Mormon Utah ? half a century ahead of the Nineteenth Amendment of 1920 which in theory gave all American women the vote. This book recounts the stories of countless independent women, for instance Ellen Smith who lost her husband and one of her children on the Oregon Trail, but nevertheless continued to claim her land and establish her homestead. 277pp, photos.

What was a Puritan? Christopher Hill's magisterial book on Puritanism in the decades leading up to the Civil War is a highly readable work of impressive scholarship. Originally Puritanism seems to have been a term of abuse directed at critics of the established church of England. The author notes that it was applied to Sir Walter Raleigh, Inigo Jones, King James and even the Catholic courtiers of Queen Henrietta Maria. Later the word came to be applied to those who pushed for reform from within the church. Strict sabbath-keeping and opposition to popery came to be its defining features, though as with any political movement there were innumerable variations. A contemporary commentator, Henry Parker, defined four different areas in which Puritan beliefs operated: church policy, theological belief, relations with the king and state, and personal and private morality. Later the word came to mean a kill-joy, but in the early years the meaning was much more precise. Politically Puritans were men of property, not anarchists, and in the church courts they started to demand more rigorous discipline on the suppression of blasphemy and loose living. In the religious sphere, preaching was the dominant mode of Puritanism, driven by the need to make congregations understand the basics of religious belief following centuries of Catholicism in which the mass was performed in Latin. Popular preachers began to have their own cult following and anxieties were expressed that they were creating congregations with little contact with the established church. This was particularly the case with the tradition of itinerant Lecturers, freelance clergy who had been ordained but who were not attached to a church or subject to the authority of a bishop, and often had private patrons. As the movement fragmented, private household prayers also came under scrutiny as possibly promoting unorthodox doctrine, creating a culture of suspicion. 452pp, paperback, footnotes.

Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress is one of the great classics of English Literature, arising out of the Puritan religion that was at the heart of England's Civil War and Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth. Christopher Hill was a leading historian of the 17th century and this biography of Bunyan aims to "set Bunyan against the history of his own turbulent times". Bunyan joined Cromwell's Parliamentary army in 1644 and was discharged in 1647. The following years led to his conversion and are described in his autobiographical account Grace Abounding. Bunyan was well-versed in the Bible but had a strong sense of his own sin, and came to oppose the popular movements led by Ranters and Quakers because they did not give him assurance of salvation. For Bunyan, conversion was not a once and for all event but had constantly to be renewed, and the story of the Pilgrim's Progress is one in which the hero, Christian, has to overcome recurring temptations and soldier on in spite of the ravages of Despair. In common with most Puritans, Bunyan regarded preaching as the chief means of salvation, and his work as a popular preacher led in 1660 to his being imprisoned for 12 years for seditious activity. His wife and five children struggled to support themselves, and prison conditions were often harsh, but he was able to receive visitors and also to write Part I of The Pilgrim's Progress. At the Palace Beautiful, signifying the congregation of the faithful, the pilgrim is given a sword and armour, and this reflects the liberation experienced by the New Model Army, where ordinary working people like Bunyan were supplied with arms. A fascinating study combining history, theology and literary analysis. 394pp, paperback, footnotes.

This solid, beautifully produced book contains a perfect facsimile of the 15th century manuscript created by the Venetian mariner Michael of Rhodes, with each folio reproduced at its actual size, including a number of blank pages. Michael of Rhodes joined the Venetian navy as an oarsman in 1401, and over the next 40 years he was constantly at sea on voyages with Venice's commercial and military fleets, fighting in several battles and rising to the highest ranks available to someone who was not an aristocrat. In 1434 he began to write a manuscript distilling the knowledge he had acquired, including commercial mathematics, astrology, portolans, and the first extant treatise on shipbuilding. Some parts of the manuscript, particularly the sections on shipbuilding, were copied in the succeeding century, after which the manuscript disappeared for several hundred years until 1966 when it suddenly appeared at Sotheby's and passed into private hands. In 2000 it was sold again to a collector who made it available to the Dibner Institute at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and this facsimile is the first in a three-volume series by MITC. The second volume transcribes and translates the manuscript, and the third collects scholarly studies discussing the world of Michael Rhodes, his mathematics, use of visual imagery, portolan, shipbuilding text, calendar, almanac and system of time reckoning. This first facsimile volume is beautiful to look at, not only because of the elegance of the script but also because of Michael's attractive illustrations, particularly the colourful signs of the Zodiac. 519 facsimile pages in colour.

The shipwrecks featured in the book represent trade, passenger transportation, slavery, war, and exploration. A few are well known and most are not - they are the stories of British people and each chapter relies heavily on written evidence. Chapters include the Merchantman St Cross and 22 other Great Yarmouth ships 1297, the Pilgrim ship Cogman 1446, the English royal warship Regent 1512, the Eastindiaman Trades Increase 1614, three pirate ships called Resolution 1684, the 74-gun warship Berwick 1805, the slave ship Eliza of Liverpool 1806, the Arctic exploration ship HMS Fury 1825. The human stories of eight shipwrecks serve as waypoints on the voyage, as the book explores how and why Britain became a global sea power. Each chapter has people at its heart - sailors, seafaring families, passengers, merchants, pirates, explorers, and many others. The narrative encompasses an extraordinary range of people, ships and events, such as a bloody maritime civil war in the 13th century, a 17th century American youngster who stepped from one ship to another - and into a life of piracy, a British warship that fought at Trafalgar (on the French side), and the floating hell of a Liverpool slave-ship, sunk in the year before the slave trade was abolished. The book is full of surprising details and scenes, including England's rudest and crudest street name, what it was like to be a passenger in a medieval ship (take a guess), how a fragment of the English theatre reached the Far East during Shakespeare's lifetime, who forgave who after a deadly pirate duel, why there were fancy dress parties in the Arctic, and where you could get the best herring. 23 illus, maps and many diagrams. 204 pages.

Sub-titled 'The Revolutionary Life of Jean-François Champollion,' rightly regarded as the founder of Egyptology. Ancient Egypt fascinated the ancient Greeks and Romans including Alexander the Great. It still fascinates us more than any other ancient civilisation, but no Greek or Roman could read the elaborate Egyptian hieroglyphs. For almost two millennia the hieroglyphic script became a 'lost language', until the discovery of the Rosetta Stone by Napoleon's soldiers in Egypt in 1799. Despite the efforts of some of Europe's most intelligent scholars, including the English polymath Thomas Young, to crack the hieroglyphic code, it was an impoverished, arrogant and brilliant child of the French Revolution Jean-François Champollion who made the vital breakthrough. This finely illustrated biography charts his dramatic life and achievements and how, against the odds, Champollion led an expedition to Egypt with royal backing, lived in the tomb of the Valley of the Kings, and made the voices of the Pharaohs and their subjects speak. His obsession eventually drove him to an early death at the age of only 41. Chapters also cover the Curator at the Louvre and In Search of Ramesses and the First Professor of Egyptology. A memorable and beautifully written historical detective story, first time translated into English and here in fine heavyweight Oxford University Press hardback. Very well illustrated throughout, 272pp.