The Life and Campaigns of the Black Prince is an invaluable collection of contemporary source material, seen through the eyes of the men involved.

The author has retraced on foot the routes taken by the Black Prince during the French campaigns of 1355-1356, enabling him to provide an entirely new dimension to the events. In 1355 the Black Prince took an army to Bordeaux and embarked on two chevauchées (mounted military expeditions, generally characterised by the devastation of the surrounding towns and countryside), which culminated in hisdecisive victory over King Jean II of France at Poitiers the following year. Using the recorded itineraries as his starting point, the author of this book walked more than 1,300 miles across France, retracing the routes of the armies in search of a greater understanding of the Black Prince's expedition. He followed the 1355 chevauchée from Bordeaux to the Mediterranean and back, and that for 1356 from Aquitaine to the Loire, to the battlefield at Poitiers, and back again to Bordeaux. Drawing on his findings on the ground, a wide range of documentary sources, and the work of local historians, many of whom the author met on his travels, the book provides a unique perspective on the Black Prince's chevauchées of 1355 and 1356 and the battle of Poitiers, one of the greatest English triumphs of the Hundred Years War, demonstrating in particular the impact of the landscape on the campaigns. Peter Hoskins is a former Royal Air Force pilot, now living in France. He combines his interest in exploration of his adopted country with his research into the Hundred Years War.

The story of the beautiful wife of the Black Prince and mother of Richard II.

This fully updated second edition uses the career of Edward the Black Prince to explore key developments in the history of late medieval Europe. The eruption of the Hundred Years War, the arrival of the Black Death, England’s first religious heresy, and major innovations in the role of parliament all took place during Edward’s lifetime. As king-in-waiting and one of the most significant noblemen in the realm, the prince was a major influence over local and international politics, and his example helped reshape concepts of lordship throughout the Plantagenet estates. This thoroughly revised edition includes new sources and builds on the wealth of scholarship which has been published in recent years about the fourteenth century. It includes considerations of the prince’s military career in France and Iberia, his household and the ‘colonial’ characteristics of his administrations in Wales and Aquitaine. The prince’s career also reveals the influence of the chivalric ethic and the importance of Gascony to the English crown, while his relationship with Joan, ‘the Fair Maid’ of Kent is suggestive of the changing character of female agency in the later middle ages. Drawing on central themes such as plague, chivalry, lordship, parliament, gender, and religion, Edward the Black Prince is essential reading for all students and scholars concerned with society, culture, and power in medieval Europe.

New essays by top international Schiller scholars on the reception of the great German writer and dramatist, emphasizing his realist aspects. The works of Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) -- an innovative and resonant tragedian and an important poet, essayist, historian, and aesthetic theorist -- are among the best known of German and world literature. Schiller's explosive original artistry and feel for timely and enduring personal tragedy embedded in timeless sociohistorical conflicts remain the topic of lively academic debate. The essays in this volume address the many flashpoints and canonicalshifts in the cyclically polarized reception of Schiller and his works, in pursuit of historical and contemporary answers to Samuel Taylor Coleridge's expression of frightened admiration in 1794: "Who is this Schiller?" The responses demonstrate pronounced shifts from widespread twentieth-century understandings of Schiller: the overwhelming emphasis here is on Schiller the cosmopolitan realist, and little or no trace is left of the ultimately untenable view of Schiller as an abstract idealist who turned his back on politics. Contributors: Ehrhard Bahr, Matthew Bell, Frederick Burwick, Jennifer Driscoll Colosimo, Bernd Fischer, Gail K. Hart, Fritz Heuer, Hans H. Hiebel, Jeffrey L. High, Walter Hinderer, Paul E. Kerry, Erik B. Knoedler, Elisabeth Krimmer, Maria del Rosario Acosta López, Laura Anna Macor, Dennis F. Mahoney, Nicholas Martin, John A. McCarthy, Yvonne Nilges, Norbert Oellers, Peter Pabisch, David Pugh, T. J. Reed, Wolfgang Riedel, Jörg Robert, Ritchie Robertson, Jeffrey L. Sammons, Henrik Sponsel. Jeffrey L. High is Associate Professor of German Studies at California State University Long Beach, Nicholas Martin is Reader in European Intellectual History at the University of Birmingham, and Norbert Oellers is Professor Emeritus of German Literature at the University of Bonn.

A Tale of ARMS, of DEATH, of LOVE, and of HONOR Set against the turbulent backdrop of the Hundred Years' War, I Serve chronicles the story of Sir John Potenhale. A young Englishman of lowly birth, Potenhale wins his way to knighthood on the fields of France. He enters the service of Edward, the Black Prince of Wales, and immerses himself in a stormy world of war, politics, and romantic intrigue. While campaigning in France, Potenhale develops an interest in Margery, a spirited lady-in-waiting with a close-kept secret. He soon learns that Sir Thomas Holland, a crass and calculating baron, holds the key to unlock Margery's mystery and possesses the power to overturn all of his hopes. When the Black Death strikes Europe, however, Potenhale realizes that the fiercest enemy does not always appear in human form. Seeing the pestilence as a punishment for the sins of his generation, he questions his calling as a knight and considers entering the cloister. Margery or the monastery? Torn between losing his soul and losing the love of his life, he finds friendship with a French knight who might-just possibly-help him save both.

A fascinating recreation of the world of one of England's most charismatic monarchs, from award-winning author and historian Richard Barber The destruction of the French army at Crécy in 1346 and the subsequent siege and capture of Calais marked a new era in European history. The most powerful, glamorous and respected of all western monarchies had been completely humiliated by England, a country long viewed either as a chaotic backwater or a mere French satellite. The young Edward III's triumph would launch both countries, as we now know, into a grim cycle of some 90 years of further fighting ending with English defeat, but after Crécy anything seemed possible - Edward's claim to be King of France could be pressed home and, in any event, enormous rewards of land, treasure and prestige were available both to the king and to the close companions who had made the victory possible. It was to enshrine this moment that Edward created one of the most famous of all knightly orders, the Company of the Garter. Barber writes about both the great campaigns and the individuals who formed the original membership of the Company - and through their biographies makes the period tangible and fascinating. This is a book about knighthood, battle tactics and grand strategy, but it is also about fashion, literature and the privates lives of everyone from queens to freebooters. Barber's book is a remarkable achievement - but also an extremely enjoyable one. Reviews: 'Barber [has an] infectious passion for and deep knowledge of his subject matter ... elegant prose and rigorous historical analysis ... a valuable and thorough addition to the body of work on this most impressive of English monarchs' Sunday Times 'In Edward III and the Triumph of England [Barber] has written the kind of book that the king would have enjoyed: full of battles, glitter and ceremony ... he has an original eye and an elegant pen' Jonathan Sumption, Literary Review 'Barber share's his hero's love of chivalry ... The book sparkle[s] with some of Edward's own glitz' Telegraph 'This absorbing book is layered rather than linear, sifting with uncommon sensitivity through challenging sources to test the boundaries of what we can and cannot know ... We discover the complexity of the world in which Edward and his commanders lived' Helen Castor, The Times About the author: Richard Barber has had a huge influence on the study of medieval history and literature, both as a writer and as a publisher. His major works include The Knight and Chivalry (winner of the Somerset Maugham Award), Edward Prince of Wales and Aquitaine, The Penguin Guide to Medieval Europe and The Holy Grail: The History of a Legend. He lives in East Anglia.

The Year's Work in Medievalism: 2004 is based upon but not restricted to the 2004 proceedings of the annual International Conference on Medievalism, organized by the Director of Conferences for Studies in Medievalism, Gwendolyn Morgan, and, for 2004, Christa Canitz of the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton. The essays of the current volume center on the question of individual responsibility in humanizing one's society through the use of medievalism. ¥ Gwendolyn A. Morgan, ÒMedievalism and Individual Responsibility ¥ Karl Fugelso, ÒDeþning Medievalism in Nineteenth-Century Commedia Illustrations ¥ Renee Ward, ÒRemus Lupin and Community: The Werewolf Tradition in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter Series. ¥ Nancy M. Thompson, Architectural Restoriation and Stained Glass in 19th-Century Siena: The Place of Light in Giuseppe Partini's Purismo ¥ Barbara Gribling, Nationalism and the Image of the Black Prince ¥ Clare A. Simmons, Small-Scale Humor in the British Medieval Revival ¥ Brian C. Johnsrud, ÒThe Monsters Do Not Depart: Re-Unifying Norse, Anglo-Saxon, and Christian in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings ¥ Jaimie Hensley, J.R.R. Tolkien and Walther von der Volgelweide: Faerie and Reality ¥ Peter G. Christensen, From Waste Land to Grail and Back Again Naomi Mitchison's To the Chapel Perilous

Medievalists reading and writing about and around authority-related themes lack clear definitions of its actual meanings in the medieval context. Authorities in the Middle Ages offers answers to this thorny issue through specialized investigations. This book considers the concept of authority and explores the various practices of creating authority in medieval society. In their studies sixteen scholars investigate the definition, formation, establishment, maintenance, and collapse of what we understand in terms of medieval struggles for authority, influence and power. The interdisciplinary nature of this volume resonates with the multi-faceted field of medieval culture, its social structures, and forms of communication. The fields of expertise include history, legal studies, theology, philosophy, politics, literature and art history. The scope of inquiry extends from late antiquity to the mid-fifteenth century, from the Church Fathers debating with pagans to the rapacious ghosts ruining the life of the living in the Sagas. There is a special emphasis on such exciting but understudied areas as the Balkans, Iceland and the eastern fringes of Scandinavia.