Winston S. Churchill

Michael Frassetto

The Birth of Britain is the first volume of A History of the English Speaking Peoples, the immensely popular and eminently readable four-volume work by Winston Churchill. A rousing account of the early history of Britain, the work describes the great men and women of the past and their impact on the development of the legal and political institutions of the English. Indeed, Churchill celebrates the creation of the constitutional monarchy and parliamentary system and the kings, queens, and leading nobles who helped create English democracy.

A History of the English-Speaking Peoples

The Birth of Britain

medieval heresy from Bogomil and the Cathars to Wyclif and Hus

Heretic lives

The first comprehensive reference work devoted exclusively to this dark, but critical, period in the history of Western civilization. In the Encyclopedia of Barbarian Europe, medieval expert Michael Frassetto amasses the evidence for the defense—and prosecution—of this little-understood transition era in the history of Western civilization. Covering nearly 1,000 years of history—from the late ancient period through the first centuries of the Middle Ages—this concise but thorough reference work examines the key figures, places, events, and ideas of barbarian Europe. This title chronicles the ancient Visigoths, the rule of Benedict, and the sacking of Rome. The easy-to-access alphabetical entries and essays offer more than a mere chronicling of kings and battles and explore the social and cultural history of the era, with special attention played to the role of women.

Society in Transformation

Encyclopedia of Barbarian Europe

These new essays examine one of the major developments of the central Middle Ages: the emergence of a celibate clergy. Drawing on the work of historians and scholars of literature and religious studies, this essay collection traces the developing concern in the church militant with matters of purity and religious reform.

Essays on Medieval Clerical Celibacy and Religious Reform

Medieval Purity and Piety

A Casebook

Christian Attitudes Toward the Jews in the Middle Ages

The conflict and contact between Muslims and Christians in the Middle Ages is among the most important but least appreciated developments of the period from the seventh to the fourteenth century. Michael Frassetto argues that the relationship between these two faiths during the Middle Ages was essential to the cultural and religious developments of Christianity and Islam—even as Christians and Muslims often found themselves engaged in violent conflict. Frassetto traces the history of those conflicts and argues that these holy wars helped create the identity that defined the essential characteristics of Christians and Muslims. The polemic works that often accompanied these holy wars was important, Frassetto contends, because by defining the essential evil of the enemy, Christian authors were also defining their own beliefs and practices. Holy war was not the only defining element of the relationship between Christians and Muslims during the Middle Ages, and Frassetto explains that everyday contacts between Christian and Muslim leaders and scholars generated more peaceful relations and shaped the literary, intellectual, and religious culture that defined medieval and even modern Christianity and Islam.

From Muhammad to Dante

Christians and Muslims in the Middle Ages

David Blanks

Amy Livingstone

These essays examine the ideas that were important to monks and the intersections between the monks and the secular world. The volume explores the ideas and realities that shaped the lives of monks over the medieval millennium.

Studies in Honor of Richard Sullivan

Medieval Monks and Their World: Ideas and Realities

Alphabetically arranged articles explore the people, literary works, industries and occupations, dynasties, art forms, and other aspects of Europe from the fourth to the tenth centuries.

Michael Frassetto

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