Books in the Records of Western Civilization Series series

This collection of translated sources investigates all aspects of economic life in the Mediterranean world. It draws on a variety of documents and other contemporary writings, from Arab and Jewish, as well as Christian sources.

This is the first complete translation into English of Hugh of St. Victor's Didascalicon, composed in the late 1130's.

More than seventy documents, ranging in date from the early eleventh century to the early fourteenth century and representing both orthodox and heretical viewpoints are included.

Guidelines for medieval clerics on how to assign appropriate penances for particular sins, in readable translations with detailed introductions.

Adam of Bremen's history of the see of Hamburg and of Christian missions in northern Europe from the late eighth to the late eleventh century is the primary source of our knowledge of the history, geography, and ethnography of the Scandinavian and Baltic regions and their peoples before the thirteenth century. Arriving in Bremen in 1066 and soon falling under the tutelage of Archbishop Adalbert, who figures prominently in the narrative, Adam recorded the centuries-long campaign by his church to convert Slavic and Scandinavian peoples. His History vividly reflects the firsthand accounts he received from travelers, traders, and missionaries on the peripheries of medieval Europe.

From millenarists to Antichrist hunters, from the Sibyls to the Hussites, Visions of the End is a monumental compendium spanning the literature of the Christian apocalyptic tradition from the period A.D. 400 to 1500, masterfully selected and complete with a comprehensive introduction and new preface.

On March 12, 1127, Charles the Good, Count of Flanders, was slain in the church of Saint Donatian in Bruges in a plot devised by an embittered noble family. This title presents a riveting portrait of the day-to-day political and social unrest that followed in the wake of Charles' murder and the military battles to control Flanders.

This neglected Greek satire is now available in English. Basing their translation on two critical editions of the 14th-century anonymous poem, Nicholas and Baloglou reveal the full texture of this unique genre of the Byzantine period. The authors provide analysis on form, style and context.

The 12th-century bishop Otto of Freising was an outstanding historian of his century. "The Two Cities" was his masterwork, spanning in time from Adam and Eve to the coming of the last days - which he believed were imminent.

The social system of 'courtly love' soon spread after becoming popularized by the troubadours of southern France in the twelfth century. This book codifies life at Queen Eleanor's court at Poitiers between 1170 and 1174 into "one of those capital works which reflect the thought of a great epoch, which explain the secret of a civilization."

Within their conceptual framework of a medieval Mediterranean World and a commercial revolution, Lopez and Raymond assemble 208 merchant documents celebrating capitalism. They present them in topical sections on the origins of the revolution; markets, merchants, merchandise, and means of exchange;

Although numerous texts are available in translation that illustrate the papal side of the Investiture Controversy, few accounts exist that convey the position of secular leaders. Imperial Lives and Letters fills this gap, offering the full text of "The Deeds of Conrad II" (1024--1139) by Wipo, "Life of Emperor the Henry IV" (1056--1106) and the Letters of Henry IV.

St Boniface, the early 8th-century English cleric who became known as "Apostle to the Germans" was an important agent in the conversion of the North German tribes from paganism to Christianity. This text provides translations of his letters.

Set in the 9th century, the cycle of poems on the life of William of Orange grew out of centuries of oral composition and were written down for the first time in the 12th century. Changing and growing through the years, the poems reflect historical events from the 9th to the 12th centuries.

Lanzelet, one of the first known versions of the Lancelot story, is a critical work in medieval literature. This Middle High German romance is a rendering of a lost French tale of Lancelot that likely predates Chretien de Troyes's famous Lancelot or the Knight of the Cart.

Addresses the role of citizenship as a buffer between individual and community. This book explicates the foundations of religious toleration. It affords a distinctive theoretical perspective that rivals that of various thinkers of the Western political tradition.

The life of Usamah ibn-Munqidh epitomized the height of Arab civilization as it flourished during the early Crusading period. His memoirs provide a valuable non-European perspective and insight into the military and cultural contact between medieval West and East, between Christian and Muslim.

An account of the capture of Lisbon in 1147 by the combined forces of King Alfonso Henriques of Portugal and a fleet of crusaders from the Anglo-Norman realm, Flanders, and the Rhineland. This work conveys the tensions between the secular and spiritual motives of a crusading army.

The only English translation available of the most important first-hand account of the "Northern Crusades" in the Baltic states has finally been reprinted, with additional maps and a revised introduction by James A. Brundage. Henry's chronicle is the only surviving evidence for many episodes in the early stages of Christendom in the Eastern Baltic.

This neglected Greek satire is now available in English. Basing their translation on two critical editions of the 14th-century anonymous poem, Nicholas and Baloglou reveal the full texture of this unique genre of the Byzantine period. The authors provide analysis on form, style and context.

The Deeds of Frederick Barbarossa is the "official biography" of German king and Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I. This historical firsthand account was begun by his maternal uncle, Bishop Otto of Freising, the leading medieval church figure and notable historian, and continued by a less well known cleric, Rahewin.

A reissue of the 1974 Columbia U. Press edition of the letters of Florentine humanist Poggius (1380-1459) to his friend de Niccolis regarding the rediscovery of lost classical texts. Translated (from the Latin) with notes by Phyllis Walter Goodhart Gordon. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portla