The first full English translation of Rigord's Gesta Philippi Augusti**,** The Deeds of Philip Augustus makes available to Anglophone readers the most important narrative account of the reign of King Philip II of France (r. 1180–1223), a critical source about this pivotal figure in the development of the medieval French monarchy and an intriguing window into many aspects of the broader twelfth century.

A best-selling history of the Third Crusade, when the Catholic Church waged war against heretics in its own ranksIn 1208 Pope Innocent III called for a Crusade against a country of fellow-Christians. The new enemy was Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse, one of the greatest princes in Western Christendom, premier baron of all the territories in southern France where the langue d'oc was spoken. So began the Albigensian Crusade (named after the French town of Albi), which ...

Born in the dark days of the great crusades, the warrior monks of the Knights Templar vowed to defend pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land. Yet strangely, there are few historical records of the Templars ever fulfilling this task. Instead, their history is one of bloodshed and conquest, wealth and power, dark secrets and conspiracies. Today, the story of the Knights Templar is intimately linked with the story of the Holy Grail. But what exactly is this ancient artifact, and how has it been ...

In January of 1208, a papal legate was murdered on the banks of the Rhone in southern France. A furious Pope Innocent III accused heretics of the crime and called upon all Christians to exterminate heresy between the Garonne and Rhone rivers--a vast region now known as Languedoc--in a great crusade. This most holy war, the first in which Christians were promised salvation for killing other Christians, lasted twenty bloody years--it was a long savage battle for the soul of Christendom. In

Drawing from a variety of sources - literary, visual, archaeological; papyri, inscriptions and coins – the author studies the nature of Diocletian’s imperial strategy, his wars, his religious views and his abdication. The author also examines Galerius’ endeavour to take control of Diocletian’s empire, his failures and successes, against the backdrop of Constantine’s remorseless drive to power.The first comprehensive study of the Emperor Galerius, this book offers an innovative anal...

Explores the hidden history of Freemasonry from ancient Rome, through the Middle Ages, to the present• Shows the close connection between medieval masons and the Knights Templar• Illustrates the sacred nature of Roman and medieval trade associations• Reveals the missing link that connects the lodges of modern Freemasonry to the medieval brotherhoods of buildersHistorians often make a sharp distinction between the operative Masonry of the Middle Ages and the ...

Georgius Florentius Gregorius, better known to posterity as Gregory, Bishop of Tours, was born about 538 to a highly distinguished Gallo-Roman family in Clermont in the region of Auvergne. Best known for his 10-book Histories (often called the History of the Franks), Gregory left us detailed accounts of his own times as well as those of the early Merovingian kings, known as the "long-haired kings," who united the Franks and took control of most of Gaul in the late fifth a...

The last day of June, 1559, was a gala day in Paris. The marriages of Philip II of Spain with Elizabeth of France, daughter of King Henry II and Catherine de Medici, and that of the French King’s sister, Marguerite with Emanuel Philibert, duke of Savoy, were to be celebrated. But “the torches of joy became funeral tapers” before nightfall, for Henry II was mortally wounded in the tournament given in honor of the occasion. It was the rule that challengers, in this case the King, should run ...

In 1127 Charles the Good, count of Flanders, was surrounded by assassins while at prayer and killed by a sword blow to the forehead. His murder upset the fragile balance of power between England, France, and the Holy Roman Empire, giving rise to a bloody civil war while impacting the commercial life of medieval Europe. The eyewitness account by the Flemish cleric Galbert of Bruges of the assassination and the struggle for power that ensued is the only journal to have survived from twelfth ...

The Cathars and the Albigensian Crusade brings together a rich and diverse range of medieval sources to examine key aspects of the growth of heresy and dissent in southern France in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and the Church’s response to that threat through the subsequent authorisation of the Albigensian crusade.Aimed at students and scholars alike, the documents it discusses – papal letters, troubadour songs, contemporary chronicles in Latin and the vernacular, ...

THE death of Concini and the fall of Mary de Medici seemed at first to effect a complete revolution. The rebellion of the nobles was at an end; in fact, they were received at court as if they had been fighting the king's battles against his enemies But they soon discovered that the change of policy was not so complete as it appeared at first. They were jealously excluded from the royal council. Condé, on whose release they had confidently reckoned, was removed from the Bastille to Vincenne...

Fergus Millar is one of the most influential contemporary historians of the ancient world. His essays and books, including The Emperor in the Roman World and The Roman Near East, have enriched our understanding of the Greco-Roman world in fundamental ways. In his writings Millar has made the inhabitants of the Roman Empire central to our conception of how the empire functioned. He also has shown how and why Rabbinic Judaism, Christianity, and Islam evolved from within the...