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I value the traditional virtues of the Companion Guides... actually written by an individual rather than packaged by production teams... straightforward intelligent guides to cultural sites. BOOKSELLER Andalucia in its heyday, after the invasion of the Moors in 711, was famous for its wealth and fertility, and the province's Moorish character remains distinct; even before the Moors, the Phoenicians, the Romans and the Vandals had all been drawn to this beautiful land. The Moors cultivated science and the arts, and their influence was felt throughout western Europe - in the songs of the troubadours, the poems of Dante and the discoveries of Copernicus; their merchants enriched the province; t...
CHAPTERS: Our religious heritage. What is Odinism? Ancestor worship. Our earliest ancestors. The Indo-Europeans. Three lost Indo-European tribes. The nation of Odin. Religion, mythology, gods. Odin. Pagan, heathen and cretin. Odinist evolution. Odinist cosmology. The Odinist soul. Pagan afterlife. Clash of values. Rise of intolerance. Heathen victims of Christianity. Aethelfrith. Destruction of the Saxons. Odinist vengeance. Fall of Scandinavia. Porgeir's terrible choice. Odinism on the Borders. Christian economic strategy. Odinism in Christian churches. Period of Dual Faith: Women. Period of Dual Faith: Chartres Cathedral. Folk customs: Yule. Anglo-Saxondom and cognitive dissonance. Proto-Odinists: Jefferson. Swinburne. Murray. Wagner. Australian paganism. Limits of proto-Odinism. Odinist pioneers: Rud Mills. Evelyn Price. Ann Lennon. Else Christensen. Alec Christensen. Limits of early modern Odinism. Odinist transvaluation of values. Toward tomorrow.
Muthanna, also known as mirror writing, is a compelling style of Islamic calligraphy composed of a source text and its mirrored image placed symmetrically on a horizontal or vertical axis. This style elaborates on various scripts such as Kufi, naskh, and muqahhaq through compositional arrangements, including doubling, superimposing, and stacking. Muthanna is found in diverse media, ranging from architecture, textiles, and tiles to paper, metalwork, and woodwork. Yet despite its centuries-old history and popularity in countries from Iran to Spain, scholarship on the form has remained limited and flawed. Muthanna/Mirror Writing in Islamic Calligraphy provides a comprehensive study of the text ...
Presents a guide to traveling in Spain, providing an introduction to the country with advice on planning a visit, and discussing the attractions, restaurants, accommodations, shopping, and entertainment venues of Madrid and other cities and regions. Includes maps and photographs.
Ramon Muntaner's account of the bloody adventures of the Almogaver army under Roger of Flor in the eastern Mediterranean in the early fourteenth century, one of the most spellbinding narratives of medieval European literature. Before its definitive fall into Turkish hands, the Byzantine Empire was the target of adventurers of many nations. Outstanding among these groups was the Almogaver army led by Roger of Flor, composed of mercenaries hardened in thewar between the Catalan and Angevin dynasties for domination of Sicily. The Catalan presence in Constantinople aroused suspicion among the Greek nobility who assassinated Roger of Flor and tried to exterminate his men. The devastating reaction...
Elionor of Sicily, 1325–1375: A Mediterranean Queen’s Life of Family, Administration, Diplomacy, and War follows Elionor of Sicily, the third wife of the important Aragonese king, Pere III. Despite the limited amount of personal information about Elionor, the large number of Sicilian, Catalan, and Aragonese chronicles as well as the massive amount of notarial evidence drawn from eastern Spanish archives has allowed Donald Kagay to trace Elionor’s extremely active life roles as a wife and mother, a queen, a frustrated sovereign, a successful administrator, a supporter of royal war, a diplomat, a feudal lord, a fervent backer of several religious orders, and an energetic builder of royal sites. Drawing from the correspondence between the queen and her husband, official papers and communiques, and a vast array of notarial documents, the book casts light on the many phases of the queen’s life.
This collection of eighteen essays focuses on various phases of warfare around the medieval Mediterranean. Topics of these essays range from crusading activity to the increasing use of mercenaries to the spread of gunpowder weaponry.
The focus of this collection of articles by Donald J. Kagay is the effect of the expansion of royal government on the societies of the medieval Crown of Aragon. He shows how the extensive episodes of warfare during the 13th and 14th centuries served as a catalyst for the extension of the king's law and government across the varied topography and political landscape of eastern Spain. In the long conflicts against Spanish Islam and neighbouring Christian states, the relationships of royal to customary law, of monarchical to aristocratic power, and of Christian to Jewish and Muslim populations, all became issues that marked the transition of the medieval Crown of Aragon to the early modern states of Catalonia, Aragon and Valencia, and finally to the modern Spanish nation.
"La Serenissima is an exploration of [a] paradox; of a civilization living its last with feverish intensity. Before a vivid backcloth of monumental architecture, beneath the exquisite frescoes adorning church interiors, through the calli and canals of Venice herself, Alfonso Lowe recreates the vibrant life and the sumptuous ritual of this unique republic in its final, brilliant flourish of artistic creativity." -- Book jacket.