Robert Bartlett

From our twentieth-century perspective, we tend to think of the Europe of the past as a colonizer, a series of empires that conquered lands beyond their borders and forced European cultural values on other peoples. This provocative book shows that Europe in the Middle Ages was as much a product of a process of conquest and colonization as it was later a colonizer.

This lively and far-reaching account of the politics, religion, and culture of England in the century and a half after the Norman Conquest provides a vivid picture of everyday existence, and increases our understanding of all aspects of medieval society. There are colourful details of the everyday life of ordinary men and women, with their views on the past, on sexuality, on animals, on death, the undead, and the occult. The result is a fascinating and comprehensive portrayal of a period which begins with conquest and ends in assimilation.

Seven hundred years ago, executioners led a Welsh rebel named William Cragh to a wintry hill to be hanged. They placed a noose around his neck, dropped him from the gallows, and later pronounced him dead. But was he dead? While no less than nine eyewitnesses attested to his demise, Cragh later proved to be very much alive, his resurrection attributed to the saintly entreaties of the defunct Bishop Thomas de Cantilupe.The Hanged Man tells the story of this putative miracle--why it happened, what it meant, and how we know about it. The nine eyewitness accounts live on in the transcripts of de Cantilupe's canonization hearings, and these previously unexamined documents contribute not only to an enthralling mystery, but to an unprecedented glimpse into the day-to-day workings of medieval society.While unraveling the haunting tale of the hanged man, Robert Bartlett leads us deeply into the world of lords, rebels, churchmen, papal inquisitors, and other individuals living at the time of conflict and conquest in Wales. In the process, he reconstructs voices that others have failed to find. We hear from the lady of the castle where the hanged man was imprisoned, the laborer who watched the execution, the French bishop charged with investigating the case, and scores of other members of the medieval citizenry. Brimming with the intrigue of a detective novel, The Hanged Man will appeal to both scholars of medieval history and general readers alike.

Throughout medieval Europe, for hundreds of years, monarchy was the way that politics worked in most countries. This meant power was in the hands of a family - a dynasty; that politics was family politics; and political life was shaped by the births, marriages and deaths of the ruling family. How did the dynastic system cope with female rule, or pretenders to the throne? How did dynasties use names, the numbering of rulers and the visual display of heraldry to express their identity? And why did some royal families survive and thrive, while others did not? Drawing on a rich and memorable body of sources, this engaging and original history of dynastic power in Latin Christendom and Byzantium explores the role played by family dynamics and family consciousness in the politics of the royal and imperial dynasties of Europe. From royal marriages and the birth of sons, to female sovereigns, mistresses and wicked uncles, Robert Bartlett makes enthralling sense of the complex web of internal rivalries and loyalties of the ruling dynasties and casts fresh light on an essential feature of the medieval world.

From its earliest centuries, one of the most notable features of Christianity has been the veneration of the saints--the holy dead. This ambitious history tells the fascinating story of the cult of the saints from its origins in the second-century days of the Christian martyrs to the Protestant Reformation. Robert Bartlett examines all of the most important aspects of the saints--including miracles, relics, pilgrimages, shrines, and the saints' role in the calendar, literature, and art.The book explores the central role played by the bodies and body parts of saints, and the special treatment these relics received. From the routes, dangers, and rewards of pilgrimage, to the saints' impact on everyday life, Bartlett's account is an unmatched examination of an important and intriguing part of the religious life of the past--as well as the present.

How did people of the medieval period explain physical phenomena, such as eclipses or the distribution of land and water on the globe? What creatures did they think they might encounter: angels, devils, witches, dogheaded people? This fascinating book explores the ways in which medieval people categorized the world, concentrating on the division between the natural and the supernatural and showing how the idea of the supernatural came to be invented in the Middle Ages. Robert Bartlett examines how theologians and others sought to draw lines between the natural, the miraculous, the marvelous and the monstrous, and the many conceptual problems they encountered as they did so. The final chapter explores the extraordinary thought-world of Roger Bacon as a case study exemplifying these issues. By recovering the mentalities of medieval writers and thinkers the book raises the critical question of how we deal with beliefs we no longer share.

To what extent does our knowledge of the past rely upon written sources? And what happens when these sources are destroyed? Focusing on the manuscripts of the Middle Ages, History in Flames explores cases in which large volumes of written material were destroyed during a single day. This destruction didn't occur by accident of fire or flood but by human forces such as arson, shelling and bombing. This book examines the political and military events that preceded the moment of destruction, from the Franco-Prussian War and the Irish Civil War to the complexities of World War II; it analyses the material lost and how it came to be where it was. At the same time, it discusses the heroic efforts made by scholars and archivists to preserve these manuscripts, even partially. History in Flames reminds us that historical knowledge rests on material remains, and that these remains are vulnerable.

In trial by ordeal the accused was subjected to some harsh test--holding hot iron, being cast into a pool of water--with guilt or innocence decided according to the outcome. Although a strange and alien custom, trial by ordeal has been an important legal procedure in many regions and periods.Robert Bartlett here examines the workings of trial by ordeal from the time it first appeared in the barbarian law codes, tracing its use by Christian societies to its last days as a test of withcraft in Europe and America. He discusses recent theories about the operation and decline of thepractice, shedding new light on both the ordeal as a working institution and the pressure for its abolition.

Gerald of Wales, Giraldis Cambrensis, Gerald the Welshman, Gerald the Marcher - his many names reflect the long and multi-faceted career of one of the most fascinating figures of the Middle Ages. Descended from Norman Marcher barons and Welsh princes, Gerald was by turns scholar, churchman and reformer, courtier, diplomat and would-be crusader; Marcher propagandist, agent of English kings, champion of the Welsh church, hunted outlaw and cathedral theologian. He was also a naturalist, gossip and indefatigable traveller, but above all, a most prolific writer and a tireless self-publicist. We know more about Gerald than about any other inhabitant of early medieval Wales. In this fascinating study of Gerald's attitudes and intellectual outlook, Robert Bartlett discusses the delicate political path Gerald had to tread between Norman conquerors, native Celtic society and the English Crown. He analyses Gerald's clear voice in the time in which he lives, and portrays him as a vivid example of the medieval world.

From Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal to Monty Python, an investigation into how eight key films have shaped our understanding of the medieval world. In The Middle Ages and the Movies , eminent historian Robert Bartlett takes a fresh, cogent look at how our view of medieval history has been shaped by eight significant films of the twentieth century. The book ranges from the concoction of sex and nationalism in Mel Gibson’s Braveheart , to Fritz Lang’s silent epic Siegfried , the art-house classic The Seventh Seal , and the epic historical drama El Cid . Bartlett examines the historical accuracy of these films, as well as other salient aspects—how was Umberto Eco’s Name of the Rose translated from page to screen? Why is Monty Python and the Holy Grail funny? And how was Eisenstein’s Alexander Nevsky shaped by the Stalinist tyranny under which it was filmed?

A drug dealer is tortured and killed, thirty-six syringes plunged into her bloodless corpse. The main suspect has the perfect alibi - he was in prison - but something has caused him to run. DI North goes after this ‘innocent’ suspect and within hours two detectives have been abducted, a bystander is on life support and a cop is found dead. Then North's troubles really begin...Force of Habit is the second book in the "Street" series

An apocalyptic pandemic. A handful of survivors who find that they are not alone. The living are hunted relentlessly across a land of the dead by creatures that grow stronger as the survivors grow weak. Creatures that feed on the dead ... so that they can consume the living.The End is a fast-paced, action packed battle for survival set during the first twenty-four hours after an apocalyptic pandemic.

Beneath the Ashen Veil of Darkness: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale of the Midwest Long roiling beneath the Yellowstone National Forest, abruptly the caldera bubbles over; as the super volcano bursts in a sudden, violent eruption that obliterates everything in its path and plunges the Earth into an age of oppressive darkness under a blanket of impenetrable ash. Millions perish, as those who survive the event are left alone to fend for themselves: no power, no running water or electricity, no government, no help. And yet despite diversity, an overwhelming sense of community draws together a group of desperate survivors, who suffer loss and tragedy as a collective family. Those living in the long shadow of the apocalypse must now battle the elements and the other dangers of the newly created sunless world - as well as with their own raw humanity. Author Robert Bartlett infuses the gripping science fiction of, Beneath the Ashen Veil of Darkness: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale of the Midwest, with vivid realism - bolstered by tireless research into real places, facts, and events - dragging the reader into the frightening world of the characters as they struggle to survive there.

Una cuenta que escribí hace unos años para mi clase de español.

An ageing gangster is released from prison hell bent on revenge against those that put him there. When Ray Street is asked to help out his old boss, he and his partners in crime soon find themselves up to their necks in bodies and blood diamonds. The three young chancers get caught in the middle of a power struggle, used by both sides against the other, and they know that no matter which side wins, they lose...Streetwise is the first book in the "Street" series.

First published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

SOME BAD DAYS GO NUCLEAR...Ex-marine, Ben Schaffer, regains consciousness in a London investigators office to find his four work colleagues shot dead, the gun in his hand, and the police outside. An attempt is made on the life of the female assassin sent to frame him. 5000 miles away an Afghan special ops unit crosses into south Pakistan via a route used only by terrorists and traffickers.Schaffer and the assassin are forced into an uneasy alliance, both now hunted by rogue agents guided by state-of-the-art military intelligence. Their only lead is the seemingly innocuous case of a parent overly concerned by her daughter’s current relationship - but their fight for survival leads to the uncovering of a conspiracy to strike at the very heart of western civilisation.

From the Twentieth-century alchemist, Frater Albertus, planned on writing a work titled, The Book on Antimony , which, to my knowledge never manifested. The book was to spark interest in preparations of antimony for medicinal use based on spagyric and alchemical principles. In the transition of alchemy to modern chemistry, many valuable ideas, techniques, and products were pushed aside to make room for updated approaches. In England, discussion of alchemical topics was discouraged and later banned in meetings of the Royal Society in favor of the new model of chemical principles. Soon, alchemy disappeared as a bad dream of our ancestors and those who could understand its methods were spread far and few between. There have always been alchemists working in the shadows through time. Frater Albertus pulled alchemy out and into the light on a global scale, as a legitimate avenue of research into new medicines and materials. Part of his research involved preparations of antimony, based especially on the writings of the alchemist Basil Valentine in his Triumphal Chariot of Antimony which first appeared around 1604. Frater Albertus hoped to gather enough information together on how to prepare antimony in a variety of ways to produce powerful agents unknown to modern medicine, and also to accumulate as much analytical information on the products as possible so that medical evaluation could more easily be suggested. He taught much of this technology worldwide for many years. I studied and worked with Frater Albertus for about ten years and the book before you presents a documentary of the teachings on antimony I have been able to collect since 1973 based on his initial guidance. So this is my version of The Book on Antimony ; I think Frater would have been pleased.I was never sure how best to present all of this information but in the end decided it was best to start at the beginning and unfold the information as it was presented to me. The alchemists called antimony a Black Dragon; this is the story of my involvement with antimony, my dance with the Black Dragon.Antimony is not subject you hear about very much these days and yet antimony has been with us for centuries as a medicine, a pigment, as a flame retardant, it is used in matches and fireworks even as a semiconductor in modern electronics. In times past antimony was a subject of wonder and miracles as well as scandal.How to use this bookThis is a book of practical laboratory alchemy, but also a historical documentation. Along with some narrative and commentary, the bulk of this volume consists of scans of pages right from my personal notebooks gathered over the last 50 years. Reference notations are generally provided in the upper right corner of note pages where applicable.The first part chronicles how antimony was introduced to me from the alchemical perspective and the results of practical works stemming from that introduction. The last part is a compendium of works using antimony, with instruction, photographs and some analysis of materials and products.You can of course read cover to cover and see how antimony was revealed to me or skip through to a subject or process of interest at any time as a reference. I think most of the scans are clearly legible and I wanted to get them scanned before many of the pages start to fade with age. Without circumlocution or holding back vital details, I present this information in hopes that future workers on antimony preparations will have a strong foothold to make rapid advances; it does no good just sitting on my bookshelves.This is the first of several books on alchemical laboratory works distilled from my collected notes (which I call the Corpus Spagyricus ) planned for later release.

Africa in the New Testament and early Christianity is a passion of my heart. When we read about early church and bishops, we often lose sight of where they came from or really who they are. I hope the words of African leaders will inspire the reader to research more into the subject.

Finally a book full of real world practical advice to saving money. You wont find any suggestions of clipping coupons or sharing a plate at an all you can eat buffet here. Instead you will find unusual yet practical ideas on how to save money and score loads of free stuff.

Róisin (Rose) although fictional, was inspired by actual events.It’s the story of an ordinary Australian-born woman of Irish descent with a unique character, who showed others by her positive determination and entrepreneurial flair, how to live their dream and become extraordinary.It’s a spirited woman’s adventure that begins in the era of the Great Depression, through the torment of WWII and into the post-war economic boom years. During decades of daring, her quest was often challenged by the established norms of the day, where society measured success or failure by the gender of an individual.

Book by Bartlett, Robert H.