Carved Splendor

"The color photographs, specially commissioned for this project, are an essential feature of the book. Each altarpiece is illustrated in its entirety, with its wings both opened and closed, and in close-up views of its most important carvings and paintings - details that are not available to the average visitor to these sites."--BOOK JACKET.

Reference entries, overview essays, and primary source document excerpts survey the history and unveil the successes and failures of the longest-lasting European empire. The Holy Roman Empire endured for ten centuries. This book surveys the history of the empire from the formation of a Frankish Kingdom in the sixth century through the efforts of Charlemagne to unify the West around A.D. 800, the conflicts between emperors and popes in the High Middle Ages, and the Reformation and the Wars of Religion in the Early Modern period to the empire's collapse under Napoleonic rule. A historical overview and timeline are followed by sections on government and politics, organization and administration, individuals, groups and organizations, key events, the military, objects and artifacts, and key places. Each of these topical sections begins with an overview essay, which is followed by alphabetically arranged reference entries on significant topics. The book includes a selection of primary source documents, each of which is introduced by a contextualizing headnote, and closes with a selected, general bibliography.

In Faces of Charisma: Image, Text, Object in Byzantium and the Medieval West, a multi-disciplinary group of scholars advances the theory that charisma may be a quality of art as well as of person.

Fiona is tragically orphaned when her father, the great druid priest, Braiden, is senselessly murdered at the hands of the evil Chyndrea; vengeance, however, is not so easily satisfied. Chyndreas Praetorian guard repeatedly thwarts Fionas bloodlust, and when her latest attempt at revenge shatters her mind and body, she is involuntarily committed to the asylum. The rakishly handsome Chadwick Remington is in regular attendance at the asylum, visiting the residents in his capacity as an ambassador of goodwill. Its only a matter of time before he becomes enamored with a certain auburn-haired beauty, and Fiona and Chad become lovers. After a two-hundred-year internment, and with the help of Chad, Fiona escapes the asylum, but her freedom is short-lived. Captured by her old nemesis, Fiona must battle werewolves, fire demons, implacable antagonists from her past, and ruthless gods of the ancient world to reclaim her very soul!

Moving with the Magdalen is the first art-historical book dedicated to the cult of Mary Magdalen in the late medieval Alps. Its seven case study chapters focus on the artworks commissioned for key churches that belonged to both parish and pilgrimage networks in order to explore the role of artistic workshops, commissioning patrons and diverse devotees in the development and transfer of the saint's iconography across the mountain range. Together they underscore how the Magdalen's cult and contingent imagery interacted with the environmental conditions and landscape of the Alps along late medieval routes.

"In this illuminating collection of prose, Dan Beachy-Quick broaches "a hazy line, a faulty boundary" between our daily world, "where we who have appetites must fill our mouths, we who have thoughts must fill our minds," and another side, "within the world and beyond it, where appetite isn't to be sated, where desire is not to be fulfilled, and where thoughts refuse to lead to knowledge." Touching on the works of Emerson, Thoreau, and Proust, among others, Beachy-Quick explores the problem of duality -- the separation of the mind and body, word and referent, intelligence and mystery -- striving throughout to overcome this false separation, and to celebrate the notion that "wonder is the fact that the world has never ceased to be real." Combining a rich critical intelligence and the lyricism that has made him "one of America's most significant young poets" (Lyn Hejinian), Wonderful Investigations is a wonder unto itself"--Front flap.

Utilizing pure magic to overcome their treacherous nature, six serps form a council bent on obliterating peace and order across the land. They merge their manipulative abilities into a powerful force and develop a complex plot focused on raising tensions between the races. With sly precision, the snake-like creatures influence the decisions of Uton's most powerful leaders. The mayhem begins with an ominous and grisly message. Captain Sy Fenden and Ryson Acumen immediately recognize the handiwork of the abnormally large goblin, Okyiq. The ghastly display, however, serves a much larger purpose and launches a series of cascading calamities meant to envelop the entire region of Dark Spruce Forest. Concentrating their efforts on the dwarf underground city of Dunop, the serps assist one of the most infamous criminals of all the land in escaping a dwarf dungeon. Aiding the fugitive and thrusting him into a position of authority, the serps create an immediate and growing mistrust between the races. While suspicions fester is the forest, a horrible scene in the desert revives anger and sorrow across the algor community and heightens the evolving crisis. Great magical spells and horrific monsters crash down upon Uton in waves, causing great pain and tragedy. Demons terrorize humans and dwarves, and Okyiq leads an army of goblins, shags, and bloat spiders through Dark Spruce Forest. Every misfortune is designed to foster fear and instability, and a war between the races seems like an impending certainty. Recognizing the sweeping influence of the serps, the protectors of Uton work toward defusing the crisis. Holli and Enin take different paths in their fight to restore order, each one hoping to stave off catastrophe while avoiding direct confrontation with the serp council. Jure joins with Ryson to take a more direct approach to bring peace between the races, but it's the delver who discovers that the only way to match the serps' influence is to move faster than they can scheme.

Older research on the premodern world limited its focus on the Church, the court, and, more recently, on urban space. The present volume invites readers to consider the meaning of rural space, both in light of ecocritical readings and social-historical approaches. While previous scholars examined the figure of the peasant in the premodern world, the current volume combines a large number of specialized studies that investigate how the natural environment and the appearance of members of the rural population interacted with the world of the court and of the city. The experience in rural space was important already for writers and artists in the premodern era, as the large variety of scholarly approaches indicates. The present volume signals how much the surprisingly close interaction between members of the aristocratic and of the peasant class determined many literary and art-historical works. In a surprisingly large number of cases we can even discover elements of utopia hidden in rural space. We also observe how much the rural world was a significant element already in early-medieval mentality. Moreover, as many authors point out, the impact of natural forces on premodern society was tremendous, if not catastrophic.