Showing titles in Medieval

King Henry has need of a sword to help him recover land taken by the Prince of Wales! And he looks to the north and the border knights who have served him so well. Now that Sir Thomas is becoming too old for war, Sir William is chosen to lead the knights of the Tees south to the wild lands of Gwynedd.

A thousand years ago in an ancient Scottish landscape, a woman is on the run with her three bosom companions–a healer, a weaver and a seer. If the men hunting her find them, they will kill her because she is the only one who stands between them and their violent ambition. She is no lady: she is the first queen of Scotland, married to a king called Macbeth. Shakespeare fed us the myth of the Macbeths as power-hungry murderous conspirators. But now Val McDermid drags the truth out of the shadows, exposing the patriarchal prejudices of history.

This collection of recordings about Brother Cadfael—a Benedictine monk and amateur sleuth in the 12th century—are performed here by the ideal actor. Sir Derek Jacobi, who portrayed Cadfael in several television adaptations, captivates listeners with his renderings of Monk's Hood, Saint Peter's Fair, The Heretic's Apprentice, The Potter's Field, The Summer of the Danes, and Brother Cadfael's Penance.

International number-one best seller Ken Follett returns with The Evening and the Morning, a thrilling and addictive novel from the master of historical fiction. It is 997 CE, the end of the Dark Ages, and in England one man's ambition to make his abbey a centre of learning will take the listener on an epic journey into a historical past rich with ambition and rivalry, death and birth, love and hate. Thirty years ago, Ken Follett published his most popular novel, The Pillars of the Earth, which has sold more than 27 million copies worldwide.

This is what happened. I saw it, and it is a true tale. So begins the story of Merlin, born the illegitimate son of a Welsh princess in fifth-century Britain, a world ravaged by war. Small and neglected, with his mother unwilling to reveal his father's identity, Merlin must disguise his intelligence - and hide his occasional ability to know things before they happen - in order to keep himself safe.   

Katherine Woodville's sister never gave her a choice. A happy girl of modest means, Kate hardly expected to become a maker of kings. But when her sister impulsively marries King Edward IV in secret, Katherine's life is no longer hers to control....

The Earl of Cleveland has managed to put himself in King John's good graces just at the time when other barons decide to rebel. They seek more land and power. The newly appointed Earl is caught in the middle. When the Scots begin to raid once more, Sir Thomas is forced to rally the loyal knights of the north and repel them. Following the actual history which led to the Magna Carta and beyond this fast-moving novel moves from Scotland to Wales and Northampton and Lincoln. It culminates in the battle of Lincoln 1217, when the French army attempted to conquer England.

Breathtakingly suspenseful and beautifully written, The Historian is the story of a young woman plunged into a labyrinth where the secrets of her family's past connect to an inconceivable evil: the dark fifteenth-century reign of Vlad the Impaler and a time-defying pact that may have kept his awful work alive through the ages. The search for the truth becomes an adventure of monumental proportions, taking us from monasteries and dusty libraries to the capitals of Eastern Europe.

It has been ten summers since the noble sons of the North, Olaf and Torgil, were driven from their homeland by the treachery of the Norse king, Harald Eriksson. Having then escaped the horrors of slavery in Estland, they now fight among the Rus in the company of Olaf's uncle, Sigurd. It will be some of the bloodiest years in Rus history. The Grand Prince, Sviatoslav, is hungry for land, riches, and power, but his unending campaigns are leaving the corpses of thousands in their wakes.

Master Hugh is making his way towards Oxford when he discovers the young Benedictine - a fresh body, barefoot - not half a mile from the nearby abbey. The abbey’s novice master confirms the boy’s identity: John, one of three novices. But he had gone missing four days previously, and his corpse is fresh. There has been plague in the area, but this was not the cause of death: The lad has been stabbed in the back. To Hugh’s sinking heart, the abbot has a commission for him.... 

The time is the 15th century, when intrepid merchants became the new knighthood of Europe. Among them, none is bolder or more cunning than Nicholas vander Poele of Bruges, the good-natured dyers apprentice who schemes and swashbuckles his way to the helm of a mercantile empire. Niccolo Rising, book one of the series, finds us in Bruges, 1460. Street smart, brilliant at figures, adept at the subtleties of diplomacy and the well-timed untruth, Dunnett's hero rises from wastrel to prodigy in a breathless adventure. 

Visionäre, Baumeister und Feministinnen - Aufbruchsstimmung im Mittelalter: In "Die Tore der Welt" entführt Sie Erfolgsautor Ken Follett in die vielschichtige Welt des englischen Mittelalters. Als Grundlage für diese spannende Zeitreise dient Follett die Stadt Kingsbridge und Nachfahren der Personen aus seinem Erfolgsroman "Die Säulen der Erde". Inzwischen sind 200 Jahre vergangen und Sie begleiten die Charaktere Merthin, Ralph, Caris, Godwin und Brenda auf ihren gefahrvollen und facettenreichen Lebenswegen. Meisterhaft recherchiert und reich an Hintergrundinformationen, eröffnet Ihnen "Die Tore der Welt" einen abwechslungsreichen Einblick in das Leben im Schatten des Hundertjährigen Krieges.

Autumn 1192. With Jerusalem still in the Saracens' hands, and a peace treaty agreed with their leader Saladin, Richard the Lionheart is free at last to travel back to his strife-ridden kingdom. By his side at every turn is the loyal knight Ferdia, also known as Rufus. Together they will face not just Richard's archenemy Philippe Capet of France, but also the king's treacherous younger brother, John.

For the Dogs, the war has only just begun. Caught up in the siege of Calais, in the midst of a brutal eleven-month blockade of a small port on the French coast, they are no longer blindly walking into the unknown. But the men still have more questions than answers about what faces them–and why. What are they really fighting for? And why does the king care so much about taking such a small French town? The Dogs aren't paid to ask questions but in their work, they have the means to make people talk.

Mordred is the son of King Arthur, bastard child of his union with his half sister Morgause. Prophesied by Merlin to kill Arthur, Mordred is stolen away from his mother and raised in secrecy by a kind couple on an isolated Orkney island in the hopes that he will defy his fate. Mordred, known to history as a traitor and a murderer, is no villain but a quick-witted young man, with hopes and dreams of his own. But try as he might, Mordred cannot escape Merlin's prophecy.  

The year is 937. England is a nation divided, ruled by minor kings and Viking lords. Each vies for land and power. The Wessex king Æthelstan, grandson of Alfred the Great, is readying himself to throw a spear into the north. Behind him stands Dunstan, the man who will control the destiny of the next seven kings of England and the fate of an entire nation. Welcome to the original game for the English throne.

Hugh of Singleton, fourth son of a minor knight, has been educated as a clerk, usually a prelude to taking holy orders. However, feeling no certain calling despite a lively faith, he turns to the profession of surgeon, training in Paris and then hanging out his sign in Oxford. A local lord asks him to track the killer of a young woman whose bones have been found in the castle cesspit. She is identified as the impetuous missing daughter of a local blacksmith, and her young man, whom she had provoked very publicly, is in due course arrested and sentenced at the Oxford assizes.

As lady-in-waiting and confidante to Queen Elizabeth, wife of Henry VII, Joan understands royal patronage is vital if she and her husband, Sir Richard, are to thrive in the volatile atmosphere of court life. But Tudor England is in mourning following the death of the prince of Wales, and within a year, the queen herself. With Prince Henry now heir to the throne, the court murmurs with the sound of conspiracy. Is the entire Tudor project now at stake or can young Henry secure the dynasty?

Alfraed of Norton is given the task of protecting the Empress Matilda back to the emperor, her husband. He and his men have to fight enemies, bandits and treachery from within as they battle thorough an empire that is a nest of treachery and political ambition. While princes play for thrones, Alfraed must keep the empress safe.

England 1123-1173, eine Zeit blutiger Auseinandersetzungen zwischen Krone und Adel, Klerus und Volk. Der junge Prior Philip träumt von einem Zeichen des Friedens, von einer gotischen Kathedrale. Doch bis der kühne Traum Wirklichkeit geworden ist und in Kingsbridge das großartige Gotteshaus endlich emporragt, müssen der Klosterherr, sein Baumeister Tom und die Grafentochter Aliena sich in einem Kampf auf Leben und Tod gegen ihre Widersacher behaupten.