Quotes About Medieval

Criminal law, in which the state detects the offence, takes the accused to court and demands and imposes punishment, simply did not exist in early medieval society.

In the first book of my Discworld series, published more than 26 years ago, I introduced Death as a character there was nothing particularly new about this - death has featured in art and literature since medieval times, and for centuries we have had a fascination with the Grim Reaper.

Concepts such as love, charity, obligation and tradition all helped to shape medieval attitudes to devotion, but perhaps the most powerful conditioning influence was fear;

By now the crusaders had christened the most powerful French catapult 'Mal Voisine', or 'Bad Neighbour', while nicknaming the Muslim stone-thrower that targeted it for conter-bombardment 'Mal Cousine', or 'Bad Relation'.

The first Latin up a ladder was Aubery Clements, marshal of France, one of Philip's leading knights. It was said later among the Christians' forces that, before climbing the breach, Aubery had called out defiantly: 'Either I shall die today, or God willing, I will enter Acre.

throng looked on, Richard knelt

The city of Florence stood in the centre of the squalls and sun-shafts of late medieval Italy. Nurtured on the wool of its beautiful Apennine contado, it grew in the thirteenth century into a thriving community of perhaps 100,000 turbulent souls. Its gold coin, the florin, became standard currency far beyond Italy.

Within, there were several ponderous brazen-bound volumes of medieval date, a thin manuscript of yellowing parchment, and two portraits whose faces had been turned to the wall, as if it were unlawful for even the darkness of the sealed closet to behold them.

With horror he saw that her hair was already afire as the tarred stake burned about her head. He held her agonized gaze with his fierce black eyes. I'll love you forever, and beyond, he vowed as he raised both arms and plunged his sword into her heart. ~Marcus Magnus

Tower of London, where they used to chop off your head if the king didn't like you.

Prester John's letter was actually written by imaginative monks toiling in anonymity

1200, Polo says, Genghis Khan sent word to Prester John to announce that he wished to marry the priest's daughter.

Let us once and for all get rid of the archaic and patriarchal notion that the universe operates like some kind of medieval castle in which there is a hierarchical chain of command extending from the King all the way down to the Serf.

Sir Beldevere: What makes you think she's a witch? Peasant 3: Well, she turned me into a newt! Sir Beldevere: A newt? Peasant 3: [meekly after a long pause] ... I got better. Crowd: [shouts] Burn her anyway!

In the medieval tradition, Beksinski seems to believe art to be a forewarning about the fragility of the flesh– whatever pleasures we know are doomed to perish– thus, his paintings manage to evoke at once the process of decay and the ongoing struggle for life. They hold within them a secret poetry, stained with blood and rust.

Furcsa – mondta, s minthogy az este folyamán el?ször szólalt meg, mindenki felkapta a fejét –, furcsa. Nemrég valaki azt mondta nekem: megyünk a középkorba, középkori harcmodorra kell hát áttérnünk. Most úgy érzem, van benne valami. Minden forradalmat és minden háborút kétszer kell elveszteni. A háborút most veszítjük el másodszor. Eddig csak az országot vesztettük el. Most már magunkat is.

studying castelles in the blowne

She wore a black blouse with a white lace collar and had an animated sternness about her that suggested a conjugal situation similar to waking up each morning on a medieval rack.

When you're doing a medieval show like 'Pillars,' it starts off a bit like a school play. You're all in funny costumes; you've had your coffee, and you say, 'Good morning'. Then you go on set and, if you've got good actors and directors, it takes on a life of its own.

Every outbreak across the globe today stems from a descendant of the medieval plague.

It is easy enough for modern people to dismiss the crusades as morally repugnant or cynically evil. Such judgments, however, tell us more about the observer than the observed. They are based on uniquely modern (and, therefore, Western) values. If, from the safety of our modern world, we are quick to condemn the medieval crusader, we should be mindful that he would be just as quick to condemn us.

Ye distant spires, ye antique towers,That crown the wat'ry glade.

If derision failed, there was always the police, who were authorized to arrest a non-noble person for wearing a sword.

How much I wanted to move into these rooms and live forever in this domain of medieval autumns and mute winters, serving out my sentence of life among all the visible and invisible wonders I had only dreamed about from so far away.