On 15 June 1215, rebel barons forced King John to meet them at Runnymede. They did not trust the King, so he was not allowed to leave until his seal was attached to the charter in front of him. This work explores what it was like to be alive in that momentous year. It interweaves political power struggles with other issues.

The subject of this book is the formation of Western Europe from the late 10th to the early 13th century. During these years the economic face of Europe and its position in the world were transformed. Civilization, as we understand it today, was born.

An account of life in Medieval Europe between the fall of the Roman Empire and the coming of the Renaissance. Full coverage is given to all aspects of life in a thousand-year period which saw the creation of Western civilization.

Arguably the greatest biomedical disaster in history, the Black Death of the 14th century wiped out 40 per cent of Europe's population, rocking the foundations of medieval civilisation. The author penetrates a haze of myths to offer the reader a social history, not just of collapse but of rebirth.

Drawing on the collective wisdom of over 154 languages, this book is arranged by theme to help you compare attitudes all over the world to such subjects as food, the human body and the battle of the sexes. It also includes a discussion of how many Eskimo' terms there are for snow, and an array of information exploring the strange world of words.

In the year 1000 the world was one of people who feared an apocalypse and who had no idea what year it was or what lay beyond the nearest valley. Narrated through the progression of the seasons, this book presents a recreation of English life at the end of the first millennium AD.