Saturday, May 16, 2026

Medieval Reading List

For studying the Middle Ages (c. 500-1500)
To be updated more. 

Movies:

  • Pendragon Sword of His Father
  • St. Anthony of Padua
  • Very Late Medieval Ignatius:Soldier, Sinner, Saint
  • Very Late Medieval: A Man for All Seasons
  • Very Late Medieval: Luther

Computer Games

  • Joan of Arc Campaign on Age of Empires (etc)
  • [Mount and Blade computer game, the Saxon vs Danes one]

Novels:

  • The Lantern Bearers by 
  • ?The Silver Branch
  • Rolf and the Viking Bow by Alfred French
  • ?Beorn the Proud  OR Flame over Tara
  • In Freedom's Cause G.A. Henty (original edition)
  • ???The King's Shadow
  • ???Son of Charlamagne

Primary Sources

Pre-medieval but shaped the middle ages
  1. The gospels
  2. The book of Psalms
  3. The Shepherd of Hermas
  4. Maccabbees
  5. ??Some Early Church Fathers Reader
  6. Augustine's Confessions + City of God
  7. Catechetical Lectures by Cyril of Jerusalem
  8. Novels of Justinian (laws)
  9. [[History of the Wars--Procopius, but he's kinda a skunk]]
Medieval Texts 
  1. ??Snorri's Viking Sagas (ask dad) also find some interesting viking sagas about drama and stuff
  2. Boethius consolation of philosophy
  3. History of Franks by Gregory of Tours
  4. Salian Frankish lawcode
  5. St. Patricks Confessio and letter to Coroticis
  6. Venerable Bede history of the English People
  7. Beowulf
  8. Poems of Cynewulf
  9. The Heliand*
  10. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
  11. (history of the Germans 900s by a monk whose name starts with an A)
  12. History of ht eTuetonic crusadeds in the 1100s by another monk whose name starts with an A)
  13. ?Einhard's Charlagmane
  14. ?That monk who survived drowning in a bucket and the neighbor lady gave him honey as a baby
  15. Life of St. Louis by Joinville
High Medieval?
  1. Rule of St. Benedict
  2. EXCERPTS from the Golden Legend (its like 6 books long)
  3. Where is Charlamagne's laws? (no burning witches)
  4.   Assize of Clarendon (1166) [short, legal stuff]
  5. SOMETHING by or about Bernard of Clairvaux (hannah find your notes)
  6. ??Something by Aquinas
  7. ?SOMETHIGN by that idealistic pope who argued with Eleanor of Aquitaine
  8. ???Letters between Eleanor and Henry at the end, hoping their son wen to heaven, about that ring. Alo quick primer on that whole crazy mess, and courtly love [too soap opera-ish?], and Robin hood etc. [lion in winter worth watching?]Chrétien de Troyes – Arthurian romances (Lancelot, Yvain, etc.) All the way to Richard the Lionheart, his saga, and Robin hood and all of it???
  9. Thomas ABeckett letter to Henry II [state v church]
  10. Something by Francis of Assissi
  11. ?Isaac of Stella
  12. Gratian's Decretum
  13. Deeds of the Franks
  14. Deeds of Tancred
  15. The Pearl by the Pearl Poet
  16. Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight by the Pearl Poet 
  17. Poems of Marie of Champagne
  18. Open letters between Gregory VII vs Henry IV (investiture controversy)
  19. The Song of Roland
Late Medieval
  1. Morality plays and Bible Story plays
  2. Dante's Trilogy
  3. Julian of Norwich
  4. Trial Documents of Joan of Arc 
  5. Machiavelli's "The Prince"
  6. Margaret of Porete "mirror of souls"
  7. ?Piers Plowman thing?
  8. ??
  9. Luther's 95 Theses
  10. Pope's letters responding to 95 Theses
  11. Diaries of Christopher Columbus
  12. John of the Cross (dark knight of the soul, ascent of mount carmel etc)
  13. Ok so a morbid rabbit trail on medieval suicide and heart-staking, but I found sunagainstgold's post very illuminating on how the bishop insisted they exorcise the corpse with an absolution paper and not a heart-staking. It seems there was a pre-existing pagan way of deal with corpses (see Rolf and the Viking bow...need to see if its in the sagas) and then there was the "new" christian way using the absolution paper. Here and Here (William of Newburgh)
  14. Some excerpt of the Nun's tale or the Knight's tale (the non-bawdy ones) from Chaucer, as a spoof on the middle ages, which it was.
  15. ?Thomas A Kempis
  16. Therese of Avila (Interior castle)

Secondary Sources/Modern Histories

  1. Joan of Arc Her Story by Regine Pernoud
  2. The Templars by Regine Pernoud
  3. Justinian and Theodora (Bekahs thesis...)
  4. 1066 by David Howarth
  5. Church Father by Benedict XVI
FOR EARLY MODERN
  1. ?Thomas A Kempis
  2. Therese of Avila (Interior castle)
  3. Practice of the Presence of God (Brother Lawrence)

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