Before its definitive fall into Turkish hands, the Byzantine Empire was the target of adventurers of many nations. Outstanding among these groups was the Almogaver army led by Roger of Flor, composed of mercenaries hardened in the war between the Catalan and Angevin dynasties for domination of Sicily. The Catalan presence in Constantinople aroused suspicion among the Greek nobility who assassinated Roger of Flor and tried to exterminate his men. The devastating reaction of those who escaped the slaughter led to Catalan control of broad swathes of the Empire, including Athens. Ramon Muntaner,...
Before its definitive fall into Turkish hands, the Byzantine Empire was the target of adventurers of many nations. Outstanding among these groups was ...
Francesc Eiximenis Robert D. Hughes David Guixeras and Xavie
Francesc Eiximenis is an outstanding figure in the ranks of the mendicant orders who, in the late Middle Ages, strove to educate the lower echelons of society. Born in Gerona, around 1330, probably to a comfortable middle-class family, Eiximenis entered the Franciscan order at a very early age, studied in Oxford, and probably also in Paris, and obtained the degree of master of theology in Toulouse. Later he combined teaching with the composing of his works. Among these stands out the monumental and widely known Lo Crestia (The Christian), in which Eiximenis aimed to include all contemporary...
Francesc Eiximenis is an outstanding figure in the ranks of the mendicant orders who, in the late Middle Ages, strove to educate the lower echelons of...
The Life of Christ (Vita Christi), written by the abbess Isabel de Villena, is the only literary work to have been preserved in Catalan and to bear the signature of a woman during the Middle Ages. It was composed to provide spiritual direction for the nuns within the community of Poor Clares which Sor (i.e. Sister) Isabel oversaw at the Convent of the Holy Trinity in Valencia. The work was only able to emerge from obscurity by accident. In 1497 Queen Isabel of Castile, the wife of Ferdinand of Catalonia-Aragon, who had heard news of the book's existence, asked Sor Isabel's successor for a...
The Life of Christ (Vita Christi), written by the abbess Isabel de Villena, is the only literary work to have been preserved in Catalan and to bear th...
The Romance of Evast and Blaquerna is a novel in which Ramon Llull rebelled against secular literature of chivalry and the court in general, which was so successful in his time. Written around 1283, it tells the fictional biography of Blaquerna, a virtuous young man who aspires to be a hermit, not a knight, but who on encountering the disorder of the world is obliged to remain in it. In his reform efforts, Blaquerna passes through several estates before being elected Holy Father in Rome, allowing him to intervene in all Christendom and work decidedly in favor of the conversion of infidels ....
The Romance of Evast and Blaquerna is a novel in which Ramon Llull rebelled against secular literature of chivalry and the court in general, which was...
