Bøger af David Ep Dennis

The brilliant warrior-poet Dante Alighieri was born in Florence, in the district or quarter known as San Martino in May or June 1265. In later life, he was banished from his home in Florence by his enemies and began to write The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso. This amazing poem described all the terrors, pains and wonders of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise. Dante had an imagined companion - the Roman poet Virgil, and together they examined the results of gross sin and the forgiveness of God.In this book we are concerned with just a few lines of Inferno, albeit of foremost importance, concerning the horrendous butchery of a vengeance killing in an Italian church during Holy Mass. These lines have a surprising mention of the River Thames in England and so they reflect another bloody conflict - the war between the King of England, Henry III, and the French warrior Simon de Montfort. The book also explores the mythical idea of Rivers of Blood and the English conspiratorial phrase: 'He is up to his neck in it.' The author puts forward a theory showing why Dante may have used particular words in the verses of Inferno.This history details how Earl Simon de Montfort was killed, how his sons Simon and Guy pursued a vendetta against someone who was innocent - Henry, King of the Romans, and how the various Rivers of Blood stemming from the Holy Blood of the crucifixion of Christ and the bloody de Montfort vengeance killing merge into an historic saga of hate and madness.

King Richard the Lionheart was famous for his crusading spirit. He took with him to the Holy Land many young warriors and one of these was William Fitz Osbert. This man Fitz Osbert came from a good family had some legal training, yet he had dreadful character defects. He was constantly after money, plaguing his own brother also called Richard. Eventually Fitz Osbert, on his return from the Crusades, became the focus of immense public dissatisfaction when King Richard the Lionheart was captured and held to ransom and English folk had to pay a colossal sum in silver to obtain his release.By the year 1196, Fitz Osbert had committed murdered twice and had through rabblerousing invective, galvanised the whole of London and most of the Home Counties into a riotous revolution which threatened to overthrow the state. Since King Richard was out of the country building castles in France, this left Archbishop of Canterbury Hubert Walter to find a way to capture Fitz Osbert.This book details the revolutionary treachery of Fitz Osbert, the guile of Archbishop Walter and the uncaring attitude of the king for his own country and innocent people. In the end, miracles were seen, and the poor wanted Fitz Osbert made a saint, but was he so holy or was he a psychopathic narcissist with a pathological hatred for almost everyone apart from himself? He had set himself up in the role of Jesus Christ and even Moses but met the most terrible end. How are the mighty fallen!

Fore Wood is a jewel in the treasury of English woodlands.This wonderful example of a Western Oak Wood in the east of England has a long history as part of the giant forest of Anderida covering southern England, first with birch after the last ice age and then with mighty oaks. Its underlying geology is not chalk, but ironstone, a type of sandstone. Because the oaks and hornbeams offer homes to so many different kinds of wildlife, and because the woodland understorey is carefully managed, Fore Wood has become a place where Silver-washed Fritillary and White Admiral butterflies can be seen flying and feeding together in high summer. The range of wildlife is considerable, from dormice to deer, and includes Golden-ringed dragonflies, Kingfishers, Woodcocks, Tawny Owls, Redwings, the Nuthatch and Treecreeper, and even Stoats.The land on which Fore Wood stands and the fascinating landscape surrounding it is rich in historical associations. Ownership has widened over the course of time, from Stone Age tribes to Iron Age settlements, then the Romans, and on to Anglo-Saxon woodsmen and their families. In 1066, the King of England, Harold Godwinsson, who owned the wood, was tragically cut down by the Normans, along with his brothers, Gyrth and Leofwine. Fore Wood is within easy riding distance of the assumed site of the Battle of Hastings and this book discusses aspects of the Norman invasion with possible links to the wood and the notorious Malfosse Ditch incident. Inevitably from 31st December 1066, Fore Wood's masters became a series of Norman lords. Medieval ownership followed, then Rother District and Crowhurst Parish Councils of today took up the reins. The Final phase of ownership has been by the excellent nature conservation organisation, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).In each of these ownership phases, the trees and wildlife have continued to be special and the link to the caring people of Crowhurst, East Sussex is still strong. The combination of RSPB ownership and wildlife environment, together with the ironstone and ghyll ravines of the Wood, has made this place a real wonder of peace and fascination, and in autumn, a cathedral of light a colour. I hope you enjoy reading about it. May you visit it one day.

Vacarius and the advent of Civil LawThis is Volume 1 of the series of books about Medieval Oxford University. The series will examine a wide range of positive and negative connections between the University and the world in medieval times (c.1066-1500). How did people at Oxford's great seat of learning, by occupation or invitation, think - and what did they think about? What kinds of events happened in the area? What were the relationships between the monarch, religious leaders, local population, foreign institutions, and the university? This first volume reveals how the Italian jurist Master Vacarius who was brought to England to help the development of civil law, was brave in the face of the wrath of King Stephen who ordered the burning of his books - and how Oxford became a beacon of intellectual freedom. In this volume we look at how the civil law of the Roman Empire was brought, via European Universities such as Bologna and Padua, to England - and Oxford in particular. The book reviews the fascinating development of early law: in Egypt and Babylon, the fate of slaves, and the Roman Empire's legal refinements driven by Justinian I. We also consider the mass Saxon executions of Charlemagne, the severe rule of William the Conqueror and the work of Irnerius, Vacarius, and tragic Thomas Becket. The book also explains Anglo-Saxon laws, such as Hue & Cry and Compurgation, which existed in England as Vacarius arrived from Bologna to work for Archbishop Theobald of Bec in 1143.Most importantly, the book shows how kind and helpful to students was Master Vacarius. He really was a 'Man for All Seasons' rather than the robotic and inflexible Becket.

The medieval town of Old Winchelsea was destroyed by a great storm in 1287. Remarkably, it lasted for several hundred years on a shingle bank in the middle of Rye Bay in Sussex, England. This book describes the formation of the town, its incredible history of seaborne heroism, privateering and piracy, and its final destruction along with Dunwich in Suffolk, Old Romney, and Broomhill in a hurricane-like tide of massive proportions. The book describes the author's two years of research into all of the causes of the climate change that led to the town's demise. In recent times nuclear power stations have been built close to the site of Old Winchelsea and Dunwich. The author questions our readiness to cope with deadly storm surges in the face of global warming and sea level rises. The loss of this bustling town with its seven hundred homes, fifty inns, prisons, churches, salt pans, tide mills, royal apartments, and shipyards, is a salutary lesson for us today. What is the point of studying history if we don't learn from it?