Medieval Mysteries – Karen Ralls. FREE Download

• Title: Medieval Mysteries- A guide to history, lore, Places and Symbolism
  
• Publisher: Ibis Press
• Publication Date: 2013
• Format: Epub
• Preface: 

Why are many of us so intrigued by the High Middle Ages? What is the allure beckoning us into its world, like a mysterious shaft of crystalline light from a bejewelled stained glass window? Umberto Eco, in a famous 1986 essay, commented that ever since medieval times, Western culture has been “dreaming” the Middle Ages. That our never-ending fascination with all things medieval—the Grail, the Knights Templar, Arthurian legends, Gothic architecture, esoteric symbolism, and so on—is part of a modern-day quest for our Western roots.

Indeed it is. From the 12th to the 21st centuries, the well-worn path of the spiritual pilgrim continues unabated, its essence reverberating on, cajoling us to join the quest. We still ponder today: for whom does the Grail serve? And will we—can we—“restore the Wasteland”?

While often misunderstood as a mere feudal outgrowth of the earlier deeply repressive “Dark Ages,” in fact, the High Middle Ages (11th—late 13th centuries) was not all “monks, serfs and Black Death,”….