A sequel to Nicholas Orme's widely praised study, Medieval Children Children have gone to school in England since Roman times. By the end of the middle ages there were hundreds of schools, supporting a highly literate society. This book traces their history from the Romans to the Renaissance, showing how they developed, what they taught, how they were run, and who attended them. Every kind of school is covered, from reading schools in churches and town grammar schools to schools in monasteries and nunneries, business schools, and theological schools. The author also shows how they fitted into a constantly changing world, ending with the impacts of the Renaissance and the Reformation. Medieval schools anticipated nearly all the ideas, practices, and institutions of schooling today. Their remarkable successes in linguistic and literary work, organizational development, teaching large numbers of people shaped the societies that they served. Only by understanding what schools achieved can we fathom the nature of the middle ages.
An engaging, richly illustrated account of parish churches and churchgoers in England, from the Anglo-Saxons to the mid-sixteenth century Parish churches were at the heart of English religious and social life in the Middle Ages and the sixteenth century. In this comprehensive study, Nicholas Orme shows how they came into existence, who staffed them, and how their buildings were used. He explains who went to church, who did not attend, how people behaved there, and how they--not merely the clergy--affected how worship was staged. The book provides an accessible account of what happened in the daily and weekly services, and how churches marked the seasons of Christmas, Lent, Easter, and summer. It describes how they celebrated the great events of life: birth, coming of age, and marriage, and gave comfort in sickness and death. A final chapter covers the English Reformation in the sixteenth century and shows how, alongside its changes, much that went on in parish churches remained as before.
In 1857 Everard Digby published the first scientific treatise on swimming - and one of the first on any modern sport. Nicholas Orme rehabilitates Digby as a pioneer of the history of sport. The book opens with a history of swimming in Britain from the Romans to the sixteenth century, which is followed by an account of Digby's life and work.
The first history of childhood in Tudor England What was it like to grow up in England under the Tudors? How were children cared for, what did they play with, and what dangers did they face? In this beautifully illustrated and characteristically lively account, leading historian Nicholas Orme provides a rich survey of childhood in the period. Beginning with birth and infancy, he explores all aspects of children’s experiences, including the games they played, such as Blind Man’s Bluff and Mumble-the-Peg, and the songs they sang, such as “Three Blind Mice” and “Jack Boy, Ho Boy.” He shows how social status determined everything from the food children ate and the clothes they wore to the education they received and the work they undertook. Although childhood and adolescence could be challenging and even hazardous, it was also, as Nicholas Orme shows, a treasured time of learning and development. By looking at the lives of Tudor children we can gain a richer understanding of the era as a whole.
Originally published in 1984, this is a study of the kings and the aristocracy who ruled England between the Conquest and the Reformation. Not, as usual, about their adult lives, but how they became the people they were through childhood and education. The first such study of its kind, it follows noble boys and girls from birth through the care of their nurses, masters and mistresses, until they left home for further training in noble households, monasteries and universities. The author examines the theories and treatises on noble education, again for the first time. The rest of the book broadens into a wide cultural survey as Dr Orme describes the skills and ideas which noble children learnt. He explains how they mastered speech and literacy; worship and behaviour; dancing, music and applied art; athletics and training for war. This part of the study is a handbook of noble pursuits in medieval times. In his final chapter the author considers the nature of noble education in the middles ages, and examines how and whether it changed at the Renaissance. Nicholas Orme has written a comprehensive study, spanning 450 years of English history and making a major contribution to social and cultural history, as well as the history of education. His book will be invaluable to historians and medievalists of all disciplines, and essential reading from those who study the Renaissance.
England's sixty or so Anglican and Roman Catholic cathedrals are among its most iconic buildings and attract thousands of worshipers and visitors every year. Yet though much has been written about their architecture, there is no complete guide to their history and activities. This book provides the first rounded account of the whole of their 1700 years from Roman times to the present day. It explains the layout of their buildings, the people who ran them, their worship and music, their links with learning and education, and their outreach to society. It relates their history to the history of England and shows how they adapted to change and weathered disasters to survive as great repositories of our national history."--
Cornwall is unique among English counties, though similar to other Celtic lands, in its religious history. Its churches, chapels, and place-names commemorated not only the major saints of Christendom, but also many minor 'Celtic' ones, unique to single churches. This book breaks new ground by considering them all, comprehensively and in detail. The introduction explains how the cults came into existence, and how they shed light on early Christianity in the county. It follows their history up to the Reformation, and shows how popular devotion to the saints lingered even in the eighteenth century. The main part of the book provides a history of every known religious cult in Cornwall from the sixth century AD to the Reformation, with relevant information about its later history down to the present day. Every known site is identified (church, chapel, altar, image, holy well, or other outdoor feature), and every written source is discussed (saint's Life, liturgical commemoration, and calendar festival). This is the first time that a complete inventory of cults has been produced for an area as large as an English county. The work also includes many saints venerated in Brittany, Wales and England, and makes copious references to all three countries. It provides a major resource in the fields of medieval Church history, Reformation studies, folklore, and Celtic studies, as well as the history of Cornwall.
Medieval children lived in a world rich in poetry, from lullabies, nursery rhymes, and songs to riddles, tongue twisters, and nonsensical verses. They read or listened to stories in verse: ballads of Robin Hood, romances, and comic tales. Poems were composed to teach them how to behave, eat at meals, hunt game, and even learn Latin and French. In Fleas, Flies, and Friars, Nicholas Orme, an expert on childhood in the Middle Ages, has gathered a wide variety of children’s verse that circulated in England beginning in the 1400s, providing a way for modern readers of all ages to experience the medieval world through the eyes of its children. In his delightful treasury of medieval children’s verse, Orme does a masterful job of recovering a lively and largely unknown tradition, preserving the playfulness of the originals while clearly explaining their meaning, significance, or context. Poems written in Latin or French have been translated into English, and Middle English has been modernized. Fleas, Flies, and Friars has five parts. The first two contain short lyrical pieces and fragments, together with excerpts from essays in verse that address childhood or were written for children. The third part presents poems for young people about behavior. The fourth contains three long stories and the fifth brings together verse relating to education and school life.
The first English hospitals appeared soon after the Norman Conquest. By the year 1300 they numbered over 500, caring for the sick and needy at every level of society - from the gentry and clergy to pilgrims, travellers, beggars and lepers. Excluded from towns, but placed by main highways where they could gather alms, they had a complex relationship with medieval society: cherished yet marginalised, self-contained yet also parasitic. This book - the first general history of medieval and Tudor hospitals in eighty-five years - traces when and why they originated and follows their development through the crisis periods of the Black Death and the English Reformation when many disappeared. Nicholas Orme and Margaret Webster explore the hospitals' religious, charitable and medical functions, examine their buildings, staffing and finances, and analyse their inmates in terms of social background and medical needs. They reconstruct the daily life of hospitals, from worship to living conditions, food and care. The general survey is complemented by a regional study of hospitals in the south-west of England, including detailed histories of all the recorded institutions in Cornwall and Devon.
In this book we will strive to meet nine goals: First we will define life. What characteristics does an organism have to posses to be alive? Then we will look at the smallest unit of life: the cell. What does it look like? Where does it come from? What is it made of and how does it work? How does it differentiate into an adult? How does it produce special substances? And why does it eventually die? Then we will discuss anatomy and physiology. What organ systems do higher life forms possess and how do they work? We will discuss genetics. How do living things inherit characteristics from the parents, and how do they adapt and evolve? We will discuss some of the medical conditions that affect higher life forms. And what they need from their environment. Finally we will discuss the unique gifts that living organisms posses. I hope you find this to be as enjoyable as I did.
People assume that parish church dedications are ancient, but many of those in use today are inventions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the original dedications were entirely different. This startling discovery reveals fresh information about the history of English parish churches and throws light on religion in England in all periods of history. Part One of English Church Dedications is a general history of Church dedications in England from Roman times to the present day. Part Two provides a gazetteer of dedications in Cornwall and Devon, with dates and references, showing how far each one can be traced back and what changes and misunderstandings have occurred. It offers totally new evidence about the Cornish saints and provides a guide and model for similar research in other counties.
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