Christopher N. L. Brooke – författare

`What is marriage and what sets it apart from other human relationships'? These are the key questions which Professor Brooke addresses in this important study of marriage in the medieval world. He draws on many disciplines - history, art, theology, and literature - in order to penetrate the special character of marriage. He covers the entire period from 1000 to 15000, with special emphasis on the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.Among the themes treated in this wide-ranging study are the cult of celibacy and the relationship between marriage and architecture. Professor Brooke draws on a remarkable group of case-studies and sources, including the letters of Heloise and Abelard, the epics of Wolfram von Eschenbach, and the poetry of Chaucer. He concludes with a chapter on the theology of marraige, and a penetrating look at The Arnolfini Marriage by Jan van Eyck.

This wide-ranging book offers fascinating insights into the nature of marriage in the Middle Ages, both in its social, political, legal, and religious aspects, and its treatment in contemporary art and literature.From such major topics as the role of the Church fathers and the Bible, and the practice and law of marriage, to the cult of celibacy and the relationship between marriage and architecture, Professor Brooke's illuminating study offers the most complete account of medieval marriage ever published. He draws on a remarkable group of case studies and sources, including the letters of Heloise and Abelard, the epics of Wolfram von Eschenbach, and the poetry of Chaucer, and concludes with a penetrating look at the Arnolfini Marriage by Jan van Eyck.

This is the fourth volume of A History of the University of Cambridge and explores the extraordinary growth in size and academic stature of the University between 1870 and 1990. Though the University has made great advances since the 1870s, when it was viewed as a provincial seminary, it is also the home of tradition: a federation of colleges, one over 700 years old, one of the 1970s. This book seeks to penetrate the nature of the colleges and of the federation; and to show the way in which university faculties and departments have come to vie with the colleges for this predominant role. It attempts to unravel a fascinating institutional story of the society of the University and its place in the world. It explores in depth the themes of religion and learning, and of the entry of women into a once male environment. There are portraits of seminal and characteristic figures of the Cambridge scene, and there is a sketch - inevitably selective but wide-ranging - of many disciplines, an extensive study in intellectual and academic history.

This classic exploration of the history of English kings and kingship from the sixth to the twelfth century has now been brought up-to-date for a new generation of readers.

These four major studies, thoroughly revised for this book, reflect this distinguished historian's continuing interest in relations between England and Wales in the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries. An introduction places theconclusions offered in these studies within the current framework of historical thinking about Wales in this period.The first chapter, a survey of Anglo-Welsh ecclesiastical life in the tenth and eleventh centuries, is followed by "The Archbishops of St Davids, Llandaff and Caerleon-on-Usk", in which the twelfth-century claims of certain major Welsh churches to extensive jurisdiction and the methods by which they promoted their claims are subjectedto a searching analysis. In "St Peter of Gloucester and St Cadog of Llancarfan" a detailed examination is made of the complicated links which bound together the churches of Gloucester and Llancarfan from about 1100 and of the sources which reveal these ties. Finally in "Geoffrey of Monmouth as a historian" the motivation and methods of one of the most controversial personalities of the Anglo-Welsh Church are considered.

Emmanuel's history encompasses Puritanism and links with Pilgrim Fathers, and continuing involvement in theological debate. Discussion of college finances on scale never previously attempted in Oxbridge college history.Emmanuel College was founded by the royal minister Sir Walter Mildmay in 1584; he chose a leading moderate puritan, Laurence Chaderton, as first Master, and aimed to educate godly ministers and good preachers. This history presents its development from these beginnings to the present day. They show how the college's original puritan character gave way to the liberal views of the Cambridge Platonists and the high churchmanship of William Sancroft, instrumental in bringing Christopher Wren to design the new college chapel; and how during the nineteenth century, as with other Cambridge colleges, it expanded in numbers and disciplines, becoming once again a notable centre of theology,and for the first time the home of serious teaching in the natural sciences. It has had a role in all the movements of the twentieth century which have made Cambridge what it is today: in learning, teaching, sport, and social life. A special feature of the book is the substantial account of the history of the college estates and finances, on a scale never before attempted for an Oxbridge college.Dr SARAH BENDALLis Fellow Librarian and Archivistof Merton College, Oxford; CHRISTOPHER BROOKE is Dixie Professor Emeritus of Ecclesiastical History, University of Cambridge; PATRICK COLLINSONis Professor Emeritus of Modern History at the University of Cambridge.

Christopher Brooke's account describes the working and development of the college, with much to illuminate the greater world outside its walls.Christopher Brooke's account of the history of Gonville and Caius, founded in 1348, describes the workings and development of the institution, the home of men such as William Lyndwood, Jeremy Taylor, Charles Sherrington and sevenother Nobel laureates - and of Titus Oates. For the more recent centuries, his rapidly moving narrative provides sketches and anecdotes of its central characters set in the wider context of the history of education, religion, learning and research. The Epilogue to this new edition describes the major events in the history of the College in the late twentieth century. Reissue; first published in 1985. The late CHRISTOPHER BROOKE was Fellow of Gonville and Caius and Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical history, University of Cambridge.

Rank and state, church and clergy, marriage, Jane Austen's own convictions: a historian explores."Can he be a sensible man, sir?""No, my dear; I think not..."Thus Christopher Brooke prefaces his study of Jane Austen, whose sharp intelligence and wit have been the companions of his leisure for many years.In answer to the question as to whether there can be anything left to be said, Brooke returns rewardingly to her own writing, the novels and the letters, and with a historian's precision reveals new detail and fresh insights. What is the world Jane Austen describes, and how is it related to the world in which she lived? A close reading of each of the major novels leads into a detailed examination of a sheaf of themes - church and clergy, rank and status,marriage - to see how they are handled in their social and historical setting, what is revealed about Jane Austen's deepest convictions, and how these might be validly deduced from the text of her novels. The wisdom and insight hehas brought to historical research are now rewardingly brought to bear on a novelist of endless fascination.The late CHRISTOPHER BROOKE enjoyed a wide reputation as a historian, primarily of the medieval church and other institutions (he is the author of The Medieval Idea of Marriage), and of the 18th-century church portrayed so frequently, and so variously, in Jane Austen's novels.

This classic exploration of the history of English kings and kingship from the sixth to the twelfth century has now been brought up-to-date for a new generation of readers.