Summary: Medieval science wasn't nonsense: it could conceive of a spherical Earth, for example. But the medieval scholar discerned both natural and supernatural forces at work in the cosmos, reading an eclipse as a sign from God as well as the result of planetary movement, and populating even the most rigorous maps of the era with sea monsters. This program explores that fascinating conceptual dichotomy...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
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Summary: Writing in the late 1200s, the Spanish nobleman Ramon Lull listed various duties which no knight could ignore. They included fidelity to the monarch, defense of the Christian faith-and, only slightly lower on the list, maintaining order among the tenants on one's estate. This program examines the means by which such political "ideals" were implemented and enforced during the Middle Ages....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Although rooted in religious misogyny and crude anatomical knowledge, the sexual mores of the medieval era were surprisingly complex. This program explores the attitudes and behaviors of a sexual culture that was by turns romantic, transactional, and perverse. Documents and historical accounts include the story of Christina of Markyate, who defied marital conventions and maintained a lifelong...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Founded in 1230, Scotland's Pluscarden Abbey still pulses with the prayers and spiritual pursuits of Benedictine monks. Abbot Hugh Gilbert describes their work in reassuringly human terms, framing the Christian battle against Satanic evil as an inner struggle within one's own psyche. But, as this program shows, the culture which brought Pluscarden into existence was rigidly institutional-and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
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Summary: Of the 27 compositions that comprise the New Testament, 21 are letters: some guide, some warn. This program explores the content as well as authenticity of the various letters attributed to Paul, James, Jude, and Peter. Location footage brings to life Paul's missionary journeys to Antioch, Athens, Corinth, and Rome. The Pastoral Epistles, Gospel of Thomas, letters of Pontius Pilate, and the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: The early Church saw a proliferation of writings all claiming divine authority. This program surveys many of these texts and their adherents, as well as traces the course of the New Testament's codification. Original manuscripts and critical commentary are used to explore the infancy gospels, St. Clement's letters to the Corinthians, and the Gnostic gospels, including the Gospel of Thomas,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: The most celebrated work of Dante Alighieri is certainly the Divina Commedia-a vision of hell, purgatory, and heaven that provides a strangely surrealistic view of medieval attitudes on religious dogma and the price of disobedience. In this program, dramatizations of scenes depicting courtly love, sexual love, love of God, and love of the Virgin Mary are featured.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: It is said that every road movie and novel about a defining journey owes a debt to the Odyssey. This imaginative program uses the poem's division into groupings of books as a framework to allow Dr. Tom Winnifrith, of Warwick University; Dr. Douglas Cairns, of Leeds University; and Ken Dowden, senior lecturer at Birmingham University, to analyze the oral tradition and key elements of the story...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Questions about the language and construction of the Jewish Bible, especially its first five books, are among the most fascinating in paleography. Was Moses the sole originator of the Pentateuch? Did other writers have a hand in it? How does archaeology complement textual research? In this program, theologian Robert Beckford travels through the Middle East in search of definitive answers. A...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: Recently re-translated by Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney, Beowulf has caused a sensation in both the U.S. and the U.K. In this program, NewsHour correspondent Elizabeth Farnsworth speaks with Heaney about his attraction to that epic poem, the probable background of the bard who created the original, similarities between Old English and bits of Anglo-Saxon that still crop up in rural Ireland, and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005