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When did you last tell your children to put their hand over their mouth when they yawn? When did you…
last suggest that when they are introduced to someone they should shake hands firmly and look them in the eye? Do you suggest that they should wait until everyone is served before they eat rather than hoover up the best bit for themselves? Do you demand that your young daughter dress decorously lest she elicit outraged looks? Do you think that the children of today have disgraceful manners? Unlike, of course, when you were young ... Well, that's certainly what Erasmus of Rotterdam thought in 1530 when he published De Civilitate Morum Puerilium: A Handbook on Good Manners for Children. He felt that learning good manners was crucial to a child's upbringing, and that the uncouth and ill-disciplined behaviour around him demanded a new kind of book. After all, as William of Wykeham memorably said in the 1350s, 'Manners maketh man'. A Handbook on Good Manners for Children is considered to be the first treatise in Western Europe on the moral and practical education of children. It was a massive bestseller - indeed the biggest-selling book of the sixteenth century - going into 130 editions over 300 years and being translated into 22 languages within ten years of its publication. In it, Erasmus concerns himself with matters such as how to dress, how to behave at table, how to converse with one's elders and contemporaries, how to address the opposite sex and much else. For example: Table Manners 'It's just as rude to lick greasy fingers as it is to wipe them on your clothing, Use a cloth or napkin instead.''Some people, no sooner than they've sat down, immediately stick their hands into the dishes of food. This is the manner of wolves.' 'Making a raucous noise or shrieking intentionally when you sneeze, or showing off by carrying on sneezing on purpose, is very ill-mannered.''To fidget around in your seat, and to settle first on one buttock and then the next, gives the impression that you are repeatedly farting, or trying to fart.' The advice is as relevant today as it was 500 years ago.Sharpen your mind to beat the smartest brains in Britain with the original official GCHQ puzzle bookWould GCHQ recruit you?…
Pit your wits against the people who cracked Enigma in the official puzzle book from Britain's top secret intelligence and security organisationOver the years, their codebreakers have helped keep our country safe, from the Bletchley Park breakthroughs of WWII to the modern-day threat of cyber attack. So it comes as no surprise that, even in their time off, the staff at GCHQ love a good puzzle.Whether they're recruiting new staff or challenging each other to the toughest Christmas quizzes and treasure hunts imaginable, puzzles are at the heart of what GCHQ does. Now they're opening up their archives of decades' worth of codes, puzzles and challenges for everyone to try.In this book you will find:- Tips on how to get into the mindset of a codebreaker- Puzzles ranging in difficulty from easy to brain-bending- A competition section where we search for Britain's smartest puzzlerWith hundreds of stimulating puzzles, The GCHQ Puzzle Book is the perfect companion and will keep you occupied as you attempt to beat the smartest brains in Britain.GOOD LUCK!'Fiendish . . . as frustrating, divisive and annoying as it is deeply fulfilling' Guardian'Ideal for the crossword enthusiast' Daily TelegraphLooking for more ways to test yourself? The GCHQ Puzzle Book 2, a new collection of head-scratching, mind-boggling and brain-bending puzzles is out now!Composed and published while John Bunyan (1628-1688) was in prison for his religious principles, Grace Abounding is an extraordinary spiritual…
autobiography. It was written in an age when religious radicalism was regarded as socially subversive, and is a haunting, often harrowing and ultimately inspiring account of his inner life: his long struggle with and eventual triumph over doubt and despair, his spiritual regeneration and his subsequent emergence as a preacher and writer of great imaginative power. God and Satan are the chief protagonists in Bunyan's drama, existing not as theological concepts but as terrifyingly immediate adversaries in the competition for his soul. Yet he finds his spiritual defences in the Bible, and Grace Abounding charts his passionate and imaginative involvement with this ultimate source of wisdom.A Friend for Christmas
By Gloria Stewart. 2018
Yorkshire, Christmas, 1953. They'd had a cold and hungry winter but Gloria's mother had scrimped and saved to ensure the…
fire was lit and her five children each had a plate full of food. There was even a place at the table ready for an unexpected visitor; every year there seemed to be someone in need.Despite the busy household, Gloria often ended up playing by herself. That is, until a knock on the door that brought a scruffy pup into her life and her heart. Over the years, Gloria adopted many more dogs, even the odd cat, who helped her through the good times and the bad; through illness, love and loss. They even helped her to carry on her mother's legacy, bringing warmth, food and happiness to those alone at Christmas.The Funny Christmas Stocking Filler Book
By Jonathan Swan. 2016
Say stuffing balls to Christmas and survive the festive season with The Funny Christmas Stocking Filler BookGuaranteed to entertain and…
amuse, this book contains everything you need to get you from the turkey to the Queen’s speech! It’s the perfect distraction from rubbish Christmas telly and tipsy relatives, and could even help you dodge the washing up. The Funny Christmas Stocking Filler Book is packed full of hilarious games, dubious jokes and fun Christmas facts. Involve your sleeping relatives in a game of human buckaroo, play sprout golf or the Christmas movie charade game, or entertain the family with amazing Christmas trivia. For best results, consume with alcohol!Festive: Simple recipes, crafts and traditions for the perfect Christmas
By Francesca Stone. 2023
Make Christmas magicIn this book, you'll find easy, accessible ways to embrace your festive spirit and create lasting memories with…
the family with a collection of traditions - old and new - including simple recipes, styling tips and crafts to make your celebrations meaningful and beautiful without the big spend.By using traditional, low-cost ingredients to create simple and tasty festive recipes and foraging, recycling, and using inexpensive items from around your home for cosy styling and beautiful crafts to keep or give as gifts, you can have a perfect, budget-friendly and more sustainable Christmas.Recipes will include Mini gingerbread house biscuits, Brie and cranberry waffles, Christmas Cake and Mince pies, with styling tips covering how to dress your front door, tree and shelves, and crafts ranging from honeycomb paper trees to creating needle felted ornaments, recycled wax candles and natural beaded garlands.This is a book you'll reach for year on year.Early Christian Writings: The Apostolic Fathers
By Andrew Louth. 1968
The writings in this volume cast a glimmer of light upon the emerging traditions and organization of the infant church,…
during an otherwise little-known period of its development. A selection of letters and small-scale theological treatises from a group known as the Apostolic Fathers, several of whom were probably disciples of the Apostles, they provide a first-hand account of the early Church and outline a form of early Christianity still drawing on the theology and traditions of its parent religion, Judaism. Included here are the first Epistle of Bishop Clement of Rome, an impassioned plea for harmony; The Epistle of Polycarp; The Epistle of Barnabas; The Didache; and the Seven Epistles written by Ignatius of Antioch - among them his moving appeal to the Romans that they grant him a martyr's death.Early Christian Lives
By Athanasius, Gregory, Hilarion, Jerome, Sulpicius Severus. 1998
Written between the mid-fourth and late sixth centuries to commemorate and glorify the achievements of early Christian saints, these six…
biographies depict men who devoted themselves to solitude, poverty and prayer. Athanasius records Antony's extreme seclusion in the Egyptian desert, despite temptation by the devil and visits from his followers. Jerome also shows those who fled persecution or withdrew from society to pursue lives of chastity and asceticism in his accounts of Paul of Thebes, Hilarion and Malchus. In his Life of Martin, Sulpicius Severus describes the achievements of a man who combined the roles of monk, bishop and missionary, while Gregory the Great tells of Benedict, whose Rule became the template for monastic life. Full of vivid incidents and astonishing miracles, these Lives have provided inspiration as models for centuries of Christian worship.Written in AD 731, Bede's work opens with a background sketch of Roman Britain's geography and history. It goes on…
to tell of the kings and bishops, monks and nuns who helped to develop Anglo-Saxon government and religion during the crucial formative years of the English people. Leo Sherley-Price's translation brings us an accurate and readable version, in modern English, of a unique historical document. This edition now includes Bede's Letter to Egbert concerning pastoral care in early Anglo-Saxon England, at the heart of which lay Bede's denunciation of the false monasteries; and The Death of Bede, an admirable eye-witness account by Cuthbert, monk and later Abbot of Jarrow, both translated by D. H. Farmer.The Dreamer Of Calle San Salvador
By Roger Osborne. 2001
Spell-binding, horrific, poetic, apocalyptic, heart-rending, disturbing, prophetic, seditious, compelling and utterly fascinating - the dreams of Lucrecia de Leon have…
lain virtually undisturbed in the archives of the Spanish Inquisition for more than four hundred years. Lucrecia was a nineteen-year-old Madrilena when, in 1587, her dreams began to be recorded and published by a disaffected group of clerics. Over the next three years they transcribed four hundred of Lucrecia's dreams which they considered to be messages from God. The dreams warned of the defeat of the Armada, of the death of King Philip II, of the fall of Spain and of a new beginning under a new king - all told in bold and highly original visions. As some of her prophecies came true and as the Spanish court grew more discontented, she fell foul of the authorities and was arrested by the Holy Order. The Dreamer of the Calle de San Salvador produces thirty-five of Lucrecia's most captivating dreams. The imagery and inventiveness of her visions are astonishing, while the stories that they tell are compelling and of immense historical significance. Roger Osborne weaves a commentary around each dream, which allows us to see the world through the eyes of Lucrecia and helps us to understand the nature of her visions and the time and place she inhabited. This pioneering work shows us what history is like seen from the inside out.The Desert Fathers were the first Christian monks, living in solitude in the deserts of Egypt, Palestine, and Syria. In…
contrast to the formalised and official theology of the "founding fathers" of the church, the Desert Fathers were ordinary Christians who chose to renounce the world and live lives of celibacy, fasting, vigil, prayer and poverty in direct and simple response to the gospel. Their sayings were first recorded in the 4th century and consist of spiritual advice, anecdotes and parables. The Desert Fathers' teachings and lives have inspired poetry, opera and art, as well as providing spiritual nourishment and a template for monastic life.Country Church Monuments
By C. B. Newham. 2022
A landmark illustrated history of rural church monuments - the forgotten national treasures of England and WalesDeep in the countryside,…
away from metropolitan abbeys and cathedrals, thousands of funerary monuments are hidden in parish churches. These artworks - medieval brasses and elegant marble effigies, stone tomb chests and grand mausoleums - are of great historical and cultural significance, but have, due to their relative inaccessibility, faded from accounts of our art history.Over twenty-five years, C. B. Newham FSA has visited and photographed more than eight thousand rural churches, cataloguing the monumental sculptures encountered on his quest. In Country Church Monuments, he presents 365 of the very best, each accompanied by detailed photographs, biographies of both the deceased and their sculptors and a wealth of contextual material. Many of these works commemorate famous historical figures, from scheming Tudor courtier Richard Rich to Victorian prime minister William Ewart Gladstone. But more moving are the countless others - minor aristocrats, small-time industrialists, much-loved mothers, fathers and children - who, if not for their memorials, would wholly be lost to time.As Newham blows the dust off these artworks and breathes life into the stories they tell, a new aesthetic history of rural England and Wales emerges. Country Church Monuments is a poignant record of the art we make at the borders of life and death, of our ceaseless human striving for eternity.Confessions
By Saint Augustine. 1961
'Give me chastity and continence, but not yet'The son of a pagan father and a Christian mother, Saint Augustine spent…
his early years torn between conflicting world-views. The Confessions, written when he was in his forties, recounts how, slowly and painfully, he came to turn away from his youthful ideas and licentious lifestyle to become one of Christianity's most influential thinkers. A remarkably honest spiritual autobiography, the Confessions also addresses fundamental issues of Christian doctrine, and many of the prayers and meditations it includes are still an integral part of the practice of the faith today.Translated with an Introduction by R. S. PINE-COFFINA Confession and Other Religious Writings
By Leo Tolstoy. 1880
Describing Tolstoy's crisis of depression and estrangement from the world, A Confession (1879) is an autobiographical work of exceptional emotional…
honesty. By the time he was fifty, Tolstoy had already written the novels that would assure him of literary immortality; he had a wife, a large estate and numerous children; he was 'a happy man' and in good health - yet life had lost its meaning. In this poignant confessional fragment, he records a period of his life when he began to turn away from fiction and aesthetics, and to search instead for 'a practical religion not promising future bliss, but giving bliss on earth'.City of God
By Saint Augustine. 1984
City of God is an enduringly significant work in the history of Christian thought, by one of its central figuresWritten…
as an eloquent defence of the faith at a time when the Roman Empire was on the brink of collapse, this great theological and philosophical work by St Augustine, bishop of Hippo, examines the ancient pagan religions of Rome, the arguments of the Greek philosophers and the revelations of the Bible. Pointing the way forward to a citizenship that transcends worldly politics and will last for eternity, City of God is one of the most influential documents in the development of Christianity.Translated with Notes by Henry Bettenson with an Introduction by G. R. EvansThe Cistercian World: Monastic Writings of the Twelfth Century
By Pauline Matarasso. 1993
The Cistercian Order was born in Burgundy at the start of the twelfth century as a movement of radical renewal…
- an Order that survives to this day with the greater part of its written heritage preserved. This volume brings together a selection of its finest works, which speak powerfully across the centuries to modern readers. Writings by St Bernard of Clairvaux (c. 1090-1153) - including his letters, The Life of Malachy the Irishman, sermons on the Song of Songs and the sharply satirical Apologia for Abbot William - reveal him to be a highly individual and influential writer of the Middle Ages. Also included here are a charming description of Clairvaux, biographies of abbots and a series of exemplary stories, all drawing on the Scriptures to express intensely personal forms of monastic theology.Chronicles of the First Crusade
By Christopher Tyerman. 2004
The story of the First Crusade, as witnessed by contemporary writers'O day so ardently desired! O time of times the…
most memorable! O deed before all other deeds!'The fall of Jerusalem in the summer of 1099 to an exhausted and starving army of western European soldiers was one of the most extraordinary events of the Middle Ages. It was both the climax of a great wave of visionary Christian fervour and the beginning of what proved to be a futile and abortive attempt to implant a new European kingdom of heaven in an overwhelmingly Muslim world. This remarkable collection brings together a wide variety of contemporary accounts of the First Crusade, including Pope Urban II's initial call to arms of 1095, as well as the first-hand writings of priests, knights, a Jewish pilgrim, a destitute noblewoman, an Iraqi poet and the historian Anna Comnena. Together they provide a vivid and nuanced picture of the First Crusade and the people who were swept up in it.Edited with an introduction and notes by Christopher TyermanThe Cloud of Unknowing and Other Works
By A. Spearing. 2001
Contains The Cloud of Unknowing, The Mystical Theology of Saint Denis, The Book of Privy Counselling, and An Epistle on…
Prayer. Against a tradition of devotional writings which focussed on knowing God through Christ's Passion and his humanity, these texts describe a transcendent God who exists beyond human knowledge and human language. These four texts are at the heart of medival mystical theology in their call for contemplation, calm, and above all, love, as the way to understand the Divine.A Christmas Cornucopia: The Hidden Stories Behind Our Yuletide Traditions
By Mark Forsyth. 2016
BY THE SUNDAY TIMES NO.1 BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF A SHORT HISTORY OF DRUNKENNESSDiscover the unpredictable origins and etymologies of our…
Christmas customs this festive season. For something that happens every year of our lives, we really don't know much about Christmas. We don't know that the date we celebrate was chosen by a madman, or that Christmas, etymologically speaking, means "Go away, Christ". We're oblivious to the fact that the advent calendar was actually invented by a Munich housewife to stop her children pestering her for a Christmas countdown. And we would never have guessed that the invention of crackers was merely a way of popularising sweet wrappers. Luckily, like a gift from Santa himself, Mark Forsyth is here to unwrap this fundamentally funny gallimaufry of traditions and oddities, making it all finally make sense - in his wonderfully entertaining wordy way.'Witty and revelatory. Blooming brilliant' Raymond Briggs 'Everything we ever thought about Christmas is wrong! Great stuff' Matthew ParrisChristmas Angels: A Collection
By Rowan Dobson. 2020
A collection of the wonderful variety of styles, stories and personalities of our favourite Christmas companions.With a unique perspective atop…
the tree, Christmas Angels are the ultimate observers of the festive period. They see us when we’re sleeping (4pm comatose in front of the telly), they know when we’re awake (4am in frenzied anticipation of The Big Day), they realize when family tensions are starting to resurface, and which gifts were bought in haste.But like the snowflakes speckling our windows, each blessed angel is one of a kind; each has its own story of creation and arrival into every household. Some are antiques passed down through generations, others are homemade, some embody the spirit of Christmas, others could be more suited to Halloween.Through this unusual collection of portraits, Christmas Angels showcases the variety of styles, stories and personalities embodied by our favourite Christmas companions.