#saint-slayer

#saint-slayer

Looking to the Middle Ages for answers to the perennial puzzles of life can seem quaint, even artificial, a long reach across centuries marked by violence, hierarchy, and exclusion. And yet medieval culture offers a way of thinking about love that still speaks to the present. If love is most urgently tested in moments of strain and upheaval, then it is in those moments - where care is stressed or obscured - that its meaning comes most clearly into view.

A book about witches casts a spell, and arguments about whether blue-green algae should be called blue-green bacteria, in this week's pick from the Nature archive.

Picture Book of the Life of St John and the Apocalypse is a unique and visually striking example of the picture-book Apocalypse - a distinctive group of medieval manuscripts that present the apocalyptic visions of the Book of Revelation primarily through images. Centred on the visions of St John and often framed by episodes from his legendary life, these manuscripts transform the biblical text into a continuous pictorial narrative.

In this volume, the authors aim to provide a truly global overview of the 14 century, with each region given approximately the same space. It is obviously impossible to cover every event in every country of the world in a single volume, just as you would not be able to visit every city in every country if you traveled around the world for a year.