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For centuries following the fall of Rome, western Europe was a benighted backwater, a world of subsistence farming, minimal literacy, and violent conflict. Meanwhile Arab culture was thriving, dazzling those Europeans fortunate enough to catch even a…

The Homeric Hymn to Demeter, composed in the late seventh or early sixth century B.C.E., is a key to understanding the psychological and religious world of ancient Greek women. The poem tells how Hades, lord of the underworld, abducted the goddess…

"Barber traces the history of the stories surrounding the Holy Grail, beginning with Chretien de Troyes, who in the twelfth century first imagined the famous scene in which a mysterious golden vessel adorned with jewels was paraded before the eyes of…