Marie-Françoise Valéry Book order

This volume provides a comprehensive study of widowhood in Medieval Britain based on literary and historical sources from the seventh to the fifteenth centuries. The book is divided into two parts: the first deals with the Anglo-Saxon period, the second with the Medieval period. Because widows shared certain preoccupations specific to their status, the two parts deal with similar topics: the fundamental role played by the Church in the doctrine of marriage, and the dominant male discourse about widows. Widows had a specific legal status: special laws affected their lives and their relationships with their children and other relatives. Much attention is consequently devoted to family structures and to the legal and social aspects of inheritance. The volume also explores the various options widowhood offered and the highly debated degree of independence widows had in their life choices.

France's most beautiful public and private gardens open their gates to us in every season of the year: from the classical French palace gardens at Vaux-le-Vicomte down to humble domestic gardens in Normandy, from stylized Zen gardens in Provence to cactus displays on the Cote d'Azur. The typical plants of each climatic region are represented - delphiniums, roses and irises in the North, and California poppies, santolinas, and lavender in the Midi. This book is a source of inspiration for all lovers of gardens and nature as well as anyone travelling to France. Most of these gardens are open to the public and provide an astonishing feast for the eyes.

Enduring inspiration to countless artists, Provence is a rural paradise, a verdant, fertile environment that offers endless opportunities for those practitioners of what the philosopher Francis Bacon called "the purest of human joys". The art of landscape gardening demonstrates more than almost any other activity the human need to create havens of peace and contemplation. Benignly fashioning nature, the landscape gardener responds to what is present, as well as importing dazzling exotic plants and trees to reveal an extraordinary new world of the senses. Provence then is a gardener's idyll - a place where the extremes of "wilderness" and the symmetry of geometric construction come together in some extraordinary designs. These creations, building on the qualities of the area - light and a dry climate - do not divorce themselves from their surroundings but rather create the impression that indeed the whole of Provence is one magnificent garden. From the humid tropical to the unspoilt hills, from the cubist inspiration at Hyeres to the Zen patterns of Erik Borja, and from the coast to the valleys, only in Provence can you say that you walk in gardens as varied as dreams, yet as sensual as life.

The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) is the leading international body representing the interests of library and information services and their users. It is the global voice of the information profession. The series IFLA Publications deals with many of the means through which libraries, information centres, and information professionals worldwide can formulate their goals, exert their influence as a group, protect their interests, and find solutions to global problems.

The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) is the leading international body representing the interests of library and information services and their users. It is the global voice of the information profession. The series IFLA Publications deals with many of the means through which libraries, information centres, and information professionals worldwide can formulate their goals, exert their influence as a group, protect their interests, and find solutions to global problems.