Medieval

When my niece, Sarah, was little, she returned from a long trip to Europe with her parents and announced she never wanted to set foot in another museum. Children who travel abroad are lucky, but on another level you have to pity the poor kids dragged through ancient ruins, art galleries, cathedrals and castles, until they're ready to drop, when all they really want is a Game Boy and a hot dog. But in the Burgundy region of France, there's a castle that fascinates children — and it isn't another Euro Disney.

The False Prince A Novel Jennifer A. Nielsen Scholastic: 344 pp., $17.99, ages 10 and older Most children want to be recognized as someone special. In "The False Prince," Jennifer A. Nielsen takes that desire to an extreme with a romp of a medieval-themed, middle-grade novel. This kickoff to her new "Ascendance Trilogy" is a swashbuckling origin story about orphans forced to compete with one another for a chance to take the crown. The book opens with a boy running through the streets being chased by a cleaver-wielding butcher hoping to retrieve a stolen roast.

The "Belles Heures" of the Duke of Berry -- a prime example of French medieval manuscript illumination and a highly prized possession of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York -- will be on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum from Nov. 18 to Feb. 8. And thanks to the Met's recent publication of a facsimile edition and related conservation work, which required dissembling the sumptuously illustrated prayer book, visitors will be able to see much...

As part of the pageant of events planned to celebrate the 1100 th birthday of the French province of Normandy, the town of Bayeux will turn its 25 th annual Medieval Fair, held July 1-3, into a celebration of all things Norman.  Descended from a band of marauding Vikings who founded the province, the Normans conquered Britain in 1066 at the Battle of Hastings. A re-enactment of that battle will take place on the morning of July 3.  A grand parade of costumed knights will open the event the evening of July 1.  During the festival, costumed reenactment groups will re-create scenes from everyday life in Viking, Saxon and Norman times,with theatrical performances, period music, folk dancing and games.

Starz, which has found success with its historical sword-and-sauciness series "Spartacus," updates the mix a millennium or so and raises the tone a bit with "The Pillars of the Earth," an eight-hour adaptation of Ken Follett's 1989 thousand-page novel of medieval England. Set mostly in and around the fictional town of Kingsbridge, which should not be confused with the actual British town of Kingsbridge, during a violent period of English history known as the Anarchy, which should not be confused with that song by the Sex Pistols, it is a tale of holy aspiration and earthly skullduggery, as various characters build monuments to God, fight for titles, feather their nests, fall in love, have sex in a cave, or invent the credit system and the flying buttress.

On the Nov. 15 article, "Eye to Eye in Search of Justice," about the careo [or face-off], I found the words "medieval" and "primitive" describing some of Mexico's legal proceedings. Surely Mexico can and must modernize, but what about the U.S.? Isn't the death penalty primitive and medieval? A little more self-criticism on the part of Americans and a bit less patronizing of the neighbor to the south would do this country lots of good too. Jose Nuno Los Angeles

I read and heard about the city of Carson's unfortunate plan to have bullfighting as the theme for their Tournament of Roses parade float. How distasteful! Isn't there enough cruelty and inhumanity and exploitation in this world already without encouraging the acceptance of an ancient medieval barbarism such as the impaling and slaughtering in public of a noble animal, the bull, rendered defenseless by ignoble, inhumane people? Are people in America to be subjected to the re-activation of those inhumane practices such as bullfighting, dog and cockfighting . . . ?

I found myself wasting time reading "Wasting Time on Arms Control." A poignant indication of the uselessness of this diatribe is Bethell's equating of arrows to nuclear missiles. This is just another example of the muddled, medieval arms control logic espoused by the Reagan Administration and its apologists. JAN S. ZAMOIJC Oceanside

Re "Advisors Put Under a Microscope," Dec. 23: It comes as no surprise that an administration pursuing medieval policies (subjugation of women, execution of nonviolent offenders) behaves as the medieval church did toward its scientists. But wait: Aren't these the same people who are so excited about developing robot drones and space lasers to fight their holy crusades? You can't have it both ways; scientific progress depends on the ability of scientists to work outside the bounds of political and religious dogma.

A rare astronomy tool that helped medieval scientists tell time will remain in Britain after the British Museum scrambled to come up with the money to buy it. The brass device, called an astrolabe quadrant, was sold at auction last year; the museum was outbid. But money from the National Heritage Memorial fund, the Art Fund and the British Museum Friends helped the museum purchase it recently for $700,000. "The quadrant will be a very important addition to our medieval collection as an object which can explain the sophistication of science in the Middle Ages and the transfer of knowledge between Muslim, Jewish and Christian communities," deputy director of the British Museum Andrew Burnett said Thursday.

In a nutshell, this San Marino house is cozy and English. Known as the Bodman House, the home was built in 1929 for Edward Bodman, a retired doctor from Illinois who moved to Southern California in the 1920s, and his wife, Julia. The Bodmans were Anglophiles who traveled extensively in England and were said to have asked the architect to design the home in the spirit of early English architecture. Architect John Atchison — best known for designing dozens of neoclassical public buildings in Winnipeg, Canada, in the first half of the 20th century — designed the house in the Tudor Revival style, an aesthetic modeled after the medieval cottage and characterized by thatched roofs, half-timbering and oriel (a type of bay)

Beyonders: A World Without Heroes A Novel Brandon Mull Aladdin / Simon & Schuster: 456 pp., $19.99, ages 9 and up For decades, kids have been inadvertently stumbling into alternate realities through children's literature. In "The Chronicles of Narnia," it was a wardrobe that served as the portal. With "Beyonders: A World Without Heroes," it's the yawning jaws of a hippo. This intriguing beginning leads to an even more imaginative quest in the kickoff to a new fantasy trilogy from Brandon Mull, bestselling author of the young-adult series "Fablehaven.

Behind Brian Jacques' hugely popular "Redwall" series of children's fantasy novels was milk, tea and a bit of serendipity. As a milk deliveryman in his 40s in Liverpool, England, he was invited in for tea at one of his stops, the Royal Wavertree School for the Blind, and soon volunteered to read stories to the children there. He found the plots "dreadful," preoccupied with the "here and now" of teen angst and divorce. "I thought, 'What's wrong with a little magic in their lives?

The concept of history in the Middle Ages was not what it is today, as visitors to the J. Paul Getty Museum's new exhibition of manuscripts will see. In an eye-popping image from "Romance of Alexander," a book made in the 1290s, an unknown artist illustrated a yarn about Alexander the Great making an underwater expedition. Enthroned in a glass diving bell, below a whale that gobbles up much of the pictorial space, the regal explorer calmly observes a colony of nude people, earthly beasts and fruit trees living at the bottom of the sea. "The artist really had fun with this," says Getty curator Elizabeth Morrison, who organized the exhibition with Anne D. Hedeman, an art history professor at the University of Illinois in Urbana- Champaign.

As a person who spends her time immersed in the Middle Ages, I would ordinarily be the first to point out how irrelevant this pastime is to modern society. There is very little reason to tweet or blog about people who have been dead for 600 years. However, the recent revelation that large numbers of President Hamid Karzai's relations have taken over positions of power in Afghanistan has encouraged me to believe that, for once, my preoccupation might be pertinent. For some time now, it has been obvious to me that the political model that best illustrates the philosophy and practice of the Afghan government is a medieval court.

E.F. Kitchen, a Venice-based fine arts photographer who works with platinum prints, spent years fascinated by the glint of light off of handmade armor. "It was a purely visual concept," says Kitchen, whose first name is Elizabeth and who loved "the materials, the craftsmanship, the creativity of the designs." But as she got to know one of her craftsmen better, she was exposed to a world of retro-medievalists who are a kind of West Coast equivalent of Civil War reenactors. "Oh, my God," she said to herself when she encountered the Society for Creative Anachronism, which stages historically informed mock battles involving thousands of troops.

Robber barons in medieval times extorted a fee from travelers crossing their domains. In the guise of building more roads to ease traffic, politicians are encouraging entrepreneurs to build toll roads. The argument that "it saves taxpayers money" doesn't hold up unless the roads revert free to the public when the debt is repaid. Once the entrepreneurs from all over the United States and Europe get their hands in the motorists' pockets, they'll never let go. MARVIN LANDFIELD Mission Viejo

Richard Ehrlich comes across as a young, emerging artist, in spite of his 70 years. He took up photography as a serious adjunct to his day job in urological surgery less than 10 years ago and has shot broadly and prolifically -- among other subjects, the landscapes of China and Vietnam; abstract crystal patterns; the skies, surfers and lifeguard stations of Malibu; the inner and outer workings of a FedEx hub in Tennessee; seascapes of Vancouver Island;...

Starz, which has found success with its historical sword-and-sauciness series "Spartacus," updates the mix a millennium or so and raises the tone a bit with "The Pillars of the Earth," an eight-hour adaptation of Ken Follett's 1989 thousand-page novel of medieval England. Set mostly in and around the fictional town of Kingsbridge, which should not be confused with the actual British town of Kingsbridge, during a violent period of English history known as the Anarchy, which should not be confused with that song by the Sex Pistols, it is a tale of holy aspiration and earthly skullduggery, as various characters build monuments to God, fight for titles, feather their nests, fall in love, have sex in a cave, or invent the credit system and the flying buttress.

When my niece, Sarah, was little, she returned from a long trip to Europe with her parents and announced she never wanted to set foot in another museum. Children who travel abroad are lucky, but on another level you have to pity the poor kids dragged through ancient ruins, art galleries, cathedrals and castles, until they're ready to drop, when all they really want is a Game Boy and a hot dog. But in the Burgundy region of France, there's a castle that fascinates children — and it isn't another Euro Disney.