New in Medieval Books this week!
Hey Medievalverse! Ring in 2012 with these fab, hot off the press releases!
Popes, Bishops, Deacons, and Priests: Church Leadership in the Middle Ages
The purpose of this paper is to survey the growth of the church offices, in particular the papacy, from their biblical foundations, through to the end of the Middle Ages.
Ingeld and Christ: A Medieval Problem
Students of Beowulf are familiar with the notion that the poem can be read as an attempt to answer Alcuin’s question, ‘Quid enim Hinieldus cum Christo?’ (What has Ingeld to do with Christ?).
People with leprosy (Hansen’s disease) during the Middle Ages
Leprosy or Hansen’s Disease represented a major social, moral, and health concern during the Middle Ages. Few diseases have evoked the social responses that leprosy did during the Middle Ages
Biological Exchange and Biological Invasion in World History
For millions of years, most species stayed home. Geographic barriers, such as oceans and mountain chains, inhibited migrations and divided the earth into distinct biogeographical provinces. Only birds, bats, and flying insects bucked the trend consistently.
Historical Consciousness and Institutional Concern in European Medieval Historiography (11th and 12th centuries)
In this short, essayistic survey, I wish first to outline characteristic features of the ‘typical’ historical consciousness in occidental historiography of the eleventh and twelfth centuries and afterwards
From Hell to the Road to Heaven: Effects of the invention of Purgatory to the Mentalities of Middle Ages
The doctrine of the Church was clear. Those who lived their life according to the rules made by God and the Church ended up to the Heaven for the eternity and those who sinned were put to the Hell for eternity.
Book Review: Pope Joan, by Lawrence Durrell
Once I got past all the unnecessary narrative, this book read like a script from a ‘Carry On’ movie: a titillating tale of lusty desires and ambition set against a religious backdrop, and heavily cloaked in the guarded innuendo of the time.
Njáls saga as a novel: four aspects of rewriting
Inspired by Njáls saga and Laxdæla saga, the novel Fire in the Ice by American novelist Dorothy James Roberts is one of numerous modern rewritings of classical and medieval literature.
Remembering the First Crusade: Latin Narrative Histories 1099-c.1300
The success of the First Crusade by the Christian armies caught the interest and arrested the imagination of contemporaries, stimulating the production of a large number of historical narratives. Four eyewitness accounts, as well as letters written by the crusaders to the West, were taken up by later authors, re-worked and re-fashioned into new narratives; a process which continued throughout the twelfth century and beyond.
Waiting For Prester John: the legend, the Fifth Crusade, and medieval Christian holy war
The legend of Prester John and his magnificent kingdom has captivated scholarly and lay audiences from the twelfth-century through the twenty-first.
The foundational rape tale in Medieval Iberia
When one reads Medieval historiographic texts—whether written in Latin, Arabic or Romance—it appears that both the Moorish invasion and the Christian Reconquest of Spain are linked to a rape episode.
That country beyond the Humber”: the English North, regionalism, and the negotiation of nation in medieval English literature
The English North is “Not London” but is “before Scotland,” a strangely liminal space between the familiar
South and those undesirables north of the River Tweed.
Top 10 Medieval Articles of 2011
In the last twelve months we have posted hundeds of articles and theses on many different topics about the Middle Ages. Here is the list of ten most popular articles we posted since January 1, 2011: they include ones that deal with medieval sexuality, daily life and movies about the medieval period.
Healing Leaves
Medieval French literature provides the modern researcher with references to the healing arts in many passages that are incorporated into prose or poetic works.
The Fate of the Warrior’s Soul: Crusading, Chivalry, and the Formation of English Knighthood
When and how did knights stop thinking they were going to hell?
History or fiction? Truth-claims and defensive narrators in Icelandic romance-sagas
Straining the bounds of credibility was an activity in which many mediaeval Icelandic saga-authors indulged.
Living history: learning through re-enactment
We are interested in the ways in which adult learn through engaging in leisure pursuits that have educational outcomes. Specifically in this paper we are interested in learning history; and second, we are interested in learning about history through doing.
How a Medieval Troubadour Became a Mathematical Figure
Lyric poetry of the Middle Ages may seem far removed from subgroups of the symmetric group or primitive roots of finite fields. However, one piece of medieval poetry has led to work in these mathematical disciplines, namely a sestina written in the Romance language of Old Occitan by a troubadour named Arnaut Daniel
Top 10 Medieval News Stories of 2011
The year 2011 will be remembered by Medievalists as the year we literally saw the face of the Middle Ages.
Embodied Voices: Women’s Food Asceticism and the Negotiation of Identity
In the cloistered halls of medieval nunneries, something strange was happening to women’s bodies. In late 14th-century Europe, reports abounded of religious women who could sustain themselves for years on nothing but the Eucharist – no other food passed their lips.
Murder and Sudden Death in Medieval Wigston
Of most of these crimes we know nothing beyond a few bare facts, but of the last in our list, a murder committed on a dark November night in the year 1390, we learn the motive and other details from a chance record among the Hastings manuscripts, and of this we shall speak in due course.
Středověký klášter (Medieval Monastery)
A Czech video about medieval monasteries
Foolish Medicine: Reflections on the practices of modern clown-doctors and medieval fools
Fools have been found in almost every human society and have been known by many names including parasite, clod, sot, buffoon, stultor, jester and today simply as clown.
The role of the feline in the medieval society of the North Atlantic region
Were the cats utilised specifically for pest control or is there conclusive proof of a creature having been wholly cared for?