Medieval Christmas Cookies Still In Fashion
So what does a Christmas cookie from centuries ago look like? This time of year, a bakery in Pennsylvania Dutch country is busy making cookies the same way they were made in medieval Germany, and their edible pieces of art history have attracted customers from all over the globe.
Merry Christmas from Medievalists.net
Merry Christmas!
Sacred, secular, or sacrilegious? prehistoric sites, pagans and the Sacred Sites project in Britain
This paper introduces our Sacred Sites, Contested Rites/Rights Project (www.sacredsites.or.uk), now in its fifth year, and explores issues and tensions developing within today’s Britain around prehistoric
‘sacred sites’ and ‘heritage’, and their appropriation by a wide range of interested or concerned
groups.
The Winter Solstice Season and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Does the season of the dark and the increasing day correspond to our own journeys into the dark and a celebration of light with new understanding and strengthened connectedness? Perhaps there is more than a bit of Pluto symbolism in our activities of the winter solstice.
A New Medieval view of Stonehenge
For centuries we have known only two medieval depictions of Stonehenge. Now a third has been found, taking its place with Adam and Eve and other Christian stories in a history of the world. Christian Heck describes his discovery.
Medieval Mummers are this year’s holiday hit – so says The Onion
The must-see hit of the holidays is a group of medieval mummers, who are going door-to-door singing old-fashioned ballads and acting out jovial plays in return for mugs of ale and gold pieces.
Trailer for The Hobbit released
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey follows title character Bilbo Baggins, who is swept into an epic quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor, which was long ago conquered by the dragon Smaug
Belgrade fortress under attack – from flowers
Serbian and French researchers have reported that the Belgrade Fortress, which was first built in the early Middle Ages is under threat – not only by the effects of coal burning, as was assumed until now, but also by flower beds!
Relations between the Late Roman World and Barbarian Europe in the Light of Coin Finds
And so, during a period of well developed exchange between the Roman Empire and the Barbaricum, coinciding with the Golden Age and the House of Antonine, Roman coins started to flow more intensively in the reign of the last two Antonine emperors.
Naught by Nature: Chaucer and the (Re)Invention of Female Goodness in Late Medieval Literature
The women in Chaucer’s stories are not content to live life in the margins, and these characters are neither as good as they should be according to medieval standards of proper female behavior, nor are they as bad as these same standards would have one believe
Wayward Women: Representations of Mobile Jewish Businesswomen in Medieval Northern Europe
This thesis focuses on representations of Jewish female economic travel, which were frequently depicted even though traditional Rabbinic Judaism dictated travel as a distinctly male activity.
Hanukkah in the Middle Ages
Hanukkah, also known as the Festival of Lights, is an eight-day Jewish holiday commemorating the rededication of the Temple of Jerusalem by Judah Maccabee and his followers after the Maccabean Revolt against Greek rule around 160 BC.
Book Review: Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination
Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination makes for a good compliment to those who have had the chance to view the exhibition, adding indepth details about this collection as well as dozens of wonderful images from the Middle Ages.
Skeletons point to Columbus voyage for syphilis origins
More evidence emerges to support that the progenitor of syphilis came from the New World.
Seeing and Not Seeing the Reliquary Bust of Saint Yrieix
The reliquary was experienced through an orchestrated system of punctuated non-sight, suggesting that experiencing was not about seeing, but believing.
If She Says Yes or Is Silent: A New Interpretation of Female Marital Consent in the Settlement Period in Iceland as Revealed Through the Family Sagas
Icelandic Sagas have captivated the minds of casual readers and historians alike due to their complex depiction of character and deeply resonant storylines. All of the characters are highly nuanced and developed, but many times it is the female characters that catch a reader’s attention because of their exceptional level of activity and variety.
Was St Edmund killed by the Vikings in Essex?
If confirmed, the new proposal would change our understanding of the early history of Suffolk and especially of the town and abbey of Bury St Edmunds.
Village community and peasant society in medieval England
The structure of peasant society in medieval England has long been a subject of interest for scholars from many disciplines within the social sciences including history, sociology, economics and archaeology.
Rape in Medieval England: A Legal History, 1272-1307
Many historians have therefore concluded that although Westminster II’s rape laws were intended to halt the growing incidence of rape and facilitate prosecutions, they were evidently inadequate.
Enduring Borderlands: the Marches of Ireland and Wales in the Early Modern Period
Despite the successes of the ‘New British History’ in encouraging a less Anglocentric view of the early modern period, there have been few direct comparisons between Wales and Ireland.
Symbol and Meaning in Northern European Art of the Late Middle Ages and the Early Renaissance
We all know that twentieth-century scholars have recovered forgotten elements of meaning from selected works of fifteenth-century northern art.
Beowulf, Orality and the Anglo-Saxon Conversion
There is no source quite like the Beowulf manuscript, as it is the longest poem and the only epic composed in Old English which has survived to the modern era, and thus is central to any understanding of Anglo-Saxon literature.
Producing the Middle English Corpus: Confession and Medieval Bodies
In Producing the Middle English Corpus: Confession and Medieval Bodies, I argue that confessional discourse played an important role in the creation of the Middle English canon.
English Longbow Testing against various armor circa 1400
The purpose of this research is to determine the effect various medieval arrows have on various medieval armour types. The time period that I tested is around 1400, the time of the English longbow.
Sales, swindles and sanctions: Bishop Salla of Urgell and the counts of Catalonia
Salla moved in a world in which churchmen and lay magnates could be hard to distinguish. They did not just share families, and sometimes offices, but outlooks…