The Medieval Horse Harness: Revolution or Evolution? A Case Study in Technological Change
Medieval historians have considered the role of technology for some time; it is perhaps now appropriate to reexamine conclusions reached by early historians of technology.
Arthurian Material in a Late-Medieval French Miscellany: Poitiers, Bibliothèque Municipale, ms. 215
The evidence concerning the ownership of this manuscript is tantalizingly fragmentary. Its beautifully decorated borders contain the initials AM in monogram and the Old French devise “Ie n’en voy nul jusques au trespas” in banderoles.
Purim, Liminality, and Communitas
Elaborate pageants, grotesque masks, drunken revelry, noisemaking, buffoonery, burning of effigies, costume parades, feasts with special delicacies, and every manner of carousing and merrymaking have characterized Purim since rabbinic times
Medieval Saint’s relic stolen from Dublin church
The preserved heart of St Laurence O’Toole, Dublin’s patron saint has been stolen from the city’s Christ Church Cathedral. The theft occurred sometime between Friday night and noon on Saturday.
The Failure of Ockham’s Nominalism
In this paper I want to explore the reasons for Ockham’s surprising vacillation—not as an historical or biographical exercise, but to uncover the insights which nourished his positive views about nominalism and which also cast him into such uncertainty.
What We Know About The Voynich Manuscript
There are several reasons why the study of the manuscript is of interest to the natural language processing community, besides its appeal as a long enduring unsolved mystery.
The German and Non-German in Yiddish
Today, scholars of various backgrounds dispute the amount of influence German has had on the development of the Yiddish language. While some scholars claim that German has had minimal influence on Yiddish, others say it is the core resource of the language.
‘Battle Castle’ lays siege on-air and online
The show is an interactive, trans-medieval journey into castle engineering, bloody siegecraft, and epic clashes that transform mortals into legends. Hosted by UK celebrity Dan Snow, the show takes its viewers over six one-hour timeslots to Syria, France, Spain, Wales, Poland and England delving into the stories of six fascinating castles.
The Fact and Fiction of Vikings in America
Adventure stories abound about the marauders of the north seas, the Vikings. Visions of sword-wielding giants of men and great swooping ships come easily to mind, but this is not the whole picture.
The Temporal Dynamics of the Fourteenth-Century Black Death: New Evidence from English Ecclesiastical Records
A sample of 235 deaths from the bishop’s register of Coventry and Lichfield, the only English register to list both date of death and date of institution, shows that the Black Death swept through local areas much more rapidly than has previously been thought.
The Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa: The Culture and Practice of Crusading in Medieval Iberia
This battle was both a major Christian victory over the Almohad Empire of Morocco and its Andalusian allies, and the most successful crusade of the papacy of Innocent III. As such, it serves as an ideal case study for the practice and culture of crusading in the early thirteenth century.
‘…Men famous in combat and battle…’: Common soldiers and the siege of Bruges, 1127
The conflict at Bruges illustrates the role of common soldiers and non-combatants in warfare – that they participated in large numbers, and were essential to the conduct of siege operations.