The human presence in Robert Henryson’s Fables and William Caxton’s The History of Reynard the Fox
The principal method used is the gathering of specific instances of human presence in the two texts, and the categorising or coding of such instances, with the aid of the qualitative-data computer program QSR N6.
Llywelyn ab Iorwerth : the making of a Welsh prince
Finally, this thesis seeks to address the limitations on Llywelyn’s successes, in light of succeeding events and concludes with a discussion of Llywelyn’s legendary status in the modern world.
The Methods of Medieval Translators: A Comparison of the Latin Text of Virgil’s Aeneid with its Old French Adaptations
This monograph examines the medieval French translation/adaptation of Virgil’s Aeneid. The work employs Relevance Theory, second language pedagogy and hermeneutics in its analysis.
The Authoritative Text: Raymond of Penyafort’s Editing of the ‘Decretals of Gregory IX’ (1234)
The Decretals of Gregory IX, promulgated in 1234, was the first collection of canon law for the Catholic Church invested with universal and exclusive authority, and was the culmination of a century and a half process by which the a now papal-led Church came to be the leading institution within medieval European society.
The Massacre at Acre–Mark of a Blood-thirsty King?
The Christian forces in the Holy Land during the mid-to-late-1100s had, for many years, requested assistance to maintain their dwindling and increasingly challenged control in the Holy Land, but no help came. The tenuous rule of Guy of Lusignan, King of Jerusalem, in the mid-1180s, led to further internal conflict.
“Hic Facet Arthurus, Rex Quondam, Rexque Futurus:” The Analysis of Original Medieval Sources in the Search for the Historica King Arthur
The heroic tales of the legendary King Arthur have survived throughout many centuries. Modern society has learned of this celebrated figure through oral and literary tradition, such as the works of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s pseudo-history Historia Regum Britanniae, Sir Thomas Malory’s romantic epic Le Morte d’Arthur and medieval Arthurian poetry.
Clerical Conceptions of Magic and the Stereotype of the Female Witch
One of the specific aspects of witchcraft that has seen considerable attention in recent years is its relationship to gender. Both Bailey and Broedel have made admirable contributions to uncovering the historical development of a feminine witch concept.
Preservation and Immortatlity: The Transition From Oral to Written Culture in Iceland
The Scandinavian peoples had survived for hundreds of years without the advent of the written word, so what made them change? In a word, Christianity.
The Borgias – Review of SE02 EP03: The Beautiful Deception
This week, on The Borgias, Lucrezia grows up and takes vengeance on Juan for his involvement in Paolo’s murder.
Medieval Community: Lessons from the Film Black Knight
In the film Black Knight, a star vehicle for comedian Martin Lawrence, the filmmakers present an up-to-the-moment hipster from Compton who learns a valuable lesson in the context of medieval moral clarity
Redefining Merit: An Examination of Medieval Presuppositions in Covenant Theology
A few medieval theologians rejected altogether the possibility of human merit, arguing that such a notion was inherently inconsistent with the principle that God is debtor to no one.
Personal Piety or Priestly Persuasion: Evidence of Pilgrimage Bequests in the Wills of the Archdeaconry of Sudbury, 1439-1474
However, when we consider the number of individuals, particularly from the lower orders, who actually undertook a pilgrimage at some point in their lives, we find that we actually know remarkably little about them.
Faith and reason: charting the medieval concept of the infinite
I would like to start with some assumptions. First, I take it for granted that the apposition of negative terms to the Almighty God became quite early an accepted practice in Christianity, which caused in turn that the infinite, as an opposite term to something easily convenient to positive delineation, was admitted in the repertoire of God’s adverbial description.
Byzantium Revisited: The Mosaics of Hagia Sophia in the Twentieth Century
Located at the heart of Constantinople by the Senate and the Imperial Palace, Hagia Sophia was one of the great monuments of Christianity for more than nine hundred years.
From the Brink of the Apocalypse: Confronting Famine, War, Plague, and Death in the Later Middle Ages
Aberth writes in the tradition of Barbara Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror, both in his lively, readable style aimed at the nonspecialist and in his antiheroic, almost romantic portrayal of late medieval miseries.
Game of Thrones Review: SE02 EP04: Garden of Bones
On this week’s episode of a Game of Thrones, it’s all about intrigue and plot building. While there wasn’t much in the way of warfare, there were plenty of revealing scenes to keep viewers glued to their screens.
Medieval Sicilian lyric poetry : poets at the courts of Roger II and Frederick II
During the twelfth century, a group of poets at the Norman court in Sicily composed traditional Arabic panegyrics in praise of the kingdoms Christian monarchs. Less than a century later, at the court of Frederick II, Sicilian poets wrote the first lyric love poetry in an Italian vernacular.
What can dirt on pages tell us about medieval manuscripts and their readers?
For the first time a new scientific technique has allowed us into the minds and motivations of medieval people – through their dirty books.
Dirty Books: Quantifying Patterns of Use in Medieval Manuscripts Using a Densitometer
Although it is often difficult to study the habits, private rituals, and emotional states of people who lived in the medieval past, medieval manuscripts carry signs of use and wear on their very surfaces that provide records of some of these elusive phenomena.
Sin, Penance and Purgatory in the Anglo‐Norman Realm: The Evidence of Visions and Ghost Stories
Historians have tended to explore these two changes of the ‘long twelfth century’ — the reinvention of penance and the rise of purgatory — in isolation from each other. Here I intend to focus on the relationship between the two, and to look in particular at one aspect of it: the implications of theological change for perceptions of the fate of the dead.
St George of England: a study of sainthood and legend
In 1222, 23 years after the death of Lionheart in the reign of young Henry III, the council of Oxford meeting in Osney Abbey fixed St.George’s Day 23 April as a national festival. It is said that Edward III made St. George the patron saint.
of England in 1344 (or 48) and in Windsor he enlarged the chapel of St. Edward to become the chapel of St. George.
The origin of chantries
Throughout Western Europe, the chantry and the chantry chapel represented a characteristic form of late medieval piety, to which large resources were committed, both spiritual and temporal.
The Libro de la Regla Vieja of the Cathedral of Seville as a Musicological Source
The significance of this regla de coro to Seville’s pre-Tridentine use prompted me to seek here a deeper understanding of the book, and especially the textual transmission of its contents, confusion over which has led, hitherto, to most of the difficulties and errors concerning its dating.
Bluffs, Bays and Pools in the medieval Liffey at Dublin
This paper examines these deviations and seeks their origin in the bluffs, bays and pools of the river in medieval times.
The Runic System as a Reinterpretation of Classical Influences and as an Expression of Scandinavian Cultural Affiliation
Accompanying discussions of the runic system’s graphical origins are arguments concerning its geographical origins. Von Friesen’s theory that runes derived from Greek characters looked east to the Gothic territories, while scholars arguing for North Italic origins have pointed towards the Alps. Moltke, who looked to a largely Latin source for the runic characters, suggested a runic origin in Denmark.