Technology and Military Policy in Medieval England, c.1250-1350
During this period of intense conflict and growth, virtually every type of armament from the simple arrowhead to large and complex siege engines underwent rapid development.
Castle for Sale: Ballymaquiff Castle, Ireland
This historic Irish Castle was probably built by the De Burgo family in the late 14th/ early 15th century. This fortified tower house comes with four acres of land, is situated next to the old Sligo/ Limerick railway line.
First week of Richard III dig has “uncovered tantalising clues”
The archaeologists searching for the remains of Richard III have finished their first week of digging with some positive results.
Clerical “Concubines” in Northern Italy During the Fourteenth Century
So-called clerical ‘concubines’ were well-known in their communities, but their lived experience has been largely ignored by modern historians.
Ken Follett’s World Without End comes to TV screens
The latest medieval drama is set to air this fall on television screens: World Without End, an adaptation of Ken Follett’s international best-selling novel set amidst natural disaster, plague, and war in 14th century England.
The Chaste Erotics of Marie d’Oignies and Jacques de Vitry
In this article I would like to look at Marie’s ascetic and devotional practices and how Jacques, as both confessor and hagiographer, implicates himself into these practices.
The Date of Laonikos Chalkokondyles’ Histories
No event known to Laonikos need be dated later than ca. 1464, and the terminus ante quem is 1468: writing some 25 years earlier than has been thought
The Queen’s Blood: A Study of Family Ties during the Wars of the Roses
Although Elizabeth of York was much less politically active than her mother, she was always a theoretically more politically powerful woman. While Elizabeth Woodville came from the lowest ranks of the English nobility, Elizabeth of York was the daughter of Edward IV and a princess in her own right.
Re-forging the smith: an interdisciplinary study of smithing motifs in Völuspá and Völundarkviða
In this dissertation I examine key smithing motifs in the eddic poems Võluspá and Võlundarkviña in relation to the socio-cultural role of smithing techniques and sites in early medieval Scandinavia.
The Women of the Wars of Independence in Literature and History
My paper will have two main goals. The first goal is to survey the historical evidence available for the study of real women who were affected by the war…The second goal will be to consider the theoretical implications of the representation of women in a discourse produced entirely by men.
Sir Walter Scott and Eyrbyggja Saga
The influence of this interest in ancient Scandinavia on Scott’s own work has also been traced and examined in great detail…
“Doulce chose est que mariage”: Exemplarity and Advice in the Works of Christine de Pizan
I first examine the autobiographical elements of Christine’s works that highlight her personal marital experience. Christine draws authority from her first-hand knowledge of marriage, which supersedes the flawed assumptions of scholars lacking this life experience.
The Lived Experience of the Black Death
To appreciate the importance of the biological effects of disease on a society’s lived experience, it can be useful to look at modern examples. Polio provides an excellent example. Children who survive an infection of polio – and escape the neurological incapacitation that can result in disability up to paraplegia – have a fifty percent chance of suffering the similar effects of post-polio syndrome later in life.
The Great Men of Christendom: The Failure of the Third Crusade
It is my intention to show that the participation of monarchs in the Third Crusade had an adverse effect on the outcome of the Crusade. Whatever positive aspects of monarchical involvement in the Third Crusade were to be had can be seen at the beginning of the venture, when the Church needed financial and material support, as well as the prestige that royal participation could offer.
A Spectacle of Great Beauty: The Changing Faces of Hagia Sophia
For Constantine, Justinian, Sultan Mehmed II, and Atatürk, Hagia Sophia served as a model for the changing political and religious ideals of a nation. To use the useful phrase coined by Linda Young, Hagia Sophia is a building that is “in between heritage.”
The Origins of the Tale of the Blood-drinking Hungarians
The Hungarian tribes, arriving in the territory of present-day Hungary in 895 A.D., were received with a fair amount of antipathy by European public opinion.
Alfred of Wessex: a study in accidental greatness
‘Alfred found learning dead, and he restored it. Education neglected, and he revived it. The laws powerless, and he gave them force. The Church debased, and he raised it. The land ravaged by a fearful enemy, from which he delivered it. Alfred’s name shall live as long as mankind respects the past.’
Feminine Images of Jesus: Later Medieval Christology and the Devaluation of the Feminine
Medieval Christians had begun to emphasize the humanity of Jesus in reaction to the religious foci of the era before their own (early medieval focus on the spirit and Jesus’ resurrection), and seemed to find that ‘feminine’ characteristics were most expressive of the human nature of Jesus.
Medieval and Renaissance Book Production
We are accustomed to think of the periods of manuscripts and printed books as distinct. Traditionally a scholar working in one of these fields has known little of the other field.
Does Michelangelo’s poetic veil shroud a secret Luther?
The thesis poses a question derived from an unlikely nexus of two prominent figures of the Renaissance and the Reformation: the artist whose creative abilities ostensibly dominate the Vatican and religious art, juxtaposed with the rebel who splintered the dominance of Roman Catholicism.
When were the Middle Ages?
Medieval historians have been debating for many years on when were the Middle Ages – was there a year that medieval period began, and was there a year that it ended?
Dialogues between religions in Andalusia
The distinctive way of life that developed in the Umayyad and Abbasid periods lasted for eight centuries in the Muslim West, in the fertile lands of North Africa and Andalusia, until 1492.