Some Notes on Gothic Building Processes: the Expertises of Segovia Cathedral
More concrete information can be found in expertises. During the construction of a cathedral, sometimes, the Chapter considered it necessary to call in a foreign expert to assess the state of the work or to discuss erection problems. This was the case in Segovia Cathedral, where several expertises from the beginning of the sixteenth century have been preserved.
The Coleridge Hundred and its Medieval Court
Where possible, I have given examples of the earliest type of court documented, with examples of the type of case heard, and by whom they were heard, concentrating on the Manorial and Mayor’s Courts, which are the best documented, and whose Rolls nave been translated by the authors of my chief sources of reference.
Cultural Interactions in Cyprus 1191-1571: Byzantine and Italian Art
Cyprus was one of the most important ports of the Byzantine Empire, and became even more significant for the control of the Eastern Mediterranean after the conquest of Asia Minor by the Seljuk Turks following the fall of Manzikert in 1071.
Modelling Population and Resource Scarcity in Fourteenth-century England
Hallam argues that the steady population rise of the 12th and 13th centuries may not have been the main cause of the crisis of the 14th century. First, unprecedented harvest failures and animal diseases between 1315 and 1322 had significant adverse effects on peasant welfare.
Madness in Medieval Arthurian Literature
Whereas in the examples we have seen insanity is an obstacle to be overcome on the journey through life, for Daguenet le Fol and Merlin madness becomes the vehicle which carries them, and is constantly adapted according to need.
Daily Life in the Spanish Reconquest: Scenes from Tenth-Century León
Built by the Romans to garrison to Seventh Legion, León may also have been the base of the legion’s military commander, who was sometimes fully empowered by the emperor to govern Asturias and Galicia.
“La Belle Dame Sans Merci?”: Gawain’s Knightly Identity and the Role of Women in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
It is easy to read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as a romantic celebration of chivalry, but this romance contains a more wide-ranging, more serious criticism of chivalry than has heretofore been noticed.
For reasons of state: political executions, republicanism, and the Medici in Florence, 1480-1560
This article explores how the changing nature of punishment for political crimes in Renaissance Florence from the fifteenth to the sixteenth centuries can be read as a barometer of political change in the city.
The Finest Castle in the World
Robert I. Burns, S.J., and Paul E. Chevedden describe how a much-besieged citadel became the focus for Christian-Muslim co-existence in medieval Spain.
The Perception of Croatian medieval history by Vladimir Nazor in ‘Hrvatski kraljevi’ (The Kings of the Croats)
Hrvatski kraljevi had a long and complex evolution, and Nazor worked on them for more than thirty years. Originally, this collection of poems was completed in 1903 and published in 1904, under the title Knjiga o kraljevima hrvatskijem (The Book about Croat Kings) by Hrvatska knjižarnica in Zadar.
The Preaching of the First Crusade and the Persecutions of the Jews
In the spring and summer of 1096, bands of crusaders, at times with the help of the local population, destroyed Jewish life and property before leaving for the East.
Thirteenth-century knight was a murder victim, researchers believe
The remains of a thirteenth-century skeleton discovered buried at Norton Priory in western England were likely of a knight who was murdered by a sword cut to his upper back.
Queen Ermengarde and the Abbey of St Edward, Balmerino
This article is an examination of the role played by Alexander’s mother, Queen Ermengarde, in the founding of Balmerino.
Bishopstone, Sussex – A Quiet, Rural Anglo-Saxon Village? What the Human Remains Tell Us
The primary aim of this text is the analysis and report of the skeletal human remains from the excavation of the late Anglo-Saxon settlement and cemetery at Bishopstone, East Sussex. The analysis of the skeletal remains covered the basic data: sex, age, stature, palaeopathology and dental pathology.
The Proportions of the denominations in English mint outputs, 1351-1485
This article will combine the evidence of mint indentures, pyx trials, numbers of dies and hoards in an investigation of the problem of the proportions from 1351 to the end of the reign of Richard III in 1485.
Kassia: A female hymnographer of the 9th century
It’s obvious that the Byzantine female hymnography was not flourished especially in Byzantium.
The Empress in Late Antiquity and the Roman Origins of the Imperial Feminine
This thesis seeks to explore the construction and conceptualization of the Byzantine imperial feminine, up until the sixth century AD.
The medical practitioner in Anglo-Saxon England
The Anglo-Saxon physician was known to his contemporaries as a leech or in Old English, ‘laece’ and was not at all concerned with the treatment of specific disease but was expected to deal with all kinds of illness and injury
Religion, Warfare and Business in Fifteenth Century Rhodes
How did a military-monastic order manage the resources of an island commercially asimportant as that of Rhodes while overcoming the limitations due to its patrimonial struc-tureto cover their defensive needs? In this essay weattempt to answer this question interms of practice and in the light of relationsthatthe Knights maintained with two distinctgroups of merchants: the Catalan-Aragonese and the Florentines.
Iconography of the Unicorn from India to the Italian Middle Ages
The earliest unicorn figure discovered in Iran dates to the proto-Iranian cultureof Amlash (9th-8th century B.C.). This consists of a small bronze statue representinga goat with a frontal horn. The unicorn measures four centimeters in height and sixand a half centimeters in length and was part of some grave goods
Author looking to crowdfund novel set in the aftermath of the Norman invasion of 1066
A British author is using the innovative crowdfunding publisher Unbound to raise fund to create a new novel set in eleventh-century England.
Archaeological research reveals new insights about the Vikings in Wales
Recent excavations by archaeologists from the National Museum Wales at the Viking age settlement of Llanbedrgoch on the east side of Anglesey have shed important new light on the impact of Anglo-Saxon and Viking-age worlds operating around the Irish Sea.
Cathedral Schools: The Institutional Development of Twelfth-Century Education
A student of the generation around 1100, who sought learning beyond the ordinary and was desirous of hearing the best masters, would have to travel from school to school.
Holy Body, Wholly Other: Sanctity and Society in the Lives of Irish Saints
The core of hagiography, whatever else may accrete around it, is therefore the depiction of what defines a saint as a saint in the eyes of the hagiographer and his intended audience. Ireland’s hagiography must then encompass the Irish author’s understanding of an Irish saint.
Expecting Cowardice: Medieval Battle Tactics Reconsidered
We may start with a basic claim about the psychology of combat: for mostsoldiers and warriors, the experience of combat is permeated by the fear of death.