Singing Slave Girls (qiyan) of the Abbasid Court in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries
The category of slave in the Middle East encompassed a number of different duties and positions: eunuch, chattel, domestic servant, sexual subject, infantryman, concubine, entertainer, laborer, and sometimes a trusted and valued member of the household.
The myth of Jewish male menses
Several scholars have asserted that medieval Christians believed that Jewish men menstruated. Their arguments, made in support of a grander claim that Jews as a collectivity were gendered feminine in Christian thought, rest on numerous misreadings.
European Written Sources on the Counterfeiting of Coins in the Middle Ages
Counterfeiting of coins is mentioned in a multitude of medieval written sources, manuscripts and books, starting with the Laws of the Visigoths in the mid 7th century, through the Visitation of the Chapter of Esztergom in 1397, to the Inferno, first part of Dante Alighieri’s most important work, the Divina Comedia.
Conquest or Colonisation: The Scandinavians in Ryedale from the Ninth to Eleventh Centuries
The study of settlement history has developed within the fields of history, archaeology and geography. As a result much of the work carried out in settlement studies has borrowed the research and conclusions of scholars from other disciplines.
The Effects of the Mongol Empire on Russia
This paper looks at the Mongol Empire’s impacts on Russia in terms of religion, art, language, government, and the ultimate rise of Moscow.
Transylvanian Identities in the Middle Ages
Identity has become a subject of historical exploration as it is also one of the themes examined from the perspectives of various disciplines belonging to the social sciences such as sociology, psychology or anthropology.
Publishing your Research in Archaeology Journals
Part 1: How NOT to get Published in Archaeology, by Robin Skeates; Part 2: How to write a book review, by Estella Weiss‐Krejci
Murder and Execution within the Political Sphere in Fifteenth Century Scandinavia
A quick glance at the regnal list of fifteenth-century Sweden shows that members of the nobility were at each others’ throats more or less all the time, especially from the 1430s and onwards.
Non similitudinem monachi, sed monachum ipsum! An Investigation into the Monastic Category of the Person – the Case of St Gall
One day, most likely in the early 880s, the noblest monks of the St Gall monastery assembled to deliberate over an outrageous incident that had occurred the previous night
Hot Holiday Reads!
Put down those turkey left-overs and check out some of these hot holiday reads!
The Schism that never was: Old Norse views on Byzantium and Russia
It is my contention that, in the general view of Icelanders, the Christian world was united, ’catholic’ in the original meaning of the word. Christianity in the East was thought to have similar roots to Christianity in Iceland and differences between the religions of Nordic and Eastern people were considered insignificant.
The Hospitallers in the Medieval Kingdom of Hungary, c. 1150–1387
The origins of a military-religious Order under the spiritual patronage of St. John can be sought in a pilgrim-hospital which was founded in Jerusalem by the 1080s.
Exploring the Connections between Metaphysics and Political Thought in the Age of Wyclif and Gerson
Russell focuses on how important late medieval thinkers such as John Wyclif (c. 1320 – 1384) and Jean Gerson (1363–1429) understood metaphysics and how this had an instrumental effect on their political thought.
The Passion of Peter Abelard
In the philosophical part of the project we chose not to use Abelardís work Dialogue of the Philosopher with a Jew and a Christian, which explains his views on different religions. Since we decided to use the Letters of Direction in order to get an overview about Abelardís view on Christianity, there appeared to be little need for the aforementioned book.
Medieval Feminine Humanism and Geoffrey Chaucer’s Presentation of the Anti-Cecilia
Perhaps the tale has been dismissed because, compared to the other tales, it appears to be simple and straightforward. Lynn Staley Johnson points out that “most Chaucerians hold that this legend could not have been written before about 1373” and further that “it is generally accepted that Chaucer decided to include the legend in the Canterbury book relatively late in the Canterbury period” .
The Strange Death of Richard the Lionhearted
Why did Richard I, a seasoned and expert warrior, expose himself to a bowman’s shot?
The Wife of Bath: a Tragic Caricature of Women
The Wife is characterized by a preoccupation with sex, which she uses to manipulate her husbands, of which she has had five, into acquiescing their land and money to her control.
“At the Tip of a Sword”: A Study of the Introduction of the Knight into Anglo-Saxon England
Nevertheless the introduction of the knight into England still remains a controversial topic of discussion among military historians, since the people who inhabited England prior to 1066 were part of warrior culture as well: the Anglo-Saxons.
New Book on ‘The Book of Kells’ launched
This new publication, presented in a cloth-bound slipcase, features 84 full-size reproductions of complete pages of the manuscript, while enlarged details allow one to relish the intricacy of elements barely visible to the naked eye.
Tracing the Tradition of Medieval Parochial Peace-Making
‘If therefore thou offer thy gift at the altar, and there thou remember that thy brother hath anything against thee; Leave there thy offering before the altar, and go first to be reconciled to thy brother, and then coming thou shalt offer thy gift.’
A Private Chapel as Burial Space : Filippo Strozzi with Filippino Lippi and Benedetto da Maiano in Santa Maria Novella, Florence
Chapel decoration as burial space in Renaissance Florence had two distinct tendencies, apparently opposing but not necessarily mutually exclusive.
Threads of resistance to the post-conquest Kings of Norman Descent
Produced almost 250 years after first contact with the Norman colonizer, the exclusive use of Middle English was a subversive choice that challenged the Norman claim to power and criticized the post-Conquest kings of Norman descent while working to re-make and re-claim an ‘English’ identity.
Henry VII and Rebellion in North-Eastern England, 1485–1492: Bonds of Allegiance and the Establishment of Tudor Authority
Henry VII’s most pressing problems in the seven years following his victory at Bosworth on 22 August 1485 originated, arguably, amongst those former servants of Richard III who actively sought the return of a Yorkist monarchy.