Under the Greenwood Tree: Outlaws in Medieval England and modern medievalist crime novels
A recurring theme in several medievalist crime novels is the subject of outlaws. They are used to create ambience, they can be the adversary and main threat to the protagonists, they can be cast in somewhat more heroic roles, and they are sometimes essential to the plot.
The Making of Men, not Masters: Right Order and Lay Masculinity According to Dhuoda and Nithard
Setting Nithard’s and Dhuoda’s works in dialogue with one another, this study seeks to explore how the conflicts of the early 840s may have triggered reevaluations of contemporary ideals regarding lay masculinty. At the core of both authors’ works is the understanding that the problems the realm was facing at that time were primarily due to no- blemen’s expression of unmanly modes of conduct.
An Archaeological Overview of Weoley Castle, Birmingham
Weoley Castle is a fortified, medieval manor-house situated four miles to the southwest of Birmingham city centre in the parish of Northfield within the historic county of Worcestershire.
How useful is Blind Hary’s ‘The Wallace’ as a source for the study of chivalry in late medieval Scotland?
What scholars consider to have constituted a chivalric attitude needs to be considered at this point. To live the chivalrous life was to seek to imitate the great deeds of others, which could be learned from the extensive literature that dealt with the idea of knighthood. In chivalric literature, the knight was expected to have a strong sense of personal honour and had to be willing to defend it against affronts
Islamic Pharmacology and Pharmacy in the Latin West: An Approach to Early Pharmacopoeias
I will mainly deal with three early examples: the Nuovo Receptario from Florence (1499), the Dispensatorium of Nuremberg (1546) and the first Pharmacopoeia Londinensis (1618).
Awkward Adolescents: Male Maturation in Norse Literature
Although medieval masculinities have become a subject of scholarly interest, there has been relatively little discussion of the transition in Old Norse until very recently.
Oxford Tolkien Spring School launched
Organised by Oxford University’s Faculty of English Language and Literature where Tolkien taught for most of his career, the spring school is aimed at those who have read some of Tolkien’s fiction and wish to learn more.
Interview with Andrea Cefalo, author of The Fairytale Keeper
The Fairytale Keeper series answer the question: what if all Grimm’s fairy tales originated with one person?
How to have a Renaissance Hairstyle
A video showing how to recreate a Renaissance hairstyle from early sixteenth-century Flanders.
Ten papers to look forward to at the International Medieval Congress 2013
Pleasure will be theme at this year’s International Medieval Congress, which will be held at the University of Leeds from July 1-4
The Heavy Plough and the European Agricultural Revolution of the Middle Ages.
In the period from the 9th century to the end of the 13th century, the medieval European economy underwent unprecedented productivity growth
Ransoming prisoners of war became widespread in the Hundred Years War, new book finds
‘There is widespread evidence to suggest that during the 15th century the practice of ransom is increasingly extended to commoners, not just kings or chivalrous knights.’
Women, children and the profits of war
Throughout the middle ages when men went to war, they expected to make a profit, to take plunder and capture prisoners.
The Place of Greenland In Medieval Icelandic Saga Narrative
This paper explores the accounts of Norse Greenland in the medieval Icelandic sagas, looking past the Vínland sagas to examine ways in which Greenlandic settings are employed in the ‘post-classical’ saga-tradition and other texts.
The Anglo-Saxons in Leicestershire
The introduction of fieldwalking to the county came in the late 1970s, but at this stage the small and fragile early Anglo-Saxon potsherds were not recognised in the field. No one was claiming to have found sites of this period. In fact, it was often claimed that it could not be done. It would be very useful and interesting to re-examine all of the potsherds found during the early years, looking for previously unidentified early Anglo-Saxon and perhaps Iron Age pottery.
Ordering the medieval past : England and the continent compared
The English view of the Middle Ages is uncontroversial and untroubled. There is no doubt in the English mind that the thousand years between Rome and the Renaissance are an intrinsic part of our past and that we owe much to the Middle Ages for which we can still be thankful
Emma of Normandy, Queen of England
In reading about the successors of Alfred, I came across a Queen, Emma, who really intrigued me. It was because of her, the course of English history was sent into a completely different direction.
Syphilis in Renaissance Europe: rapid evolution of an introduced sexually transmitted disease?
When syphilis first appeared in Europe in 1495, it was an acute and extremely unpleasant disease. After only a few years it was less severe than it once was, and it changed over the next 50 years into a milder, chronic disease.
Jews of Medieval Eastern Europe migrated from Caucasus region, study shows
Despite being one of the most genetically analysed groups, the origin of European Jews has remained obscure.
William Caxton’s Contributions to the English Language and Books and Libraries
Caxton’s influence has reached throughout the ages as he juggled the tasks of translator, printer, and linguist.
The Sack of Viking Limerick
They carried of their jewels and their best property, and their saddles beautiful and foreign; their gold and their silver; their beautifully woven cloth of all colours and of all kinds…
Genre Into Artifact: the Decline of the English Chronicle In the Sixteenth Century
Most modern scholars would agree with the thrust of these contemporary statements even while making the more subtle distinctions among different chroniclers that the perspective of four centuries provides. Few would now wish to argue that the chronicle, once the form of historical writing, had fallen into anything but a state of decay.
Was there Race before Modernity? The Example of ‘Jewish’ Blood in Late Medieval Spain
Less than a lifetime ago many scholars agreed that racial concepts offered reasonable explanations for the differences they perceived between certain human populations.