Personal’ Rituals: The Office of Ceremonies and Papal Weddings, 1483-1521
This analysis reveals the increasing involvement of papal ceremonialists in the preparation and supervision of wedding events,5 highlighting the ceremonialists’ own broad definition of their mandate and a pragmatic approach to the boundaries of papal ritual.
“Morus per se?”: Pain and its Treatment in Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-century Europe
Yet of the many medical conditions that face human beings, pain is one of the most valuable to study from a sociocultural perspective. Pain can be methodologically difficult to study. At once reactions to pain are universal and yet the experience is fundamentally solitary and isolating.
The Welsh Female Saint: Patterns within a Social Framework
Historia Divae Monacellae, the Latin Life of Melangell is also comparatively late in composition, with the earliest manuscript being from the 16th century, but possibly drawing on earlier written sources.3 When we look at the availability of written texts relating to male saints the difference in source material is immediately evident.
“The Wrath of the Northmen”: The Vikings and their Memory
These raiding peoples emerge out of all three Scandinavian homelands–Norway, Sweden, and Denmark–sending off their young men all over the known world in search of wealth and prestige.
King James III of Scotland
A man of artistic temperament with an elevated sense of self importance, he does not appear to have had any idea how to handle the Scottish nobility.
BOOK REVIEW: “Death Before Compline”
BOOK REVIEW: Death Before Compline Bagwyn Books (2012) Sharan Newman This short book, DEATH BEFORE COMPLINE is a great collection of murder-mystery stories…
The embalmed heart of Richard the Lionheart (1199 A.D.): a biological and anthropological analysis
We performed a full biomedical analysis of the mummified heart of the English King Richard I (1199 A.D.). Here we show among other aspects, that the organ has been embalmed using substances inspired by Biblical texts and practical necessities of desiccation