Was the White Ship disaster mass murder?
It was perhaps the worst maritime disaster of the Middle Ages, not just because it cost 300 lives, but because one of them was the heir to the Anglo-Norman Empire. One scholar has a theory that the sinking of the White Ship on the night of November 25, 1120 was not a tragic accident, rather a case of mass murder.
Civic and Religious Understanding of the Mentally Ill, Incompetent, and Disabled of Medieval England
This brief summary covered the fourth paper given at KZOO’s Mental Health in Non-medical Terms. It covered ways in which theologians, like Thomas Aquinas, tried to categorize mental disability. Aquinas also tried to prove that the mentally impaired were able to receive sacraments depending their lucidity and where they fit in his four categories. It was an interesting and enjoyable paper.
Prince Hal’s Head-Wound: Cause and Effect
The future King Henry V was hit by an arrow to the face at the Battle of Shrewsbury – how did he survive?
The Borgias – Review of Season 3 Episode 6: Relics
Michelotto reunites Giovanni with Lucrezia, Plague ridden rags are sealed in a box and sent to Rome, Rodrigo negotiates with the Jews, and Cesare builds a bastard army all on this week’s episode of The Borgias.
Game of Thrones – Review of Season 3 Episode 8: Second Sons
In this review of the latest episode of Game of Thrones, we look at the wedding of Tyrion and Sansa, which brings all of King’s Landing out; the Hound with Arya, Daenerys confronting the mercenary company known as the Second Sons; Melisandre getting close to Gendry; and Sam and Gilly being attacked by a White Walker.
Mental Disability and Intellectual Impairment in the Middle Ages: Some Preliminary Research Findings
This interesting paper was one of the four given in the Mental Health in Non-medical Terms session at KZOO. It looked at philosophy, iconography and the way mental disability was viewed in the Middle Ages.
Expenses Related to Corporal Punishment in France
How much did the hangman get paid to carry out his deed?
Going Mad in French: Royal Notaries and Charles V’s Translation Project
This was another interesting paper from the Mental Health in Non-medical Terms session at KZOO on notaries, and how crimes committed under “mental duress” were processed.
Infant Burials and Christianization: The View from East Central Europe
This was the second paper in the Early Medieval Europe I series given at KZOO and another fabulous archaeology paper. It contrasted infant grave sites in early converted medieval Poland and Anglo Saxon England.
The so-called Genoese World Map of 1457: A Stepping Stone Towards Modern Cartography?
Around the time of Christopher Columbus’s birth, we find on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, especially in the north of Italy, a variety of people particularly interested in problems of geography and cartography.
English Writings on Chivalry and Warfare during the Hundred Years War
Alongside the Old Testament stories of famous warriors like Joshua and Judas Maccabeus, these chivalric tales were to provide Oldcastle with the appropriate models for knightly behaviour that would, in turn, restore him to the path of heterodoxy.
Blood Vengeance and the Depiction of Women in La leyenda de los siete infantes de Lara, The Nibelungenlied and Njal’s Saga
Despite countless manifestations in literature of many traditions and cultures, the archetype of vengeance as a theme is a common and current one
Listening for the Vikings: Some Evidence from Etymology
The Vikings left behind several kinds of evidence during their stay in Anglo-Saxon England. Richard Dance notes that ‘one crucial aspect is the etymological.’
Feasting with Early Medieval Chiefs: Locating Political Action through Environmental Archaeology
This excellent paper was the first given in the session on Early Medieval Europe. It looked at various archaeological excavations in Iceland and Denmark and the political role feasting played in pre-Christian Viking societies.
Reincarnation among the Norse: Sifting through the Evidence
This short article looks at the possibilty of reincarnation as a common alternative concept of life after death among Germanic heathens and then as a possible non-standard alternative belief.
Louis the Pious and the Conversion of the Danes
This paper was part of a very interesting session on the Early Middle Ages. The papers covered Eastern European Infant Burial, the archaeology of medieval feasting and conversion. This paper contrasted the conversion policies of Charlemagne versus those of Louis the Pious.
Chasing Krüger’s Dream: Studying the Transmission of Classical and Medieval Manuscripts Using Lattice Theory and Information Entropy
New computational techniques show how modern digital philology is changing the way we think of the transmission of medieval manuscripts through space and time.
Man Bites Dog: Alarming Effects of Medieval Animal Venom
This paper was part of a fantastic series on mental health and disability in the Middle Ages. It was very humorous. This paper examined various types of bites, the “medieval symptoms” and some cures. So if you don’t want to bark like a dog, or lash out at people with your teeth, read on…
Learning about the Middle Ages at Indiana University
In 2008, I graduated from Indiana University with a Bachelor of Arts degree majoring in Medieval Archaeology, after completing a senior thesis focusing on Viking colonization and urban environments. How did I come to have such a specialized degree at a landlocked American university? Well, definitely not by following a straight and narrow path!
Black in Camelot: Race & Ethnicity in Arthurian Legend
Examining depictions of Africans in medieval and contemporary Arthurian literature, television and film.
The Queen of Sicily’s Paris Shopping List, 1277
Sarah-Grace Heller examines a letter sent by Charles I of Anjou, King of Sicily to one of his agents in Paris, where he provides a detailed order of textiles and clothing that he needed to have purchased.
Lost medieval town of Dunwich revealed
A University of Southampton professor has carried out the most detailed analysis ever of the archaeological remains of the lost medieval town of Dunwich, dubbed ‘Britain’s Atlantis’.
William the Conqueror and the Channel Crossing of 1066
William the Conqueror waited several weeks before making his maritime crossing of the English Channel in 1066 – was he hampered by weathered or did the Norman Duke intentionally remain in Normandy, hoping that events in Anglo-Saxon England would turn to his favour?
Androgynes, Crossdressers, and Rebel Queens: Modern Representations of Medieval Women Warriors from Tolkien to Martin
This was another stellar paper given at the Tales after Tolkien session. It was an intriguing look at the women of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and George R. R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones and how each author portrays the mother and warrior characters of Galadriel/Cersi/Daenerys and Eowyn/Arya/Brienne. The paper examined the differences and problems posed by the portrayal of women in theses fantasy novels.
Medieval Histories – On balancing along the precipice between Medieval Living History and the Medieval Studies of Academia
But it is also easy to detect something else, which is the beleaguered and policed frontier between academia and living history – or as it is often called between Medieval Studies and Medievalism. Something both parties are acutely aware of.