The King’s Three Images: The representation of St. Edward the Confessor in historiography, hagiography and liturgy
This study will revolve around the characterisation of Edward as constructed in the various surviving texts, and its emphasis will be twofold: my primary concern is to explore how St. Edward the Confessor’s images were constructed, i.e. how he is represented in the various texts written about him.
Medieval Geopolitics: An interview with Andrew Latham
Was there such a thing as International Relations in the Middle Ages?
The Tyranny of a Construct: Feudalism and Historians of Medieval Europe
Historians have for years harbored doubts about the term ‘feudalism’ and the phrase ‘feudal system,’ which has often been used as a synonym for it.
Book Review: In the Footsteps of Anne Boleyn
It is particularly useful in that it brings together much (usually) scattered information into one place and links places, events and context together. It is a useful reference book with extensive links to further information.
New Insights from the Metal Detected Brooches of Early Medieval Frisia
My research undertook the bulk analysis of over 600 copper alloy brooches by hhXRF and onsite morphological analysis at repositories in the north of Holland.
Regnum et sacerdotium in Alsatian Romanesque Sculpture: Hohenstaufen Politics in the Aftermath of the Investiture Controversy (1130-1235)
Although no longer preserved today, a series of paintings in the St. Nicholas chapel of the Lateran palace in Rome incurred Frederick Barbarossa’s wrath because they presented his predecessor, King Lothar of Supplinburg (1025-1137), in a submissive position as the pope’s vassal
Christ in Motion: Portable Objects and Scenographic Environments in the Liturgy of Medieval Bohemia
It accordingly seems clear, from many preserved accounts, that by the end of the fifteenth century the rubric of the Church of Prague was no longer the same and that progressive versions contained different layers of alteration to the performance practice of Palm Sunday ritual.
Ӕlfwynn of Mercia
Very little is known about this granddaughter of King Alfred the Great.
Projecting Power in Sixth-Century Rome: The church of Santi Cosma e Damiano in the late antique Forum Romanum
In the year 526 CE, the bishop of Rome, Pope Felix IV, petitioned the Ostrogoth king Theoderic for permission to convert a small complex in the Forum Romanum into a place of worship dedicated to the Saints Cosmas and Damian…This paper critiques traditional interpretations of this church—its physical location and its apse mosaic—in light of new research that nuances our understanding of the historical context in which it was commissioned.
‘Selling stories and many other things in and through the city’: Peddling Print in Renaissance Florence and Venice
‘Selling stories and many other things in and through the city’: Peddling Print in Renaissance Florence and Venice Rosa M. Salzberg (University of…
Renaissance attachment to things: material culture in last wills and testaments
Renaissance attachment to things: material culture in last wills and testaments Samuel Cohn, Jr. Economic History Review: University of Glasgow, 19 October (2012)…
Fighting the plague in medieval towns
A new article is revealing how French towns coped with waves of plague outbreaks and other diseases in the late Middle Ages. It reveals that in these towns they made vigorous attempts to improve hygiene, employ doctors and isolate those infected so they would not spread the disease.
Saint Francis of Assisi: An Exorcist of Demons
Saint Francis was considered such a model of Christian virtue that he was able to perform miracles as an agent of Jesus. Among them, the description of demoniacs and exorcisms are particularly interesting for the history of psychiatry.
The Icelandic Althing: Dawn of Parliamentary Democracy
It is an old idea, and one that reaches as far back as the nineteenth century, that Viking Age Iceland was democratic and much like an early republic
The Interaction between the Crusaders and Muslims in the East: Myth and Reality
Christianity and Islam have had their fourteen hundred-year relationship defined by the era of the Crusades, a period that has often been characterized as a disastrous clash between two societies.
The Vatican and Oxford University team up to digitize 1.5 million pages of medieval manuscripts
The University of Oxford and the Vatican have jointly created a digital project that will put online over 1.5 million pages of medieval and biblical texts.
New underwater robot will allow archaeologists to examine ancient shipwrecks
Known as the U-CAT, it will allow archaeologists to go inside the remains of ancient and historical shipwrecks without damaging them.
Casting Light on the Darkening of Colors in Historical Paintings
Many archeological sites, cathedral wall paintings, and famous masterpieces from major painters are affected by a slow, irreversible, light-induced degradation of pigments
Board games in Anglo-Saxon England? Rare 7th-century gaming piece discovered
Archaeologists in England have discovered an extremely rare Anglo-Saxon board gaming piece, which would have been used in a game similar to that of backgammon or draughts.
Mundane Uses of Sacred Places in the Central and Later Middle Ages, with a Focus on Chartres Cathedral
Although technically reserved for worship, church buildings were put to numerous non-devotional uses in the Middle Ages, raising the question just how set apart from daily life medieval churches were.
A Captive King: Henry III between the battles of Lewes and Evesham, 1264-5
For a period of fifteen months, between the crushing defeat of the royal army at Lewes on 14 May 1264, and Montfort’s brutal murder at Evesham on 4 August 1265, Henry III lost control of his seal, his household and his kingdom as he was forced to accept the appointment of new officials at the centre and periphery of government.
Medieval Mass Grave discovered in England
An archaeological dig near Durham Cathedral in England has uncovered at least 18 bodies ‘piled one top of another’ in what appears to be a mass grave dating back to the Middle Ages.
Birth Control and Abortion in the Middle Ages
The medieval period might be unique in that it is perhaps the only time when you can read the same author in one work condemning the use of birth control and in another giving directions on how to use it.
The Viking Age and the Crusades Era in Yngvars saga víðförla
The ‘Saga of Ingvar the Far-Traveller’ is based on a reliable fact, justified by about 25 runic inscriptions which date to the first half of the eleventh century, that a military expedition, led by Ingvar, went from Sweden to Eastern Europe, then moved to the South or to the South-West and perished there.
Early Islam’s Contribution to Western Opthalmology
The prevalence of eye diseases in the Islamic lands resulted in a particular interest in the skilful diagnosis and treatment of eye diseases.