London’s Medieval Pottery
Learn about the pottery discovered from medieval London with Jacqui Pearce of the Museum of London Archaeology.
A Year on the Medieval Farm
What did medieval peasants do on a farm? Here is a month to month guide!
The political impact of crusading ideology in Sweden, 1150-1350
Swedish historiography has occasionally touched on the political impact of crusading ideology but the topic cannot be said to have attracted any great deal of research and only in recent decades have certain scholars given it their undivided attention…
Estonian small towns in the Middle Ages: archaeology and the history of urban defense
The purpose of the current article is to summarize the material gathered from the excavations of the medieval town walls from the Estonian towns of Viljandi, Haapsalu, and Narva, to discuss when they were erected, and to analyze what their place was in Old Livonian and Baltic contexts.
A Clergyman out of Control: Portray of a Bishop Around the Year 1000
The following short article is about actions of bishops and their interpretation as they are illustrated in the genre Gesta episcoporum.
Medieval Widowhood and Textual Guidance: The Corpus Revisions of Ancrene Wisse and the de Braose Anchoresses
In this article, I shall examine the lives of Loretta and her siblings as templates for the kind of audience imagined by the authors of the Ancrene Wisse Group and, in particular, by the author of Ancrene Wisse as he revised his original text.
‘Warrior-women’ in Viking Age Scandinavia? A preliminary archaeological study
This paper seeks to provide a new contribution to the debates on Viking Age women by focusing on a rather controversial notion of ‘female warriors’. The core of the article comprises a preliminary survey of archaeological evidence for female graves with weapons (axes, spears, swords and arrowheads) from Viking Age Scandinavia.
The Headless Norsemen: Decapitation in Viking Age Scandinavia
I will concentrate my attention only on single and double decapitation burials and mostly those from the area of Scandinavia. What did similar practices mean? What kinds of individuals were subject to decapitation? Were they criminals, slaves, aggressors, deserters swathed in infamy or perhaps unfortunate victims of bloody attacks?
Byzantine Dish with a Hawk
This dish, made of lead-glazed earthenware, dates from the mid-12th century.
Ten Thoughts on Game of Thrones, Season 4 Episode 8: The Mountain and the Viper
A classic duel between good and evil!
Eight Videos about Beowulf
A selection of some of the most interesting videos on the web that talk about the Old English poem Beowulf:
Medieval London Murders: Joice de Cornwall
This is the first in a series of posts that will look at homicides from medieval London.
Medicine on Trial: Regulating the Health Professions in Later Medieval England
Given the hurdles one faced in trying to stay healthy in later medieval England, it should come as no surprise that the medieval English placed a premium on competent medicine.
Viking Nicknames
Of all the various cultures of the Middle Ages, it was probably the Norse who had the best nicknames. Ranging from the Eirik the Red to Ivar the Boneless, the Viking Age has hundreds of interesting and strange nicknames.