War or Peace? The Relations Between the Picts and the Norse in Orkney
This article will focus mainly on the earliest period of Norse settlement, before the Norse earldom was established.
Urban Jousts in the Later Middle Ages: The White Bear of Bruges
Jousting competitions between towns excited passions which, far from releasing citizens into some escapist unreality, could plunge them instead into violence.
State Formation in Europe in the First Millenium AD
The central point I want to make in this section is that both the Germanic world of the fourth century and the Slavic of the ninth and tenth centuries saw the emergence of political entities of sufficient size and solidity to be worthy, in some way, of the designation ‘states’.
Wise Sayings from Medieval Ireland – The Maxims of King Aldfrith of Northumbria
Be cautious so that you may not be burdened with debts. / Be thrifty so that you may not be grasping. / Be obliging so that you may be loved.
The Medieval Understandings of Participation
Richard Cross, Stephen Gersh and Douglas Hedley speaking at the University of Notre Dame
Annabella Drummond, Queen of Scotland
Annabella Drummond was married to Robert III, King of Scots. They had the longest duration of a Scottish royal marriage in history
Remains of medieval church discovered in Nottinghamshire
The remains of a medieval church, which was once part of Rufford Abbey in Northamptonshire, England, have been uncovered after a two-week dig.
The Tablet, Medieval-Style
Wax tablets have been around since ancient times, and now that I’ve made one, I can see why. They’re easy to make, use, and reuse; they’re light and durable; they’re portable; and they have lots of room for making mistakes.
The Holy Lance, by Andrew Latham
The year is 1191. A daring counterattack against the Saracens’ last-ditch effort to relieve the besieged city of Acre has not only saved the Christian host from a fatal defeat; it has also brought the leader of that counterattack, English Templar Michael Fitz Alan, to the attention of King Richard the Lionheart.
Melancholia in medieval Persian literature: The view of Hidayat of Al-Akhawayni
This paper aims to review Al-Akhawayni’s 10th century knowledge on melancholia which can represent the early concept of this disorder in the Near East.
Goths, Lombards, Romans, and Greeks: Creating Identity in Early Medieval Italy
This essay explores how two different non-Roman historians represented the past to their peoples: the Gothic historian Jordanes’ sixth-century work, the Getica, and the eighth-century Lombard historian Paul the Deacons’ History of the Lombards.
Researchers discover genome of Brucellosis from 700-year-old skeleton
A 700-year-old skeleton from a medieval village in Sardinia has given researchers new insights into a chronic disease that causes profuse sweating and muscle and joint pain.
Finding Richard III: The Official Account
The ‘Looking For Richard’ team of historians and researchers spent many years amassing evidence. Now for the first time they reveal the full story of how that evidence took them to a car park in Leicester.
Scandinavia and the Huns: an Interdisciplinary Approach to the Migration Era
The aim of this paper is to discuss the early Migration period as a particular period of ‘short term history’ and its formative impact on the Scandinavian longue duree in the first millenium.
How well do you know the origins of English words?
Can you tell which word derives from the English of Anglo-Saxon times, and which word came from French?
The influence of the Bible on Medieval Women’s Literacy
The image of Saint Anne, who teaches Virgin Mary to read, suggests the feminine culture of the medieval Christian tradition, in which mothers have the mission to educate their girls.
Britain and the Beginning of Scotland
Until recently it was generally held that Scotland first began to take shape with a union of Picts and Scots under Cinaed mac Ailpín, who died in 858.
From the street to the brothel: following the go-between
Associated to the practice of gossip, bartering, display and selling of her trinkets around neighborhoods and streets, the old woman was allowed into the female domestic spaces of late medieval Europe.
Women and Ships in the Viking World
Perhaps the most splendid, and certainly one of the best-known, burials of the Viking Age is that of the two women who were put to rest in the Oseberg ship.
Ten Medieval Kingdoms and States that No Longer Exist
The map of the medieval world was constantly changing, as various kingdoms, principalities and states fought each other and redrew borders.
Tweets from the Seventh International Conference on the Medieval Chronicle
The University of Liverpool hosted the Seventh International Conference on the Medieval Chronicle, which took place on July 7th – 10th.
Viking-Age Queens and the Formation of Identity
One may ask, then, not why there exists such a paucity of these women in the written record, but why any are mentioned at all, and for what purposes?
Warrior Kings and Savvy Abbots: The Cross of the Scriptures, Clonmacnoise
This paper offers a new pespective on the depiction of four figures in elegant costumes on the Cross of the Scriptures at Clonmacnois.
Casualties among children in the light of Polish medieval ‘Catalogues of miracles’
‘Catalogues of miracles’ show the number of children which was injured or killed. Parents or relatives turned to the saints with pleas for curing or bringing their child back to life. I discuss the categories of the accidents, the age of injured, the types of pleas, parent’s feelings and vows.