How Weather Ruled the Vikings
By Danielle Turner When the weather determines most happenings in a person’s life, what kind of cultural changes emerge as a direct result…
Catalan commerce in the late Middle Ages
In this article I shall examine the maritime commercial activities of Catalans abroad.
British Library purchases 13th-century Psalter for £775,000
A rare and beautiful Psalter produced in thirteenth-century London has been acquired by the British Library. The Mostyn Psalter-Hours can now be viewed online.
Call for Papers: Sixth Annual Symposium on Medieval and Renaissance Studies
June 18-20, 2018, at Saint Louis University
700-year-old saint myth has been proven (almost) true
Scientists confirm that the age and content of an old sack is in accordance with a medieval myth about Saint Francis of Assisi.
New Medieval Books: Word on the Street
Four books on the Middle Ages, found at Word on the Street
East meets West: Mounted Encounters in Early and High Mediaeval Europe
By the Late Middle Ages, mounted troops – cavalry in the form of knights – are established as the dominant battlefield arm in North-Western Europe.
Starvation Under Carolingian Rule. The Famine of 779 and the Annales Regni Francorum
How vulnerable was the Frankish society to famines in the Early Middle Ages?
The Medieval Magazine No. 99 (Volume 3, No. 16) : The Anniversary Issue!
The Anniversary Issue! Medievalists.net turns 9 this September! This issue will celebrate our favourite things about the Middle Ages from travel, to art, fashion, books and events.
Poetic Wisdom from the Ninth-Century
Across the medieval world we can find various writings aimed at giving advice and wisdom. Here is some poetic wisdom from the ninth-century Middle East.
Archaeological output in the museum setting: a case study – The Mary Rose
What is the ultimate output of this archaeological excavation? How are the results of the work communicated to a wider public in a way that is engaging for a 21st-century audience?
Video: Porpoise found in medieval graveyard
Here is the video of an interesting archaeological discovery on the island of Chapelle Dom Hue near Guernsey.
Recycled Fatimid State Documents from the Cairo Geniza
Among the many unexpected finds the Cairo Geniza has yielded are hundreds—possibly thousands—of medieval documents of state in Arabic script, including decrees, rescripts, petitions, tax receipts and fiscal accounts from the Fatimid period.
The Hobbit and Other Fiction by J. R. R. Tolkien: Their Roots in Medieval Heroic Literature and Language
The body of this study presents the results of a survey of certain major medieval works in English, Norse, Irish, Welsh, French, German, and Italian, particularly those alluded to in Tolkien’s published scholarship and those suggested as possible sources in reviews of Tolkien’s fiction
A female Viking warrior confirmed by genomics
Already in the early middle ages, there were narratives about fierce female Vikings fighting alongside men. Although, continuously reoccurring in art as well as in poetry, the women warriors have generally been dismissed as mythological phenomena.
Animals came with medieval trade in Indian Ocean, researchers find
The earliest introduction of domestic chickens and black rats from Asia to the east coast of Africa came via maritime routes between the 7th and 8th centuries AD.
Matthias Corvinus and Charles the Bold
The paper investigates the diplomatic relations of Matthias Corvinus with the Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, focusing on the 1460s and ‘70s.
Why We Can’t Stop Fighting about Chaucer’s Man of Law
Why We Can’t Stop Fighting about Chaucer’s Man of Law By Bonnie J. Erwin Enarratio: Publications of the Medieval Association of the Midwest, Volume…
The Meaning of the Habit: Religious Orders, Dress and Identity, 1215-1650
What lies at the core of this analysis of the conceptions about religious clothing – used as a heuristic tool – is precisely its capacity to show not only how the identities of the religious orders of the period evolved, but also how they were perceived and conceived, and how they shaped these changes.
The Medieval Quiet Period
The Medieval Quiet Period By Raymond S Bradley, Heinz Wanner and Henry F. Diaz The Holocene, Vol 26, Issue 6 (2016) Abstract: For several centuries…
New Medieval Books: People and Places
Five books published in 2017 that could be on the shelf of any medievalist.
Should I get married or become a writer? A medieval answer
And so, my Alessandra, you are uncertain whether to dedicate yourself to the Muses of to a Man?
5 stunning Scottish castles you can only reach by boat
Standing as lone sentinels on lochs or islands these ancestral homes have stood for hundreds of years, with their location making them difficult to reach.
The First Zero
When did the mathematical zero begin being used? New research revealed this week by the University of Oxford’s Bodleian Libraries shows that a manuscript from India bearing the symbol was written in the 3rd or 4th century, making it the world’s oldest recorded origin of the zero that we use today.
Surrender in Medieval Europe: An Indirect Approach
The demise of slavery meant that for the first time women and children came to be regarded as non-combatants, and high-status warriors treated as a source of profit (ransom).