Undergraduate research project finds connection between Chaucer and medieval astronomers
Senior English Literature major, Michael Walecke, is mapping collocations of one of Chaucer’s only prose works.
Rare Collection of Royal Charters to Be Preserved for Future Generations
A rare collection of royal charters dating back to the 12th century will be restored as part of a new project to preserve the precious documents for future generations.
Were rabbits first domesticated in the Early Middle Ages?
Scientists from Oxford University test dating methods to challenge whether our relationship and affection for rabbits dates back to any single event, or, if it is instead better explained as a continuum that has evolved over time.
Exploring the world of colourful medieval cuisine
Colour often has a great influence on how we perceive the food we eat. It can make food appear more appetising, or even warn that something is wrong. This was just as true for diners in the Middle Ages as it is for modern consumers.
Trust and Credit: The Mercantile Culture of Risk in Renaissance Italy
Renaissance Italy was a society in which the problems of how to trust and whom to trust presented perennial challenges; yet it also housed a vibrant, transcontinental, proto-capitalist economy that relied on trust for its functioning.
The Idea of the Castle in Medieval England
The castle has long been regarded as a practical, military architecture, introduced by the Normans as a tool of feudal control. More recently, castles have been accorded a certain symbolic significance, expressing military and political power.
The Templar Lands in Lincolnshire in the Early Fourteenth Century
The focus of the study is the Templar estates in Lincolnshire during the first four decades of the fourteenth century. Within this context, two themes are explored: the characteristics of Templar farming and estate management and the fate of the former Templar properties between 1312 and 1338.
Wonder and Scepticism in the Long Twelfth Century
This dissertation proposes that wonder is an initial emotional reaction to a novel phenomenon, and that scepticism, a form of cognition, necessarily follows when the phenomenon is sufficiently bizarre, or out of coherence with one’s prior experience.
Fifteenth-Century Burgundy and the Islamic East
What was the nature and scope of Burgundian contact with the Islamic world? How did Burgundians conceptualise the Islamic East? What were their frames of reference and how were they shaped by contemporaneous events, including further Ottoman penetration into eastern Europe and the fall of Constantinople?
Life, Literature and Prayer in Early Anglo-Saxon England
This thesis deals with the representation of prayer in literary texts from early Anglo-Saxon England, investigating the role of reading in the life of prayer and the various ways in which literary texts from the eighth and ninth centuries attest to cultures of prayer in this period.
Which Witch?: Morgan le Fay as Shape-Shifter and English Perceptions of Magic Reflected in Arthurian Legend
The name Morgan le Fay holds many meanings and has appeared in various forms throughout the course of medieval and modern history.
Stressing out in medieval Denmark: An investigation of dental enamel defects and age at death in two medieval Danish cemeteries
Dental enamel, which preserves a record of childhood stress events, represents an important resource for this investigation when paired with the information from adult skeletal remains, such as age at death.
New Light on the Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Manuscript: Multispectral Imaging and the Cotton Nero A.x. Illustrations
Among the striking features of the modest manuscript, London, British Library, MS Cotton Nero A.x., are ten full-page illustrations of the poems and a further two taking up most of their pages.
Medieval Approaches to Consciousness: Ockham and Chatton
In this paper, my aim is to advance our understanding of medieval approaches to consciousness by focusing on a particular but, as it seems to me, representative medieval debate — one which has, as its locus, a particular concern about self knowledge.
The Physician Vs. the Halakhic Man: Theory and Practice in Maimonides’s Attitude Towards Treating Gentiles
Ancient Jewish law took a strict approach to medical relationships between Jews and non-Jews. Sages forbade Jews to provide non-Jews with medical services: to treat them, circumcise them, or deliver their babies, in order to refrain from helping pagan-idolatrous society.
700-year-old ring bearing the image of St. Nicholas discovered by a gardener in Israel
A rare impressive, intact bronze ring from the Middle Ages, bearing the image of St. Nicholas, was discovered by chance during recent landscaping work in the garden of a home in the Jezreel Valley community of Moshav Yogev.
What Vikings really put in their pillows
Your pillows – if they’re not synthetic – are almost certainly filled with domestic goose or duck feathers. These are the most common types of fill used for this purpose today. But our ancestors weren’t always as discerning.
New game, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, explores life in medieval Bohemia
Released on 13 February, Kingdom Come: Deliverance is an action role-playing game set in the early fifteenth-century Holy Roman Empire that has striven for historically accurate and highly detailed content.
Imagining the Virgin in the Byzantine Night
In the early Byzantine period, the Virgin Mary rose to prominence among Christians – especially in the capital city of Constantinople.
Sephardic Food and Identity in Medieval Spain
This talk explores what foods were recommended by Sephardic authors as part of a healthy and spiritually rewarding lifestyle, as well as how Sephardic cuisine had a prominent place in the literary and cultural imagination of medieval Christian Spaniards.
Slavery, Violence and the Origin of Serfdom in Late Medieval Galicia
This presentation discusses the interrelation between slavery and serfdom in fifteenth-century Galicia (Red Ruthenia).
The painting career of Piero di Cosimo (1462-1522)
The Florentine painter has historically proven to be among the most elusive artists of the Italian Renaissance and yet acted as a seminal figure in the artistic transitions occurring from the close of the fifteenth century.
Sickness, Disability, and Miracle Cures: Hagiography in England, c. 700 – c. 1200
By analysing a selection of miracle-cure narratives from the main period of miracle writing in England, from the age of Bede to the late twelfth century, this project considers the social significance of such stories.
Simon de Montfort and King Henry III: The First Revolution in English History, 1258–1265
The reign of Henry III (1216–1272) was pivotal in English political history. It saw the entrenchment of Magna Carta, the growth of parliament and the widening of political society, as well as England’s first revolution (1258–1265), led by Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester.
Valhalla Rising: The Construction of Cultural Identity through Norse Myth in Scandinavian and German Pagan Metal
This paper is focused on an intriguing and dynamic stylistic trend in metal culture, which is to use Pagan histories as source of inspiration for the lyrics and images of metal bands.