The present paper will attempt to address these issues and outline the attitudes of the peasantry in regard to the potential of enclosing land and adopting convertible husbandry.
The cost of enclosure and the benefits of convertible husbandry among peasant holdings in medieval England
May 20, 2012 By
From the Brink of the Apocalypse: Confronting Famine, War, Plague, and Death in the Later Middle Ages
April 23, 2012 By
Aberth writes in the tradition of Barbara Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror, both in his lively, readable style aimed at the nonspecialist and in his antiheroic, almost romantic portrayal of late medieval miseries.
A historiographical and artistic survey of confraternities from the later Middle Ages to the early Renaissance
April 17, 2012 By
Overall, the analysis will allow for a closer examination of not just the culture of a particular confraternity, but also the cultural values, ideals, and practices of an entire community in one period of time. Furthermore, the examination of confraternal artwork will prove important, as it will demonstrate the unique power of confraternities.
“What We Are, So You Shall Be”: Preparation for Death in the Late Middle Ages
March 25, 2012 By
It is tempting to explain the late medieval attitude toward death as a direct result of the Black Death, which caused massive loss of life and brought about a new awareness of the fact that death could come at any time. While this generalization is not completely false, there are several issues of timing. The fear of sudden death was not new.
The Origin of Quarantine
March 25, 2012 By
A similar strategy was used in the busy Mediterranean sea- port of Ragusa (modern Dubrovnik, Croatia). After a visitation of the black death, the city’s chief physician, Jacob of Padua, advised establishing a place outside the city walls for treatment of ill townspeople and outsiders who came to town seeking a cure. The impetus for these recommendations was an early contagion theory, which promoted separation of healthy persons from those who were sick.
The concept of quarantine in history: from plague to SARS
March 25, 2012 By
The concept of ‘quarantine’ is radically embedded in local and global health practices and culture, attracting heightened interest during episodes of perceived or actual epidemics. The term, however, evokes a variety of emotions, such as fear, resentment, acceptance, curiosity and perplexity, reactions often to be associated with a lack of knowledge about the origins, meaning, and rel- evance of quarantine itself.
Age in medieval plagues and pandemics: Dances of Death or Pearson’s bridge of life?
March 12, 2012 By
Death has long obsessed humanity. In times of plague and pandemic even more so. Medieval man saw four horsemen of the apocalypse, and of them, Death by disease was gathering the greatest harvest. How randomly did he gather? And how random is the death toll in later pandemics?James Hanley and Elizabeth Turner look at Karl Pearson’s visualisations of mortality.
Public Health and the Pre-Modern City: A Research Agenda
March 12, 2012 By
Medieval cities are often viewed as environmental accidents waiting to happen. ‘The visual virtues of medieval towns’, reckons one textbook, ‘were grimly offset by the dismal ineptitude of public health services and municipal control over the environment … Squalor, dirt, discomfort and disease were the accepted lot of medieval man.’
The Temporal Dynamics of the Fourteenth-Century Black Death: New Evidence from English Ecclesiastical Records
March 1, 2012 By
The Economic Consequences of the Black Death
February 26, 2012 By
Great epidemics mark the agricultural world of the past; from Neolithic times onwards. The formation of much denser societies with respect to those of hunters and gatherers, and daily contact with domestic animals are at the origins of serious epidemic infections which have accompanied humans for 10,000 years.
Millstones for Medieval Manors
February 26, 2012 By
Richard Holt recently reminded us that mills were at the forefront of medieval technology and argued persuasively that windmills may have been invented in late twelfth-century England.
Genetic Investigations into the Black Death
February 24, 2012 By
The Ars Moriendi: An examination, translation, and collation of the manuscripts of the shorter Latin version
February 20, 2012 By
The Ars Moriendi is a Mediaeval Christian death manual that appeared around the middle of the fifteenth century. Though no-one is certain who the author was, there is no doubt that Jean Gerson was the major inspiration through his Opusculum Tripartitum.
Sex Differentials in Frailty in Medieval England
February 1, 2012 By
The sample used for this study comes from the East Smithfield Black Death cemetery in London. The benefit of using this cemetery is that most, if not all, individuals interred in East Smithfield died from the same cause within a very short period of time.
Dancing with the Dance of the Dead : cemetery of the Innocents and the ramifications of the Macabre
January 10, 2012 By
Glaring at us from the pages of illuminated manuscripts, royal sepulchers, and frescoes of Late Medieval churches and cemeteries, macabre cadavers, with their gaping, vermin-infested torsos, emaciated bodies, and grimacing faces, shock and repel.
The Paleodemography of the Black Death 1347-1351
January 1, 2012 By
The Black Death of 1347-50 has fascinated both researchers and lay people for over six hundred years1. The medieval epidemic had profound consequences both culturally and demographically and it did much to shape human history.
New in Medieval Books this week!
December 31, 2011 By
Hey Medievalverse! Ring in 2012 with these fab, hot off the press releases!
The Woodland Economy of Kent, 1066-1348
December 6, 2011 By
At the time of Domesday Book a great part of the county, perhaps a third, or even more, was tree clad, and while by the thirteenth century the proportion had fallen.
Age Patterns of Mortality During the Black Death in London, A.D. 1349-1350
November 9, 2011 By
This paper examines adult age-specific mortality patterns of one of the most devastating epidemics in recorded history, the Black Death of A.D. 1347-1351.
Ships, Fogs, and Traveling Pairs: Plague Legend Migration in Scandinavia
October 16, 2011 By
Ships, Fogs, and Traveling Pairs: Plague Legend Migration in Scandinavia By Timothy R. Tangherlini Journal of American Folklore, Vol.101 (1988) Abstract: This article examines the various forms the plague assumes in the legend traditions of Scandinavia. Eight new legend types are proposed in an effort to expand the existing type-index to more adequately describe the […]
Facing the Black Death: perceptions and reactions of university medical practitioners
October 16, 2011 By
Facing the Black Death: perceptions and reactions of university medical practitioners ARRIZABALAGA, JON Practical Medicine from Salerno to the Black Death, Cambridge University Press (1994) Abstract Between late 1347 and early 1348 a great disaster, which is nowadays known as the Black Death, began to spread all over Europe. By 1351 thís terrifying plague, which plunged […]
Researchers reconstruct genome of the Black Death
October 13, 2011 By
An international team – led by researchers at McMaster University and the University of Tubingen in Germany – has sequenced the entire genome of the Black Death, one of the most devastating epidemics in human history. This marks the first time scientists have been able to draft a reconstructed genome of any ancient pathogen, which […]
Epidemics in Renaissance Florence
October 7, 2011 By
Female healers and the boundaries of medical practice in post-plague England
August 31, 2011 By
Female healers and the boundaries of medical practice in post-plague England Chamberland, Celeste M.A. Thesis, Concordia University, March, (1997) Abstract This study is an exploration of the unlicensed and semi-official medical activities of women in England from 1348 to 1500. The emphasis is placed on the diversity of women’s medical practice in both urban and rural […]
Researchers discover original bacteria of the Black Death
August 29, 2011 By
The bacteria responsible for causing the 1348 Black Death, identified as one of the most cataclysmic events in human history, has been identified by researchers from Canada and Germany. Using a novel method of DNA enrichment coupled with high-throughput DNA sequencing, Hendrik Poinar, an evolutionary geneticist from the McMaster University and Johannes Krause of the […]
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