The Chaste Erotics of Marie d’Oignies and Jacques de Vitry
The Chaste Erotics of Marie d’Oignies and Jacques de Vitry Jennifer Brown (Marymount Manhattan College) Journal of the History of Sexuality, Vol. 19,…
Manifestations of the Grotesque and Carnivalesque Body in Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal
Manifestations of the Grotesque and Carnivalesque Body in Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal Brian Gourley (School of English, Queen’s University Belfast)Queen’s University Belfast, Quest, Vol.1…
Hosting the king: hospitality and the royal iter in tenth-century England
Hosting the king: hospitality and the royal iter in tenth-century England Levi Roach (Trinity College, Cambridge) The Journal of Medieval History, 37.1 (March…
The Christianisation of Bohemia and Moravia
The territory of what is now Czech Republic consists of essentially two lands, Bohemia and Moravia.
Glass Bridges: Cross-Cultural Exchange between Florence and the Ottoman Empire
During the medieval period, the main aim of the crusades was recovery of the Holy Land. However, this changed in the fifteenth century for various reasons.
To Take Care of the Monks, Take Care of Christina: Christina of Markyate and the Medieval Spiritual/Material Market
In this essay I will delineate two of these emphases: (1) Christina’s powerful interaction with boundaries and the spaces they demarcate, and (2) the material/spiritual economy that develops between Christina and Geoffrey, the Abbot of the St. Albans Monastery. I will then argue that these emphases together form a message that might have been aimed at The Life’s monastic (and to some extent aristocratic) audience, perhaps even the abbots who succeeded Geoffrey.
‘Defending the Christian Faith with Our Blood’. The Battle of Lepanto (1571) and the Venetian Eastern Adriatic: Impact of a Global Conflict on the Mediterranean Periphery
The battle of Lepanto, which took place on the 7th of October 1571, was the greatest naval battle of oar driven vessels in the history of the Mediterranean1. It was then that the mighty Ottoman navy suffered its first and utter defeat in a direct confrontation with Christian forces, joined in the Holy League. Its purpose was to help Venice in the defence of Cyprus, stormed by the Ottoman troops in July of 1570, but to no avail, as on the 3rd of August 1571 the island was taken by the Ottomans.
Organized Collective Violence in Twelfth and Thirteenth Century Tuscan Countryside: Some Case Studies from Central and North Eastern Tuscany
Violence is often thought of as a characteristic of all medieval societies. How such societies chose to exercise this violence is therefore a good, and understudied, way into understanding the basic rules about how they worked. Concentrating on twelfth and thirteenth century Tuscany, my intention is to show that a specific form of violence, namely organized collective violence, was not an option available to all social groups within the medieval rural society of northern Italy…
Religious and Cultural Boundaries between Vikings and Irish: The Evidence of Conversion
If we compare sources from England, the horror with which viking attacks were viewed is immediately apparent. The heathenism of vikings is stressed as one of their dire attributes in Alcuin’s famous response to news of the attack on Lindisfarne in 793. Literary accounts of vikings also became more lengthy and imaginative over time.
‘Cast out into the hellish night’: Pagan Virtue and Pagan Poetics in Lorenzo Valla’s De voluptate
Valla wrote about Epicureanism before the Renaissance rediscovery of classical Epicurean texts. Poggio Bracciolini had not yet circulated his newly-discovered manuscript of first century Epicurean philosopher Lucretius’ De rerum natura, and Valla wrote without access to Diogenes Laertius’ Lives of the Philosophers, which discussed Epicurus’ teachings in greater detail.
Absoluimus uos uice beati petri apostolorum principis. Episcopal authority and the reconciliation of excommunicants in England and Frankia c. 900-c.1050
No mention is made of any rite being followed by Bishop Wulfstan on this occasion, but services for the reconciliation of excommunication are first recorded in the tenth and eleventh centuries.
Lay Religion and Pastoral Care in Thirteenth Century England: the Evidence of a Group of Short Confession Manuals
This poses a question: where did these engaged laypeople come from, and when? There is some evidence that suggests they should be pushed back to the thirteenth century.
How Christian Were Viking Christians?
What did the Vikings know of Christianity, how did they appreciate Christian teaching per se and in comparison with their native beliefs, in what way was Christianity enrooted in the minds of pagan Scandinavians?
Feeding the Dogs: The Queer Prioress and Her Pets
Everybody knows what we should think about the Prioress’ love for animals. She steals from the poor by feeding her ‘smale houndes’ roast meat and good bread. And she’s breaking the rules just by keeping pets.
Civic and Religious Understanding of the Mentally Ill, Incompetent, and Disabled of Medieval England
This brief summary covered the fourth paper given at KZOO’s Mental Health in Non-medical Terms. It covered ways in which theologians, like Thomas Aquinas, tried to categorize mental disability. Aquinas also tried to prove that the mentally impaired were able to receive sacraments depending their lucidity and where they fit in his four categories. It was an interesting and enjoyable paper.
Mental Disability and Intellectual Impairment in the Middle Ages: Some Preliminary Research Findings
This interesting paper was one of the four given in the Mental Health in Non-medical Terms session at KZOO. It looked at philosophy, iconography and the way mental disability was viewed in the Middle Ages.
Going Mad in French: Royal Notaries and Charles V’s Translation Project
This was another interesting paper from the Mental Health in Non-medical Terms session at KZOO on notaries, and how crimes committed under “mental duress” were processed.
Infant Burials and Christianization: The View from East Central Europe
This was the second paper in the Early Medieval Europe I series given at KZOO and another fabulous archaeology paper. It contrasted infant grave sites in early converted medieval Poland and Anglo Saxon England.
Feasting with Early Medieval Chiefs: Locating Political Action through Environmental Archaeology
This excellent paper was the first given in the session on Early Medieval Europe. It looked at various archaeological excavations in Iceland and Denmark and the political role feasting played in pre-Christian Viking societies.
Louis the Pious and the Conversion of the Danes
This paper was part of a very interesting session on the Early Middle Ages. The papers covered Eastern European Infant Burial, the archaeology of medieval feasting and conversion. This paper contrasted the conversion policies of Charlemagne versus those of Louis the Pious.
Student Violence at the University of Oxford
My first foray of KZOO 2013 couldn’t have been off to a better start with, “I just don’t want to die without a few scars”: Medieval Fight Clubs, Masculine Identity, and Public (Dis)order. There were only two papers in this session and both were riveting. I felt like I couldn’t type fast enough to get it all in! The first paper was given by Professor Andrew Larsen of Marquette University. Professor Larsen published a book on high and late medieval student violence and the Saint Scholastica’s Day Riot at Oxford university.
Networking Scribes
This was the keynote paper given at the Celtic Studies Association of North America Annual Conference at the University of Toronto April 18 – 21, 2013.