During the Byzantine Empire, child sexual abuse was more prevalent and less stigmatized than it is today.
Sleepwalking and Murder in the Middle Ages
September 8, 2014 By
It happens that many people get up at night while asleep, take weapons or sticks, or ride a horse.What is the cause of this? What is the remedy?
Conversion on the Scaffold: Italian Practices in European Context
August 23, 2014 By
11 January 1581 was a fine day in Rome. That morning, Michel de Montaigne, recently arrived in the city, had gone out on horseback when he encountered a procession accompanying a condemned man to execution. Montaigne stopped to watch the sight.
Murder, Alchemy and the Wars of the Roses
July 27, 2014 By
What follows is a kind of murder mystery, but not a whodunit. The identity of the man who carried out the crime, while indeed a mystery, is probably unknowable and actually unimportant.
Prisons and Punishments in Late Medieval London
July 27, 2014 By
This thesis begins with an analysis of the purpose of imprisonment, which was not merely custodial and was undoubtedly punitive in the medieval period. Having established that incarceration was employed for a variety of purposes the physicality of prison buildings and the conditions in which prisoners were kept are considered.
Ritual, Behaviour and Symbolic Communication in the dispute between Thomas Becket and King Henry II
July 27, 2014 By
From the dispute between Becket and Henry II we see the continuation of many traditional forms of political communication, including the use of symbolic rhetoric and items in the conduct of rituals, and also the deliberate staging of emotions.
Medieval Prisons: Between Myth and Reality, Hell and Purgatory
June 19, 2014 By
When were medieval prisons founded? What was life inside them like? How did contemporary observers perceive them?
Medieval London Murders: Edmund de Brekkles
June 12, 2014 By
On Sunday, June 10, 1324, the body of Edmund de Brekles, a chaplain, was found dead in the house of John de Maltone and Juliana Aunsel, in the Ward of Bishopsgate.
THINGS TO SEE: Murder in the Cathedral
June 11, 2014 By
This is my review of the T.S. Eliot’s play, “Murder in the Cathedral”, on at St. Bartholomew in Smithfield, London.
Medieval London Murders: Joice de Cornwall
June 2, 2014 By
This is the first in a series of posts that will look at homicides from medieval London.
Property, Propriety, and Patriarchy: Abduction, Assault and Housebreaking in the Court of Common Pleas, 1399-1500
May 30, 2014 By
The purpose of this thesis is to examine how pleas of assault, housebreaking, and abduction cases in the Court of Common Pleas were shaped by social visions of gender hierarchy, and the personal conduct expected of persons as members of households and governors of households
Power relations in the royal forests of England patronage : privilege and legitimacy in the reigns of Henry III and Edward I
May 28, 2014 By
The England of the Plantagenets (1189–1377) which honed the royal forest system was a typically medieval land. Its ultimate foundations lay upon the long established notion of the three estates: those who fought, those who prayed, and those who worked.
The Cross-dressing Women of Medieval London
May 3, 2014 By
Women going around dressed as men, wearing men’s hats, and even having their hair cut short, was not an acceptable practice in medieval society. However, in late medieval London there were at least 13 cases of women accused of doing just that.
The history of foxglove poisoning, was Edward IV a victim?
April 30, 2014 By
The history of foxglove poisoning, was Edward IV a victim? Peter Stride (University of Queensland School of Medicine, Australia) Fiona Winston-Brown (Librarian, Redcliffe Hospital, Australia) Richard III Society: Inc. Vol. 43 No. 1 March (2012) Abstract Edward IV, having been obese, but otherwise apparently in good health, died after an acute illness of only a […]
How to defraud your lord on the medieval manor
February 26, 2014 By
Here are six ways to commit fraud explained by Robert Carpenter in the 13th century.
Violence and Repression in Late Medieval Italy
February 8, 2014 By
Between the second half of the thirteenth century and the first half of the fifteenth, central and northern Italian city-states frequently suffered moments of disruption of the social peace because of factional battles.
How Charles the Bold dispensed justice
February 5, 2014 By
Shortly before his visit to Middelburg, the governor, a nobleman and knight, fell in love with a married woman. She indignantly spurned his advances. The governor took revenge against the woman by having her husband arrested and imprisoned on a charge of high treason.
A Male Transvestite Prostitution In 14th Century London: The Testimony of John Rykener
January 12, 2014 By
A Male Transvestite Prostitution In 14th Century London: The Testimony of John Rykener By Erkan Oruçoğlu Published Online (2013) Introduction: Studies of sexuality, homosexuality, and sex in public places, show that homosexual behavior does not give arise automatically, or even necessarily, to a homosexual identity. Homosexual roles and identities are historically constructed. Throughout the history of […]
Criminal Behaviour by Pilgrims in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period
January 4, 2014 By
In the early and high Middle Ages, an introspective religiosity was predominant and supported by Benedictine and Cistercian monks; thus, pil- grimages to holy places were neither as popular nor practiced as they were in the period from the late Middle Ages onwards.
Cheating and Cheaters in German Romance and Epic, 1180 – 1225
December 31, 2013 By
An Alsatian poet named Heinrich, writing around 1180, composed a beast epic, based on French sources, about a trickster fox named Reinhart. Some sixty years later, a poet known to us only as Der Stricker composed a work of similar length and structure, about a trickster priest named Amis, and his diligent efforts to cheat various anonymous individuals out of their money.
Murder Will Out: Kingship, Kinship and Killing in Medieval Scotland
December 17, 2013 By
In fifteenth-century France and England, however, murder became more general, encompassing premeditated killing just as nowadays. Scottish fifteenth-century legislation shows a similar blurring, but in the opposite direction…
Twilight Tours at the Tower of London!
December 1, 2013 By
A review of the Twilight Tour at the Tower of London!
Medieval Poison Ring discovered in Bulgaria
November 21, 2013 By
Bulgarian archaeologists have discovered a medieval ring that had a secret compartment which could have been used to conceal poison.
Ordeals
October 4, 2013 By
No one alive today believes ordeals were a good way to decide defendants’ guilt. But maybe they should.
Medieval Animal Trials
September 8, 2013 By
Why were animals put on trial – for murder or for eating crops – in the Middle Ages?
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