This is my review of Sharan Newman’s latest book, Defending the City of God: A Medieval Queen, the First Crusades, and the Quest for Peace in Jerusalem.
BOOK REVIEW: “Defending the City of God” : A Medieval Queen, the First Crusades, and the Quest for Peace in Jerusalem, by Sharan Newman
May 9, 2014 By
Community Conflict and Collective Memory in the Late Medieval Parish Church
May 1, 2014 By
What role does conflict play in the formation of community identity? And how do powerful, even violent, moments sustain that identity throughout centuries of change and transformation?
Childbirth Miracles in Swedish Medieval Miracle Collections
April 2, 2014 By
The chance of dying in pregnancy or childbirth was very real for medieval women, and still is in many Third World countries. In Medieval Catholic Western Europe, including Scandinavia, these risks, and the absence of medically schooled persons who could give efficient help, led many women to turn to the saints for intercession.
Baths of Bliss in the Middle Ages: Fact and Fiction
March 28, 2014 By
Medieval writers refer to baths in many contexts: spiritual (baptism), medical, erotic, didactic, comic, magical, dangerous – death in the bath was not uncommon.
Dietary Laws in Medieval Christian-Jewish Polemics: A Survey
March 22, 2014 By
In the religious debate between Jews and Christians, the biblical dietary laws come to illustrate important assumptions concerning the “other.”
Dutch medieval bone and antler combs
March 18, 2014 By
Bone and antler combs are common finds in medieval northern europe. Two major types occur in the netherlands: the composite comb, usually made of antler, and the longbone comb.
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.
In quest for the lost gamers: An investigation of board gaming in Scania, during the Iron and Middle Ages
February 22, 2014 By
The games we play today are of course not entirely the same as those played a thousand years ago,
BOOKS: Daily Life in the Middle Ages
February 16, 2014 By
Ever wonder how monks, women and Vikings lived their day to day lives in the Middle Ages? These books will give you a glimpse into their world.
Shoes and shoemakers in late medieval Bergen and Stockholm
February 7, 2014 By
The purpose of this article is to analyse the differences between shoemakers in late medieval Bergen and Stockholm on one hand, and the differences between the archaeological finds of shoes in the two towns on the other hand.
What Makes Her Beautiful? Feminine Beauty Standards in Renaissance Italy
January 28, 2014 By
Perhaps one of the most straightforward elements of beauty was the skin. Pale and undamaged skin was considered the most beautiful for women.
Integrative Medicine: Incorporating Medicine and Health into the Canon of MedievalEuropean History
January 20, 2014 By
Hitherto peripheral (if not outright ignored) in general medieval historiography, medieval medical history is now a vibrant subdiscipline, one that is rightly attracting more and more attention from ‘mainstream’ historians and other students of cultural history.
Youth and Old Age in Late Medieval London
January 14, 2014 By
This article is concerned with the relationship between life stages and a person’s place in urban society. The two life stages studied here are the end of youth and the onset of old age, that is to say the two stages at either end of that period in life when men were most active economically, socially, and politically, when they were expected to build a family and run a business.
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.
Were the Peasants Really So Clean? The Middle Ages in Film
January 4, 2014 By
Movies about the European Middle Ages are profoundly modern creations. They tend to reflect the anxieties and preoccupations of their modern creators rather than those of people who lived a thousand years ago.
Elemental theory in everyday practice: food disposal in the later medieval English countryside
December 22, 2013 By
For medieval rural communities the story of food did not necessarily end in its eating.
Art on the edge: hair and hands in Renaissance Italy
December 12, 2013 By
This paper argues that items designed for the bodily extremities such as hair-coverings, hats, fans and other accessories were valued for the ease with which they could be changed and adapted to express a range of different meanings: political, social and individual.
Board games in Anglo-Saxon England? Rare 7th-century gaming piece discovered
December 3, 2013 By
Archaeologists in England have discovered an extremely rare Anglo-Saxon board gaming piece, which would have been used in a game similar to that of backgammon or draughts.
Mundane Uses of Sacred Places in the Central and Later Middle Ages, with a Focus on Chartres Cathedral
December 2, 2013 By
Although technically reserved for worship, church buildings were put to numerous non-devotional uses in the Middle Ages, raising the question just how set apart from daily life medieval churches were.
Shops and Shopping in Britain: from market stalls to chain stores
November 29, 2013 By
The first retail shops, as opposed to those of craftsmen and artisans selling goods they made themselves, were drapers, mercers, haberdashers and grocers.
Renaissance Table Manners
November 28, 2013 By
How should one behave at parties or dinners, in the company of friends and relatives? Every society has its list of do’s and don’ts, including in Renaissance Italy.
‘Take almaundes blaunched …’ Cookbooks in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times
November 24, 2013 By
What is a cooking recipe, what is a manual to good, healthy food in the epoch of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age?
Snow Castles and Horse Racing on Ice: Winter Fun in the Medieval North
November 23, 2013 By
Although the winters could be long and harsh in medieval Sweden, the people still found time to have fun and games.
Baking Bread in a Reconstructed Bread-Oven of the Late Iron Age
November 17, 2013 By
In 2003 and 2004 ‘Senas vides Darbnica’ (Latvia) built a late Iron Age (9th -12th century AD) bread oven based on archaeological finds and test baked bread and traditional Latvian pastries.
Medieval Shoes
October 16, 2013 By
Who set the trends for medieval shoe styles – politics, power, economics and climate.
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