Here are a few recent releases for medievalists hunting for Black Friday books and early Christmas gifts!
The Struggle is Real: Where are the Medieval Economists?!
November 21, 2015 By
Another fascinating paper from “Making the Medieval Relevant” was given by Daniel Curtis, a specialist in Social and Economic History, and a professor at the University of Utrecht.
Making the Medieval Relevant: Crossing Boundaries: Interdisciplinary Studies on Disease and Disability
November 20, 2015 By
A summary of a paper given by Professor Christina Lee at the University of Nottingham’s “Making the Medieval Relevant” Conference.
Genoa: The cog in the new medieval economy
August 18, 2015 By
Journalist and author Nicholas Walton writes about medieval Genoa’s economy, trade and role in the Black Death. Walton recently published a book on Genoese history entitled, “Genoa: La Superba”
Papers on Medieval Prosopography: Session #47 at KZOO 2015
May 29, 2015 By
Three fantastic papers on Prosopography from #KZOO2015.
Make-Up and Medicine in the Middle Ages
January 13, 2015 By
A look at cosmetics and make-up in the Middle Ages.
Medieval Books for Christmas
December 15, 2014 By
It’s that time of year again – the mad scramble for the perfect Christmas gift for the historian, nerd, avid reader on your list. Here are a few suggestions for you – new releases for December and January!
INTERVIEW: A Conversation with SD Sykes about Plague Land
October 3, 2014 By
My interview with fiction author, SD Sykes about her fantastic medieval crime novel, Plague Land.
Medicine and surgery in the Livre des Assises de la Cour des Bourgeois de Jérusalem
September 15, 2014 By
The Livre des Assises, written in the thirteenth century in Acre, not only provides insights into the practice of medicine and surgery in the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, but also suggests that the licensing and regulation of doctors reflected contemporary Islamic practice.
Turning Toward Death: The Medievals’ Terrestrial Treatment of Death in Art During the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries
September 8, 2014 By
Throughout the Middle Ages, religious iconography was a main theme of art and the Church heavily patronized works that embodied virtuous ideals. Art was often used as a religious implement in which the Church instructed the illiterate masses. However, art can also represent pain and trauma acting as an outlet for the artist.
BOOK REVIEW: Plague Land by SD Sykes
September 4, 2014 By
My review of SD Sykes brilliant medieval thriller, Plague Land.
Living cheek by jowl: the pathoecology of medieval York
August 15, 2014 By
This paper aims to present the environmental context for disease combined with the human osteological record to reconstruct the pathoecology of medieval York.
Living la vita apostolica: Life expectancy and mortality of nuns in late-medieval Holland
July 28, 2014 By
Living la vita apostolica: Life expectancy and mortality of nuns in late-medieval Holland Jaco Zuijderduijn (Utrecht University ) Centre for Global Economic History: Utrecht University, Working Paper No. 44, June (2013) Abstract Data on vital events of medieval women are extremely scarce. We use a dataset based on a necrology of nuns in late-medieval Holland […]
Sickness in the Nidaros Cathedral?
March 14, 2014 By
Up towards the ceiling vault of the Nidaros Cathedral, a number of artworks are hidden from public view. Many of the stone sculptures portray mythological animals and other scary creatures. In such company, one would imagine that human faces were also intended to evoke fear and anguish. Do they depict people with diseases?
The Red Sea and the Port of Clysma. A Possible Gate of Justinian’s Plague
March 10, 2014 By
The aim of this study is to present the sea and land commercial routes of the Byzantine Egypt and their role in the dissemination of the plague bacteria Yersinia pestis from the Red Sea to Mediterranean ports. The Mediterranean port of Pelusium was considered as the starting point of the first plague pandemic…
The Vikings and Baron Dupuytren’s disease
February 8, 2014 By
Dupuytren’s disease (DD) is an ancient affliction of unknown origin. It is defined by Dorland as shortening, thickening, and fibrosis of the palmar fascia producing a flexion deformity of a finger.
Plague and Persecution: The Black Death and Early Modern Witch Hunts
January 27, 2014 By
The century or so from approximately 1550 to 1650 is a period during which witch-hunts reached unprecedented frequency and intensity. The circumstances that fomented the witch- hunts—persistent warfare, religious conflict, and harvest failures—had occurred before, but witch-hunts had never been so ubiquitous or severe.
Phthiriasis: the riddle of the lousy disease
January 26, 2014 By
Of all the legendary and fantastic diseases of ancient times, phthiriasis, or the lousy (lisease, wvas the most intriguing and bizarre. In the corrupted humours of the sufferers of this disease, lice were believed to develop by spontaneous generation, and tumours full of these insects rose on the skin.
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.
Integrative Medicine: Incorporating Medicine and Health into the Canon of Medieval European History
January 18, 2014 By
Hitherto peripheral (if not outright ignored) in general medieval historiography, medieval medical history is now a vibrant subdiscipline, one that is rightlyattracting more and more attention from ‘mainstream’ historians and other studentsof cultural history.
Stature and frailty during the Black Death: the effect of stature on risks of epidemic mortality in London, A.D. 1348-1350
January 4, 2014 By
Recent research has shown that pre-existing health condition affected an individual ’ s risk of dying duringthe 14th-century Black Death. However, a previous study of the effect of adult stature on risk of mortality during the epidemic failed to find a relationship between the two; this result is perhaps surprising given the well-documented inverse association between stature and mortality in human populations.
Fighting the plague in medieval towns
December 4, 2013 By
A new article is revealing how French towns coped with waves of plague outbreaks and other diseases in the late Middle Ages. It reveals that in these towns they made vigorous attempts to improve hygiene, employ doctors and isolate those infected so they would not spread the disease.
Healthscaping a Medieval City: Lucca’s Curia viarum and the Future of Public Health History
November 24, 2013 By
Healthscaping a Medieval City: Lucca’s Curia viarum and the Future of Public Health History G. Geltner (Department of History, University of Amsterdam) Urban History: 40, 3 (2013) Abstract In early fourteenth-century Lucca, one government organ began expanding its activities beyond the maintenance of public works to promoting public hygiene and safety, and in ways that suggest both […]
The diagnosis and context of a facial deformity from an Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Spofforth, North Yorkshire
September 28, 2013 By
Osteological analysis of the complete skeletal population identified one individual, Skeleton 177, who presented an abnormal and pathological swelling to the left facial bones. The following discussion describes these pathological lesions and presents a differential diagnosis based on visual, radiographic and histological examination.
Sickness and Sin: Medicine, Epidemics and Heresy in the Middle Ages
September 28, 2013 By
Disease was more common, as already unsanitary populations grew more crowded, culminating with the devastating Black Death. With mostly Church chronicles telling the story, and a sense of religion underlying everyday life, comparisons were bound to be drawn between plagues and unruly dissent. On the one hand sickness of the body and the other a corruption of the mind.
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