Early Modern Archive
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Female brewers in Holland and England
Posted on May 7, 2013 | No CommentsI also want to know why women worked in those professions, what the background of these women was and if changes occurred over time. -
Identifying Women Proprietors in Wills from Fifteenth-Century London
Posted on April 21, 2013 | No CommentsMost Londoners lodged their post obit requests with the Husting Court, the county court of London. The testators were primarily wealthy artisans and merchants, since one needed to possess a substantial amount of property in order to register the details of the division of that property. -
Medieval Astrology and The Buke of the Sevyne Sagis
Posted on April 20, 2013 | No CommentsIt is useful to begin by comparing the way the sages are initially described to the Emperor in the Latin, Middle English, and Middle Scots texts. Although the Middle Scots text is not connected to the English ones, they serve as a useful backdrop to illustrate the singular nature of the Scottish version of the story. -
Kongo Ambassadors, Papal Politics, and Italian Images of Black Africans in the Early 1600s
Posted on April 17, 2013 | No CommentsWhile the political and economic power of Italian states was declining in the Seventeenth Century, Italy’s cultural authority remained influential, especially in the visual arts and, of course, religion, even though Europe had been split into faith-based fragments by the Protestant Reformation after 1517. -
The Symbolic Meaning of Sword and Palio in Late Medieval and Early Modern Ritual Entries: The Case of Seville
Posted on April 16, 2013 | No CommentsIf I have spend some time establishing the semantic field in which these terms appear, it is because I wish to emphasize the malleability of concepts such as symbols and rituals, particularly when applied to the articulation of powers Moreover, these meanings and intents depend often on the context, temporal and geographical location. -
Climate in Medieval Ireland: AD 500-1600
Posted on April 14, 2013 | No CommentsThe aim of the dissertation is to reconstruct climate in Medieval Ireland using documentary and dendrochronological proxy data from Ireland and Northern Europe. -
![It has indeed been confidently asserted that [Richard the 3d] killed his two Nephews & his Wife, but it has also been declared that he did not kill his two Nephews.](http://www.medievalists.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Princes-115x115.jpg "The Enduring Appeal of Richard III")
The Enduring Appeal of Richard III
Posted on April 14, 2013 | No CommentsIt has indeed been confidently asserted that [Richard the 3d] killed his two Nephews & his Wife, but it has also been declared that he did not kill his two Nephews. -
From Marvels of Nature to Inmates of Asylums: Imaginations of Natural Folly
Posted on April 1, 2013 | No CommentsEven human beings were collected when their physical or mental state did not fit the norms of men. According to an inventory in 1621, the portrait gallery of Ambras showed pictures of people who were perceived as giants, dwarfs, or so-called hirsute men. -
Corpus Christi Plays and the Stations of the Cross: Medieval York and Modern Sydney
Posted on April 1, 2013 | No CommentsThe earliest surviving reference to the Corpus Christi festival in York is dated 1322, when Archbishop William Melton commended it as „the glorious feast of the most precious sacrament of the flesh and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ‟. In 1408 the York Guild of Corpus Christi was established „as a confraternity of chaplains and lay persons, with the encouragement of the city government, probably to form the focus of the civic Corpus Christi Day procession‟. -
The Virgin Mary in High Medieval England, A Divinely Malleable Woman: Virgin, Intercessor, Protector, Mother, Role Model
Posted on March 31, 2013 | No CommentsThis thesis examines the significance of the Virgin Mary in England between the late fifteenth century and early sixteenth century. The primary sources selected indicate the variety of ideas circulating about her during this period. Strictly religious texts such as the Bible and early Christian writings ground Late Medieval beliefs about Mary in their historical context. -
“Vir sapiens dominabitur astris”. Astrological knowledge and practices in the Portuguese medieval court (King João I to King Afonso V)
Posted on March 10, 2013 | No CommentsOffers a brief explanation on the foundations of medieval astrology. Astrology reveals itself as a complex body of knowledge, with specific rules and methods. Its principles were based on the natural movement of the celestial bodies: the rising and setting of the Sun, the sequence of the seasons, the phases of the Moon. -
The vegetarian component of a late medieval diet
Posted on March 10, 2013 | No CommentsTrondheim was the seat of an archbishop and the centre of the see of Nidaros from 1152/53 until 1537 when the reformation reached Norway and the last Norwegian archbishop, Olav Engelbrektsson, fled the country. This marked a turning point in the town’s history. The arch- bishop’s residence, Erkebispegården, which was established around AD 1170 between the cathedral and the river Nidelva. -
Myths and mandrakes
Posted on March 4, 2013 | No CommentsOthers, however, began to wonder whether the possession of roots might not bring them success in other areas as well—wealth, popularity, or the power to control their own and other people's destinies, and took to wearing them as good luck charms. -
The Welsh Female Saint: Patterns within a Social Framework
Posted on March 2, 2013 | No CommentsHistoria Divae Monacellae, the Latin Life of Melangell is also comparatively late in composition, with the earliest manuscript being from the 16th century, but possibly drawing on earlier written sources.3 When we look at the availability of written texts relating to male saints the difference in source material is immediately evident. -
Animals on Trial
Posted on February 24, 2013 | No CommentsThe history of animals in the legal system sketched by Evans is rich and resonant; it provokes profound questions about the evolution of jurisprudential procedure, social and religious organization and notions of culpability and punishment, and funda-mental philosophical questions regarding the place of man within the natural order. -
Kings and Courtesans: A Study of the Pictorial Representation of French Royal Mistresses
Posted on February 24, 2013 | No CommentsAs France emerged from the Middle Ages, the monarchy began to establish itself as a more stable institution and a curious development took place: the French kings began to install official mistresses at court. With this official status these women became parallel members of the royal family. They lived like queens, with various estates granted to them by the kings. -
The Poisoned Image of the Borgias: A Look at the Public Image of Pope Alexander VI and His Children
Posted on February 18, 2013 | No CommentsUpon Rodrigo Borgia’s ascension to the papacy in 1492 and assumption of the name Alexander VI, the masses of Rome who watched his parade and celebration with hopeful eyes welcomed him eagerly, despite his wild ways and indiscretions as a cardinal. -
The Progression of the Fork: From Diabolical to Divine
Posted on February 10, 2013 | No CommentsThis paper is about 'Design and the Tools of the Table, 1500–2005' curated as part of the Cooper Hewitt exhibit on utensils. -
Sir John Fortescue and the French Polemical Treatises of the Hundred Years War
Posted on February 10, 2013 | No CommentsInevitably Fortescue had to adopt new arguments for the defence of Henry VI. To this end he asserted that the Lancastrians now had a just title through divine and ecclesiastical approbation, popular consent and prescription, but the core of his case was a direct response to the Yorkist claim that they had a superior hereditary title to the throne. -
Solem a Tergo Reliquit: The Troublesome Battle of Bosworth Field
Posted on February 10, 2013 | No CommentsThe first major point upon which we disagree concerns the nature of existing evidence about the Battle. Richardson points to a number of sources, but the central problem here is that, with one ex- ception, they are not contemporary with the Battle itself. -
The Eternity of the World and Renaissance Historical Thought
Posted on January 27, 2013 | No CommentsMedieval and Renaissance controversies over the Aristotelian doctrine of “the eternity of the world” have hitherto been treated as disputes restricted to natural philosophers and theologians. -
Scottish saints cults and pilgrimage from the Black Death to the Reformation, c.1349-1560
Posted on January 15, 2013 | No CommentsThis thesis will question this premise and provide the first indepth study of the cults of St Andrew, Columba of Iona/Dunkeld, Kentigern of Glasgow and Ninian of Whithorn in a late medieval Scottish context, as well as the lesser known northern saint, Duthac of Tain. -
Graciosi: Medieval and Early Modern Attitudes to Disability
Posted on January 13, 2013 | No CommentsJesus' ability to heal involves his willingness to 'take on' the ills of humanity. The source of mental illness is the devil, and Jesus' healing activities include exorcisms. -
Excavating All Saints: a medieval church rediscovered
Posted on January 1, 2013 | No CommentsWhen excavations started at the site of the ‘lost’ church of All Saint’s in York, archaeologists knew they would find burials. What they found was much more than expected: an Anchoress and the remains of soldiers who helped Oliver Cromwell take the city at the Siege of York in 1644. Lauren McIntyre and Graham Bruce explain the evidence. -
The Impact of Climate Change on Late Medieval English Culture
Posted on December 28, 2012 | No CommentsThis thesis challenges the extremes of both environmental determinism and the modernist perspective that humanity exists in social and/or cultural isolation from the natural environment.
