The Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh is considered one of the most important sources about the Battle of Clontarf in 1014. However, new research is suggesting the tale is based more on the Trojan War than on historical sources.
Trinity College Dublin marks anniversary of Battle of Clontarf with conference and exhibition
April 10, 2014 By
This year marks the 1000th anniversary of the Battle of Clontarf, one of the most important events in Irish history.
Mass Pilgrimage and the Christological Context of the First Crusade
April 6, 2014 By
The importance of Jerusalem as a holy city for Christians serves as a starting point for understanding the motivations of eleventh-century pilgrims.
Lords Of The North Sea: A Comparative Study Of Aristocratic Territory In The North Sea World In The Tenth And Eleventh Centuries
April 5, 2014 By
The paper is a comparative study on the aristocrats of eastern England, eastern Normandy, western Flanders and central Norway.
Auðun of the West Fjords and the Saga Tradition: Similarities of Theme and Structural Suitability
April 5, 2014 By
This paper evaluates the story of Auðun from the West Fjords, a þáttr dating from the Sturlunga period of medieval Iceland. It compares the short prose narrative to the much longer sagas in terms of their mutual concerns with kings, peace, and the place of Iceland in a larger Christian world.
Spiritual ‘encyclopedias’ in eleventh-century Byzantium?
March 31, 2014 By
The theoretical debate concerning what constitutes an ‘encyclopedia’ in the Byzantine context appears to be not only underdeveloped, but also carried out in a vacuum with respect to the Latin medieval counterpart (and vice-versa).
Living stones : the practice of remembrance at Lincoln Cathedral, (1092-1235)
March 29, 2014 By
This thesis analyses four different aspects of devotional life at one of England’s largest and wealthiest medieval cathedrals between the years 1092 and 1235.
Unpleasant Affairs That Please Us: Admonition and Rebuke in the Letter Collections of the Archbishops of Canterbury, 11th and 12th Centuries
March 23, 2014 By
From the Norman Conquest in 1066 up to the famous “murder in the cathedral”2 in 1170, six archbishops of Canterbury ruled over the English church…
Herb-workers and Heretics: Beguines, Bakhtin and the Basques
March 22, 2014 By
During the Middle Ages and early Renaissance, the word beguine was used by women to identify themselves as members of a wide-spread and influential women’s movement. The same term was used by their detractors and overt opponents, with the highly charged negative meaning of “heretic.” The etymology of the term “beguine” and ultimate origins of the movement have never been satisfactorily explained.
Bernard of Clairvaux’s Writings on Violence and the Sacred
March 18, 2014 By
Monk, exegete, political actor and reformer, Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) was not just a man of his times; he was a man who shaped his times.
Clontarf in the Wider World
March 15, 2014 By
While a lively debate has continued for decades between Irish historians concerning the impact of the battle, Clontarf’s place in a wider field of European events has received less attention.
Harold Godwinson’s Posthumous Reputation, 1066-c.1160
March 15, 2014 By
This text will show in which ways Harold’s posthumous reputation was constructed to cement the Norman claim to legitimacy and how this legacy lasted well beyond William the Conqueror’s death.
The Normans are an Unconquerable People: Orderic Vitalis’s Memory of the Anglo-Norman Regnum during the Reigns of William Rufus and Henry I, 1087-1106
March 1, 2014 By
This essay examines Orderic’s portrayal of the three sons of William the Conqueror, as well as one member of the Anglo-Norman high aristocracy, in an effort to understand how and why his Historia Ecclesiastica recreates the nineteen-year period between the death of William the Conqueror and the ascension of Henry I as an age of violence, poor lordship, and ambiguous gender roles.
The “Discrete Occupational Identity” of Chaucer’s Knyght
February 22, 2014 By
Popular critical opinion favors reading the pilgrim Knyght of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales as the representative of the idealized chivalric knight; however, the pilgrim Knyght bears the hallmark of the early professional soldier that began to evolve as early as the eleventh century.
The Military Use of the Icon of the Theotokos and its Moral Logic in the Historians of the Ninth-Twelfth Centuries
February 15, 2014 By
Starting at least by the late tenth century, Byzantine emperors took icons of the Mother of God with them on campaign. This article examines the appearance of such icons in the narratives of historical texts.
Resonance and the Photographing of Medieval Architecture
February 9, 2014 By
In this essay I aim to convey in text and photographs what it might mean to experience medieval architecture with some degree of connectivity or what Wittgenstein calls, poetically, “resonance.”
Holy War and the home front : the crusading culture of Berry, France in the eleventh through thirteenth centuries
February 8, 2014 By
Le Berry, in the geographical centre of France, developed its own “crusading culture” that both affected the ideas of the people living there and effected new institutions and traditions in that society pertaining to the crusades.
In Search of the Secrets of Medieval Organs
February 3, 2014 By
On Friday and Saturday, June 9 and 10, 2012, a concert and workshop focusing on the medieval organ were held at the Basel (Switzerland) Peterskirche. They dealt with concepts, designs, rep- ertoire and the medieval organ used in ensemble.
Runic and Latin Written Culture: Co-Existence and Interaction of Two Script Cultures in the Norwegian Middle Ages
February 1, 2014 By
Runic and Latin Written Culture: Co-Existence and Interaction of Two Script Cultures in the Norwegian Middle Ages Stephanie Elisabeth Baur: zur Erlangung des Grades Magistra Artium im Fachbereich Nordische Philologie Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen: Deutsches Seminar Abteilung für Skandinavistik, Magisterarbeit, 14. Juni (2011) Abstract When Latin writing finally reached Scandinavia sometime in the 11th century, it was […]
Advocating change: monasteries, territories and justice between East and West Francia, 11th-12th centuries
February 1, 2014 By
This article looks at the question of the formation of territorial principalities in western Europe through the issue of ecclesiastical advocacy.
Sealed with the cross: protecting the body in Anglo-Saxon England
January 31, 2014 By
This inscription heads a miniature of the crucifixion in Ælfwine’s prayerbook (Fig. 6.1), a small book made somewhere between 1023 and 1031 for Ælfwine, monk and then dean (later abbot) of the New Minster, Winchester.
‘Part of our commonwealth’: a study of the Normans in eleventh-century Byzantine historiography
January 29, 2014 By
‘Part of our commonwealth’: a study of the Normans in eleventh-century Byzantine historiography Alexander Olson (Simon Fraser University) Simon Fraser University: Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Master of Arts (2009) Abstract In the eleventh century several Norman mercenaries went to Byzantium where they alternately served or rebelled against the Empire. This thesis examines how […]
Following in the footsteps of Christ: text and context in the Vita Mildrethae
January 23, 2014 By
Goscelin was the most celebrated hagiographer of his generation, whose prolificacy in writing the ‘lives of countless saints’.
Women, Gender and Lordship in France, c.1050–1250
January 22, 2014 By
Arguing that scholars should follow methods of analysis developed by historians of women in the early Middle Ages and must confront problems in the so-called ‘Duby thesis’, this article shows how anachronistic analytical categories and insufficient source criticism have masked our appreciation of the extensive political activities of non-royal aristocratic women in France during the eleventh to thirteenth centuries.
An abbot between two cultures: Maiolus of Cluny considers the Muslims of La Garde-Freinet
January 22, 2014 By
In July 972, Muslim raiders from the citadel of Fraxinetum (modern La Garde-Freinet) abducted Abbot Maiolus of Cluny and his entourage as they crossed the Great Saint Bernard Pass ( Mons Iovis ) in the western Alps.
How you can Follow Us!