My interview with fiction author, SD Sykes about her fantastic medieval crime novel, Plague Land.
The Floating State: Trade Embargoes and the Rise of a New Venetian State
October 1, 2014 By
This paper was given by Georg Christ and examined embargoes and state formation in the late medieval and early modern period in Venice.
Rose without Thorn, Eagle without Feathers: Nation and Power in Late Medieval England and Germany
September 28, 2014 By
It is hard at times to take the Agincourt Carol entirely seriously. Patriotism of such brash exuberance seems more properly to belong in a brightly lit Laurence Olivier world of mid twentieth-century medievalism than amid the grim and tangled realities of fifteenth- century politics and war.
‘Shame on him who allows them to live’: The Jacquerie of 1358
September 26, 2014 By
In the eyes of the chroniclers, the Jacquerie of 1358 was the most important peasant revolt in late medieval France.
A First Escape from Poverty in Late Medieval Japan: Evidence from Real Wages in Kyoto (1360-1860)
September 26, 2014 By
This paper offers a first investigation of long-term trends in Japanese living standards from the mid-14th to the mid-19th century using urban daily wages and price data for a number of basic commodities.
Imperial Memory and the Charles Bridge: Establishing Royal Ceremony for Future Kings
September 26, 2014 By
The History behind the Charles Bridge Built during the reigns of Charles IV (1346-1378) and his son, Wenceslas IV (1363-1419), the Charles Bridge crosses the river Vltava in Prague, joining the Old Town on its eastern side, the commercial hub of the city, and the Hradčany and Malá Strana on the west, where the castle and cathedral are located
Odorico from Pordenone and his encounter with China (1318-1330)
September 18, 2014 By
Odorico from Pordenone was a Franciscan Friar, who made a journey from Venice to Peking in the first half of the fourteenth century
Marjorie Bruce, Princess of Scotland and mother of the Stewart dynasty of Kings of Scots
September 18, 2014 By
Marjorie Bruce, Princess of Scotland, was the only child of the first marriage of King Robert I the Bruce with Isabella of Mar. Marjorie would suffer greatly through the Scottish Wars of Independence, surviving to marry and become the mother of the child who would go on to found the Stewart dynasty of Kings.
The Second Scottish War of Independence, 1332-41: a national war?
September 13, 2014 By
While there is no doubt that the second war began in 1332 there is more uncertainty as to when it ended. Unlike the first war, there was no peace treaty between Scotland and England bringing the armed conflict to an end.
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.
Characteristics of Medieval Artillery in the Light of Written Sources from Bohemia and Poland
September 8, 2014 By
Artillery appears in Central Europe at the end of the 14th c. and it starts playing a more significant role only in the next century.
Banditry and the Clash of Powers in 14th-Century Thrace: Momcilo and his Fragmented Memory
September 7, 2014 By
In the 14th century, a time of civil wars, religious and dynastic strifes, epidemics, natural disasters and miserable living conditions for the wider strata in the cities and the countryside that increased migratory movements, banditry, an indigenous phenomenon in the Balkan mountainous regions, intermingled with the intensified political struggles.
The Friars Preachers: The First Hundred Years of the Dominican Order
September 7, 2014 By
When Dominic of Caleruega began preaching in southern France in the early 1200s, he would have had no idea of the far reaching influence that the band of men he would attract would leave such a broad and enduring influence on medieval history.
Fast and Feast – Christianization through the Regulation of Everyday Life
September 7, 2014 By
This article will illustrate that an important part of rulers’ wish to create a Christian society was the introduction of Christian legislation.
BOOK REVIEW: Plague Land by SD Sykes
September 4, 2014 By
My review of SD Sykes brilliant medieval thriller, Plague Land.
Guilt and Creativity in the Works of Geoffrey Chaucer
September 2, 2014 By
I argue that as Chaucer develops his own expansive, questioning poetics in The House of Fame and The Canterbury Tales, he problematises the principle of allegory on which the legitimacy of literary discourse was primarily based in medieval culture and the final fragments of The Canterbury Tales see Chaucer struggling, increasingly, to reconcile the boldness and independence of his poetic vision with the demands of his faith.
The Journey of Charles I, King of Hungary, from Visegrád to Naples (1333): Its Political Implications and Artistic Consequences
September 1, 2014 By
The aim of this article is to reconstruct the journey of Charles I, King of Hungary (1310– 1342), from Visegrád to Naples in the year 1333.
Manor Village and Individual in Medieval England
August 25, 2014 By
This thesis explores peasant life of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in England from information found in the manorial court rolls-the village court records–of Ramsey Hepman grove and Bury.
A Mongol Princess Making hajj: The Biography of El Qutlugh Daughter of Abagha Ilkhan (r. 1265–82)
August 22, 2014 By
his study examines in detail the biographical entry of an Ilkhanid (the Mongol state centred in Iran) princess, El Qutlugh Khatun daughter of Abagha Ilkhan (r. 1265–82), in the biographical dictionaries of the Mamluk author Khalil b. Aybeg al-Safadi (d. 1363)
Emotions and Cognitions : Fourteenth-Century Discussions on the Passions of the Soul
August 22, 2014 By
Medieval philosophers clearly recognized that emotions are not simply “raw feelings” but complex mental states that include cognitive components. They analyzed these components both on the sensory and on the intellectual level, paying particular attention to the different types of cognition that are involved.
Castle Building and Its Social Significance in Medieval Hungary
August 22, 2014 By
The history of Hungarian fortification and castle-building has been a subject of Hungarian historiography ever since the 1870s, when Bela Czobor wrote his pioneering study, “Hungary’s Medieval Castles.”
Women’s Devotional Bequests of Textiles in the Late Medieval English Parish Church, c.1350-1550
August 18, 2014 By
My investigation is set within the context of the current high level of interest in the workings of the late medieval parish.
Medieval Misogyny and Gawain’s Outburst against Women in “‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’
August 12, 2014 By
The view has been gaining ground of late that the Gawain of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a knight renowned as ‘Pat fyne fader of nurture’ (1. 919) and as ‘so cortays and coynt’ of his ‘hetes’ (1. I525), degenerates at the moment of leave-taking from the Green Knight, his erstwhile host, to the level of a churl capable of abusing the ladies of that knight’s household (11.2411 -28).
The cultural identity of medieval Silesia: the case of art and architecture
August 11, 2014 By
The cultural identity of architecture and visual arts of the Middle Ages in Silesia can be analyzed in the following frameworks: 1.) the distinct formal features of local artwork; 2.) the specific content expressed through it. Macro factors (the type of materials and their availability) are important in architecture, as are architectural patterns and styles.
The Physicality of Service in German Ideas of Knighthood, c.1200-1500
August 6, 2014 By
Jörg’s memoir is a particularly informative example of how one knight understood his own calling to knighthood and his practice of it. The medieval knight had a voice, and although precious few memoirs like Jörg’s exist, knightly perspectives inform a considerable breadth of primary materials.
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