I would like to consider issues of the material texts, literacy and the status of the written word in Ottonian Germany, as they coalesce at the site of deluxe liturgical manuscripts.
BOOK REVIEW: A King’s Ransom – Sharon Kay Penman
March 23, 2014 By
A King’s Ransom is the follow up to Lionheart and tells the story of King Richard I’s imprisonment in Germany at the hands of Duke Leopold of Austria and Emperor Heinrich VI and of his battle to win back his Kingdom from his rapacious brother John.
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.
Guelph Treasure should remain in Germany, commission rules
March 22, 2014 By
An advisory commission in Germany has ruled that the Guelph Treasure should remain in a Berlin museum and not be returned to the heirs of the Jewish owners who sold the medieval artefacts to the Nazi state in the 1930s.
Cheating and Cheaters in German Romance and Epic, 1180-1225
March 3, 2014 By
Both Reinhart and Amis, whatever their motivations, work evil everywhere they go; and yet the audience is expected to treat them as sympathetic characters.
Writing conquest: traditions of Anglo-Saxon invasion and resistance in the twelfth century
March 2, 2014 By
Writing Conquest examines the ways in which Latin, Old English, and Middle English twelfth-century historical and pseudo-historical texts remembered and reconstructed three formative moments of Anglo-Saxon invasion and resistance…
Medieval studies as a state-supporting power: basic problems of German medieval studies in the German Empire until the Republic of Weimar
February 17, 2014 By
The following paper is meant as a contribution to the mentioned critical description of German medieval studies, by referring to the history of historiography.
Natural conditions in the Carpathian Basin of the middle ages
February 13, 2014 By
The analysis of natural conditions is a new field in Hungarian medieval research. This field could only come into existence with the spread of new sources of research, and with the need of drawing the most realistic picture of medieval living conditions with the help of more – previously ignored – data and facts. This field of research may have a special meaning as according to sources of the age, the Carpathian Basin was one of the natural Paradises of Medieval Europe.
Vessels of Passage: Reading the Ritual of the Late-Medieval Ship of Fools
February 13, 2014 By
My paper explores the late-medieval image of the ship of fools. The metaphor originates in the fifteenth-century carnivals of Europe and was depicted in Sebastian Brant’s 1494 compilation, Das Narrenschiff. The paper explores the underlying dynamic of the imagery and its origins in carnivalesque rituals as well as how the motif was exploited by Brant, becoming a literary force at the turn of the sixteenth century.
Maurice, Son of Theodoric: Welsh Kings and the Mediterranean World AD 550-650
February 8, 2014 By
Among the many petty rulers of early medieval Wales was a king whose name can be rendered Maurice, son of Theodoric.
Pruning Peasants: Private War and Maintaining the Lords’ Peace in Late Medieval Germany
February 3, 2014 By
‘Peasants are best when they grieve, and worst when they rejoice.’
Was Charlemagne a Mass Murderer?
February 2, 2014 By
Did the ‘Massacre of Verden’ actually happen with 4500 people dying in a single day? Was Charlemagne justified in his actions?
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.
Elisabeth of Schönau: Visions and Female Intellectual Culture of the High Middle Ages
January 27, 2014 By
Elisabeth of Schönau (1128/29-1164/65) was a Rhineland Benedictine who wrote numerous visionary texts. These works addressed local problems in the cloister and community, reform within the Church, and theological questions.
Printing with gold in the fifteenth century
January 17, 2014 By
Gold printing in the fifteenth century is very rare. There are only two printers who are known to have applied this technique. One of them was Erhard Ratdolt who first used gold for printing a gloriously spectacular full page of dedication in a number of copies of his editio princeps of Euclid.
Who should own this medieval treasure?
January 16, 2014 By
The ownership of a collection of medieval treasures worth an estimated $250 million (US) will soon be decided. They will either remain with with a German museum or go to a group of descendants of Jewish art dealers who sold the collection in 1935.
Reconsidering Agatha, Wife of Eadward the Exile
January 11, 2014 By
The antecedents of Agatha, wife of Eadward the Exile and ancestress of Scottish and English monarchs since the twelfth century and their countless descendants in Europe and America, have been the subject of much dispute…
Parzival, the perfect Medieval hero?
January 11, 2014 By
When we now think of knights, we automatically think of knights in shining armours, saving damsels in distress while killing dragons and other mythical creatures. But is this image we have of these heroes correct? Was the Medieval hero really just a tough guy who saved beautiful ladies and killed the ´bad guys´. In this paper I will try to give a standard description of what a Medieval hero really was. After which I will try to determine if Parzival really was a medieval hero, compared to the standards that I have tried to set.
Cheating and Cheaters in German Romance and Epic, 1180 – 1225
December 31, 2013 By
An Alsatian poet named Heinrich, writing around 1180, composed a beast epic, based on French sources, about a trickster fox named Reinhart. Some sixty years later, a poet known to us only as Der Stricker composed a work of similar length and structure, about a trickster priest named Amis, and his diligent efforts to cheat various anonymous individuals out of their money.
The Early German Settlement of North Eastern Moravia: and What the Pied Piper of Hamelin Had to Do with It
December 29, 2013 By
Long ago, primordial forests, dark and impenetrable, surrounded the mountainous frontier, which today separates northeastern Bohemia from large parts of northern Moravia in the Czech Republic. This area was situated north of the sparsely populated flatlands of the March (Morava) River. The stillness of the forests remained largely undisturbed by man.
Merovingian and Carolingian Empires: An Analysis of Their Strengths and Weaknesses
December 26, 2013 By
In this research paper I will analyze the achievements and the destruction of the Merovingian Empire to demonstrate how both provide a basic structure of government for the Carolingians to adopt.
Kings and sons: princely rebellions and the structures of revolt in western Europe, c.1170–c.1280
December 22, 2013 By
The 1173 revolt was, in fact, representative of a phenomenon in evidence across the medieval West: that of an uprising led not by disgruntled lords, but by a ruler’s chosen heir.
Sal ich von den Ioden liten große pin? – Integration and Isolation in the Medieval German Christmas Play
December 20, 2013 By
I would like to start with two responses to the performance of Christmas plays that provide some insight into their effect on the socialization of the Christian communities in which they were performed.
Brewing, Politics and Society in an Early Modern German Town – a case study of Görlitz in Upper Lusatia
December 16, 2013 By
In the Middle Ages, the Upper-Lusatian town of Görlitz – today situated on Germany’s Eastern periphery close to the Polish border – was at the heart of a wider European trading network.
New Insights from the Metal Detected Brooches of Early Medieval Frisia
December 5, 2013 By
My research undertook the bulk analysis of over 600 copper alloy brooches by hhXRF and onsite morphological analysis at repositories in the north of Holland.
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