Where the Middle Ages Begin
Prostitution was a vice that was was considered a necessary evil because of “men’s lust”. Ecclesiastics felt that if brothels weren’t available to men in cities, they would find other inappropriate outlets for their entertainment. In an effort to curb potential problems, civic officials permitted prostitution to function within the city walls so long as it was regulated and turned a profit.
Magna Carta just celebrated its 800th birthday this past Monday. In honour of this incredible milestone, King’s College London, and the Magna Carta Project, hosted a 3 day conference dedicated to this historic document.
The 3 papers featured here looked at the development of the civic identities of Florence, Genoa and Rome through art, architecture and foundation legends.
Three fantastic papers on Prosopography from #KZOO2015.
The literature of war in English claims its origin from the Homeric epics, and the medieval accounts of chivalry and the crusades.
The literature of the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, a miscellany of fourteenth-century poetry and prose penned before, during, and after the insurrection, often stresses the importance of literacy to the nonaristocratic population of England.
In the late middle ages, the Imperial free city of Metz is firmly in the hands of the patricians: they control its entire government through associations called paraiges – and as the wealth of the city has been relying heavily on their rural possessions since the decline of the commercial role of the city, their leadership is not seriously at risk.
The curious phrase lit de justice originated in the fourteenth century and by the first decade of the fifteenth century designated particularly important royal sessions of the Parlement of Paris.
During the second half of the fourteenth century English traders first seriously threatened the Hanseatic League’s commercial monopoly in the Baltic. The League, attempting to defendits monopoly, treated the English unjustly,where upon in 1377 the English Parliament rescinded the charter that granted the League important concessions and privileges in its English trade.
When Louis VI ascended to the throne in 1108 AD, he faced substantial challenges as the fifth monarch of the Capetian dynasty; he confronted the problem of stopping the general decline of the monarchy and achieved this in a way that reasserted the foundations of the crown as the sole dominant figure in the royal domain and a respected lord throughout the kingdom.
My interpretation of Machiavelli’s use of Borgia highlights the biblical resonances of Machiavelli’s account of the rise and fall of this exemplary new prince—a prince whom both his subjects and the Florentine himself call by the exalted title “Duke Valentino.”
This paper examines Marseillaise notarial documents of 1248 from the cartulary of Girauld Amalric. Amalric’s cartulary demonstrates how notarial techniques and related legal conventions facilitated Marseille’s long- and short-distance trade.
Between the second half of the thirteenth century and the first half of the fifteenth, central and northern Italian city-states frequently suffered moments of disruption of the social peace because of factional battles.
This paper investigates the relationship between the historical process of legal centralization and increased religious toleration by the state. We develop a model in which legal centralization leads to the criminalization of the religious beliefs of a large proportion of the population.
This thesis examines government administrative action that can be described as ‘management’, in the context of the logistics of mobilizing royal armies during the reigns of Edward I, Edward II and Edward III.
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.
In 1266, five English bishops were suspended from office for supporting Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester, in rebellion against King Henry III.
Legal Competition in the Medieval World Aaron L. Bodoh-Creed (Cornell University) Cornell University: Working Paper, June 30 (2009) Abstract We develop a model of competition between legal systems with overlapping jurisdictions based on Hotelling competition that suggests that, absent institutional reform, courts with overlapping jurisdictions will be driven to adopt divergent legal doctrines in order to extract […]
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 […]
I will then move to sketch the social profile of female inmates, mainly drawing on the records of Le Stinche, the Florentine municipal prison, during its first century of activity, circa 1300–1400.
Machiavelli: Theories on Liberty, Religion, and The Original Constitution Erin Bos Oklahoma Christian University Journal of Historical Studies, Tau Sigma Journal of Historical Studies: Vol.21 (2013) Abstract Machiavellian qualities are often described as conniving or corrupt. Niccolò Machiavelli coined the idea of power-hungry, unremorseful princes in his book, The Prince. However, Machiavelli’s true political theory can […]
I shall suggest here that we should abandon this assumed correlation, and that once we have done so, a very different picture of Charlemagne’s itinerary between 768 and 814, and consequently of his government, emerges.
Henry travelled extensively, became famed throughout Christendom as a champion jouster, crusaded in Eastern Europe, and looked after his father’s holdings whilst John of Gaunt campaigned in Spain.3 It is impossible not to note that Henry Bolingbroke’s popularity continued to increase while Richard II’s declined.
How did Europe move from a medieval system characterised by several overlapping territorial strategies, to one dominated by a single, territorially exclusive model of rule?
The Ilkhanid’s sovereignty in Iran was part of the great empire under the command of Genghis Khan and his successors. It extended broadly from Korea to Eastern Europe and China to Iran and Syria. Such conquest originated from Mongolia (Middle Asia), which was the original land of these homeless nomadic people. They lived by shepherding, hunting and sometimes looting nearby tribes or civilized centers.
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