VIDEO: Female Sufis in the Medieval Period
Dr. Lloyd Ridgeon talks about the role of Sufi women in the medieval period. Ridgeone examines positive and negative portrayals of Sufi women in a wide range of texts.
Creating a crusader saint: Canute Lavard and others of that ilk
In the Middle Ages, saints were invoked before great, decisive battles, they sometimes participated directly themselves, and they did so more and more often after the eleventh and especially the twelfth century.
The Seafarers’ Saint: Medieval Representations of St Nicholas in the North Sea Area
The cult of St Nicholas was spread in Scandinavia in the last decades of the 11th and the first decades of the 12th centuries. Because the medieval cult of saints was not limited to the liturgy of the saints themselves, but was a wider social phenomenon.
Robot Saints in the Middle Ages
While it’s easy to think of the Middle Ages as a backward time in which everyone struggled with the most basic things, medieval people were no strangers to some pretty cool technology, including robots.
The ‘Miracle of Childbirth’: The Portrayal of Parturient Women in Medieval Miracle Narratives
This paper explores how tales of difficult births found in medieval miracle narratives can contribute to our understanding of the experience of pregnancy and childbirth in twelfth-century England.
How Many Medieval Saints Are There?
Even a quick glance at medieval history will reveal that there are A LOT of saints from the Middle Ages. How many are there? The short answer is that we don’t know exactly, and that the number is still growing.
Kissing Heaven’s Door: the Medieval Legend of Judas Iscariot
When we consider Judas Iscariot as he appears in the Bible in modern terms, we might think along the lines of a pantomime villain.
Miracles from Medieval Iceland
The first saint from Iceland was Thorlak Thorhallsson. The saga of his life reveals dozens of the miracles that were attributed to him after his death. Here are ten of these miracles, which reveal much about religion and daily life in medieval Iceland.
Imprisoning the Mentally Ill in Medieval England
What to do with mentally ill individuals who are violent? This is a question that modern and medieval societies had to deal with.
Cuthbert, Guthlac and the Life of St Antony
Christians far from Egypt have drawn inspiration from the Life of St Antony, including England’s two most popular pre-Conquest hermit saints
Parental Grief and Prayer in the Middle Ages: Religious Coping in Swedish Miracle Stories
This article focuses on expressions of bereavement and religious coping in medieval miracle stories from Sweden.
Holy and Unholy Miracle Workers
Examining the miracles of Byzantine saints
Katherine of Alexandria: Decline of an Empire
According to hagiographers, (C)Katherine was a princess, the daughter of Roman governor named Constus. She was well educated, beautiful and highly intelligent. She converted to Christianity at the age of 13 or 14 and caught the eye of the Roman Emperor, Maxentius (278-318 AD).
Top Ten Superheroes of the Middle Ages
Even in medieval times they had stories and legends about people with extraordinary gifts – saints and warriors with special powers. Here is our list of ten superheroes from the Middle Ages.
10 Cool Facts about Saint Catherine
Saint Catherine of Alexandria and her wheel have been well recognized symbols since the beginning of the Middle Ages. Here are 10 interesting tidbits about Saint Catherine:
Christians in the amphitheater? The ‘Christianization’ of spectacle buildings and martyrial memory
This article presents an overview of the archaeological evidence for Christian spaces inside spectacle buildings – stadia, hippodromes, theaters and amphitheaters.
The Medieval Saints of Sweden and Denmark
There is a clear link between the celebration of native saints and the ecclesiastical organisation that emerged in Scandinavia in the 12th century. Yet, according to a new doctoral thesis in history from the University of Gothenburg, important differences can be noted between Sweden and Denmark.
Which Irish Saint Are You?
Brendan, Columba, Patrick – find out which Irish Saint you are most like!
The Life of St. Sabas the Younger as a Source for The History of the Catalan Grand Company
A piece of Byzantine hagiography from the fourteenth century which, in spite of its religious character, is a valuable source for the history of the Catalan Grand Company, Roger de Flor’s famous band of Spanish mercenaries hired by the Byzantine emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos (1282-1328) to fight the Turks in Anatolia.
A Viking Pacifist? The Life of St Magnus in Saga, Novel, and Opera
Vikings settled in, and ruled, many parts of the British Isles and Ireland, but of these areas only the Norse earldom of Orkney has a whole Icelandic saga devoted to its early history.
A Hagiographical Reading of Egils saga
When the literary presentation of the character of Egill is examined carefully with an eye toward the hagiographical paradigm, one can see that it matches the presentation of a bishop’s life and character…
The Original Placement of the Hereford Map
This paper relies on new masonry and dendrochronological evidence and the system of medieval ecclesiastical preferments to argue that this monumental world map was originally exhibited in 1287 next to the first shrine of St Thomas Cantilupe in Hereford Cathedral’s north transept.
Shaping a Saint’s Identity: The Imagery of Thomas Becket in Medieval Italy
This article sets out to trace the visual responses to the sainthood of Thomas of Canterbury outside of his original cultural context, namely in Italy, where his cult was readily received, integrated and modified.
From St. Nicholas to Santa Claus
How did a 4th century bishop become the jolly man who comes down the chimney with gifts for children on Christmas?
Worthy of Veneration or Skepticism?: How Europeans Regarded Relics During Medieval and Renaissance Europe
Relics and reliquaries were prevalent in renaissance and reformation Europe until certain theologians began to question the validity, practicality, and true purposes of relics. These theologians emphasized an individual’s faith in God rather than faith in relics, which in turn resulted in a renaissance movement away from reliance on relics.