Late Middle Ages Archive
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Thomas Bradwardine: Forgotten Medieval Augustinian
Posted on May 20, 2012 | No CommentsIn spite of this dearth of scholarly publications on Bradwardine, he deserves serious consideration. From a church historical perspective, he represents a resurgence of a relatively pure Augustinianism in the late Middle Ages. -
The cost of enclosure and the benefits of convertible husbandry among peasant holdings in medieval England
Posted on May 20, 2012 | No CommentsThe present paper will attempt to address these issues and outline the attitudes of the peasantry in regard to the potential of enclosing land and adopting convertible husbandry. -
The Court of Beast and Bough: Contesting the Medieval English Forest in the Early Robin Hood Ballads
Posted on May 6, 2012 | No CommentsThe medieval English forest has long been a space of contested legal meanings. After King William I first created the 75,000-acre New Forest, the English monarchy sought to define the vert, both legally and ideologically, as a multiplicity of sites in which the king’s rights were vigorously enforced. -
Robin Hood Comes of Age
Posted on May 6, 2012 | No CommentsWhile some Robin Hood books are clearly intended for young readers, others blur the boundaries, sometimes in ways we can applaud, since they help break down artificial boundaries dividing fiction for children from that for adults. -
Cryptozoology in the Medieval and Modern Worlds
Posted on May 6, 2012 | No CommentsAlbertus Magnus’s thirteenth-century work, De animalibus, a lengthy compilation based on Aristotle and on a handful of commentators, is as close as the Middle Ages comes to a systematic natural history in our understanding of the term. -
Visual-Kinetic Communication in Europe Before 1600: A Survey of Sign Lexicons and Finger Alphabets Prior to the Rise of Deaf Education
Posted on May 6, 2012 | No CommentsVisual-kinetic communication systems are mentioned in a wide variety of texts up through the early Renaissance, but not often described in any detail. What seems to us such a strange and frustrating omission results from the very different nature and purpose of scholarly writing in premodern times. -
The Motte and Bailey Castle: Instrument of Revolution
Posted on May 4, 2012 | No CommentsA motte was made partially or completely by human hands, surrounded by a ditch, and topped by a wooden tower. -
‘He contents the people wherever he goes’ Richard III: His Parliament and Government
Posted on April 29, 2012 | No CommentsIn recent years new biographies of great figures such as Margaret of York, Duchess of Burgundy have shed great light on key issues of English-European relations, while studies of Margaret Beaufort have redefined the political role of the women of this era. -
Charting the “Rise of the West”: Manuscripts and Printed Books in Europe, A Long-Term Perspective from the Sixth through Eighteenth Centuries
Posted on April 29, 2012 | No CommentsThese arguments suggest that the number of manuscripts and printed books produced in a given society are complex measures of economic performance and societal capabilities, and are therefore a valuable guide to the study of long-term economic change. -
‘The inordinate excess in apparel’: Sumptuary Legislation in Tudor England
Posted on April 29, 2012 | No CommentsSumptuary legislation can be defined as a set of regulations, passed down by legislators through statutory law and parliamentary proclamations, that sought to regulate society by dictating what contemporaries could own or wear based on their position within society. -
Craftsmanship of the Digby Mary Magdalene play
Posted on April 27, 2012 | No CommentsThe Digby Mary Magdalene is contained in the Digby MS. 133 of the Bodlein Library. Included in the Manuscript are three other plays, Killing of the Children, The Conversion of St Paul, and a portion of Wisdom. -
Guillaume de Machaut’s “Messe de Nostre Dame” in the context of fourteenth-century polyphonic music for the Mass Ordinary
Posted on April 27, 2012 | No CommentsIt is a contention of this thesis that, among these sources of fragmentary or whole (that is, five- or six- movement), Mass cyles, a historical context may be found for the Messe de Nostre Dame, a work which has traditionally been approached as though is possessed no such context. -
The human presence in Robert Henryson’s Fables and William Caxton’s The History of Reynard the Fox
Posted on April 26, 2012 | No CommentsThe principal method used is the gathering of specific instances of human presence in the two texts, and the categorising or coding of such instances, with the aid of the qualitative-data computer program QSR N6. -
“Hic Facet Arthurus, Rex Quondam, Rexque Futurus:” The Analysis of Original Medieval Sources in the Search for the Historica King Arthur
Posted on April 24, 2012 | No CommentsThe heroic tales of the legendary King Arthur have survived throughout many centuries. Modern society has learned of this celebrated figure through oral and literary tradition, such as the works of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s pseudo-history Historia Regum Britanniae, Sir Thomas Malory’s romantic epic Le Morte d’Arthur and medieval Arthurian poetry. -
Clerical Conceptions of Magic and the Stereotype of the Female Witch
Posted on April 24, 2012 | No CommentsOne of the specific aspects of witchcraft that has seen considerable attention in recent years is its relationship to gender. Both Bailey and Broedel have made admirable contributions to uncovering the historical development of a feminine witch concept.
