Looking for a cool name to call your drinking establishment? Check out what the names of these taverns from medieval London.
Youth and Old Age in Late Medieval London
January 14, 2014 By
This article is concerned with the relationship between life stages and a person’s place in urban society. The two life stages studied here are the end of youth and the onset of old age, that is to say the two stages at either end of that period in life when men were most active economically, socially, and politically, when they were expected to build a family and run a business.
A Male Transvestite Prostitution In 14th Century London: The Testimony of John Rykener
January 12, 2014 By
A Male Transvestite Prostitution In 14th Century London: The Testimony of John Rykener By Erkan Oruçoğlu Published Online (2013) Introduction: Studies of sexuality, homosexuality, and sex in public places, show that homosexual behavior does not give arise automatically, or even necessarily, to a homosexual identity. Homosexual roles and identities are historically constructed. Throughout the history of […]
The Middle English culinary recipes in MS Harley 5401: an edition and commentary
January 10, 2014 By
The culinary manuscripts of the Middle Ages are increasingly a concern of those interested in social history — among others;(1) yet a significant impediment to research on Middle English culinary matters remains in the remarkable fact that there are still at least six sizeable collections of recipes that have never been edited and/or printed at all, as well as about a dozen more that have been only selectively collated in editions of material taken primarily from other manuscripts.
The Government of Medieval London
January 6, 2014 By
The city had always, even from Roman times, a great deal of control over its own governance.
The Last Week of the Life of Edward the Black Prince
December 23, 2013 By
Edward the Black Prince died in the palace of Westminster, after years of debilitating illness, on Trinity Sunday, 8 June 1376. There has been little or no discussion by historians of why the prince should have chosen Canterbury for burial, when Westminster abbey was already well-established as the royal mausoleum, or any discussion at all of another matter to which the prince gave attention in his very last days, namely the grant of a charter of disaffor- estation to the community of Wirral in his earldom and county of Chester.
Twilight Tours at the Tower of London!
December 1, 2013 By
A review of the Twilight Tour at the Tower of London!
St. Augustine’s Tower – Hackney, London
November 19, 2013 By
My trip to St. Augustine’s Tower in Hackney, London.
Two dozen and more Silkwomen of Fifteenth-Century London
October 24, 2013 By
This article attempts to record systematically all the silkwomen of London who were daughters or wives of London mercers between 1400 and 1499.
The Bankside Stews: Prostitution in London 1161-1546
August 4, 2013 By
Although historians frequently associate prostitution with a number of social, political and cultural concerns, including society’s attitudes toward both women and sexuality, and the spread of venereal disease, remarkably few have made it the central focus of their inquiries.
Philippa Russell and the Wills of London’s Late Medieval Singlewomen
July 30, 2013 By
Never-married women were common in the streets and lanes of late medieval London, but few of their wills survive. Philippa Russell is one of only 15 such testators recorded in London probate courts between 1450 and 1500, and her will is especially long and informative.
Cheapside: commerce and commemoration
July 2, 2013 By
The broad street of Cheapside, Vanessa Harding shows, was a central location in the lives and minds of early modern Londoners. In a crowded city it was a significant open space where public events could be staged and important issues communicated to a wide audience. The everyday reality of shop and market trading — where qualities and values were scrutinized and false dealing punished – enhanced its association with truth and patency. Normally dominated by the authorities, it was on occasion captured by oppositional groups, though their activities tended to reinforce Cheapside’s identity as a place of publicity and validation.
The Interrogation of of a Male Transvestite Prostitute in Fourteenth Century London
April 11, 2013 By
Despite the general rule that sexual offenses were matters for the church courts, in some cases the city of London took charge of these offenses. Prostitution and procuring, for example, involved public order; the temporal courts dealt with them for that reason, so that the same people might be prosecuted in both jusrisdictions for the same offense.
Burial ground discovered in London may be victims of Black Death
March 14, 2013 By
Thirteen skeletons have been uncovered lying in two carefully laid out rows on the edge of Charterhouse Square at Farringdon, and are believed to be up to 660 years old.
The tailors of London and their guild, c.1300-1500
February 8, 2013 By
The unusually full medieval records of the guild of London tailors, known from 1503 as the Merchant Taylors’ Company, provides a rare opportunity to assess the variety of roles which these organisations played in late-medieval London.
The Danish attacks on London and Southwark in ‘1016’
January 28, 2013 By
This incident has been fatally embroidered by many local historians, taking their cue from various sources, so that the popular accounts have distorted what was already a confusing set of events.
City and Countryside in Medieval England
January 27, 2013 By
An impressive array of data, ranging over the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, has been collected by two full-time researchers, James Galloway and Margaret Murphy. Of primary importance for the project are demesne farming accounts and inquisitions post mortem (detailing manorial land and other assets, especially again those of the demesne), both of which sources survive in very large numbers for the period under review. Also, the project incorpor- ates large amounts of data from urban records, particularly those dealing with merchants who were prominent in organizing London’s food supply.
The Curious Career and Uncertain Past of Perkin Warbeck
December 2, 2012 By
Was Warbeck just another in a long line of pretenders to the throne of England, or did his appearance in Ireland in 1491 prove the innocence
of Richard III, whom most historians accuse of murdering his nephews, the Princes in the Tower?
Flemings in the Peasants’ Revolt, 1381
November 14, 2012 By
While the Peasants’ Revolt has been studied in depth by generations of medieval historians, the same cannot be said of England’s foreign-born inhabitants, and the largest group among these, the so-called Flemings (a term which was also applied to those from other principalities in the Low Countries besides Flanders).
‘In the Beginning’: The London Medieval Graduate Network Inaugural Conference
November 13, 2012 By
This is a summary of the The London Medieval Graduate Network Inaugural Conference by Rachel Scott. The conference was held on November 2nd at King’s College London.
The Disposal of Human Waste: A comparison between Ancient Rome and Medieval London
October 11, 2012 By
This essay examines the waste disposal options used in Ancient Rome and Medieval London, two cities that dealt with sewage in different ways.
Apprentices and Apprenticeship in Early Fourteenth-Century London
September 12, 2012 By
What was the nature of the medieval institution which in the early modern period became such a prominent feature of London life?
The King’s Mercy. An Attribute of Later Medieval English Monarchy
September 9, 2012 By
Modern assumptions about medieval justice still tend to see this process of amelioration as merely occasional and exceptional: mercy needed to be applied only where special circumstances made it inappropriate to apply the full rigours of the law. This, however, is seriously to misunderstand both the purpose and the pervasiveness of mercy in the operation of medieval justice.
The Lost Leprosy Hospitals Of London: Leprosia
September 1, 2012 By
By focusing upon the institutional provision made available for victims of leprosy in London between 1100 and 1500, we can explore the complexity of reactions to a disease that might be regarded as either a punishment for sin or a mark of divine favour.
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