One of the oldest copies of The Brus – the epic poem about Robert the Bruce and the Scottish Wars of Independence – has been restored by the University of Cambridge.
Copycat: The Life of a Medieval Scribe
June 19, 2014 By
Here’s a five-minute look at the process by which a book came to be copied.
Mapping the Medieval Countryside
June 18, 2014 By
My summary of a Institute of Historical Research session on the digitization of records in Late Medieval England.
Chivalry comes to the Getty Museum
June 11, 2014 By
The J. Paul Getty Museum’s newest exhibition Chivalry in the Middle Ages, which begins on July 8, 2014 at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, demonstrates how manuscripts of a variety of genres, ranging from romances to hunting treatises, played a central role in promoting the tenets of chivalry.
Quid Tacitus . . . ? The Germania and the Study of Anglo-Saxon England
June 6, 2014 By
This paper considers the vexed historiography of Tacitus’s Germania and its reception history, first among German and other European historians and then among Anglo-Saxonists.
Manuscripts: The Archaeolozoology of Animal Skin
May 28, 2014 By
More than a decade ago researchers revealed that the genetic code of the animal was not destroyed when its skin was used for parchment production.
Disbinding Some Manuscripts, and Rebinding Some Others
May 28, 2014 By
This paper will discuss the theory and practice of virtual disbinding, how to virtually disbind manuscripts in order to answer questions about how they were designed and built by their creators.
The Wonderful Wonders of the East
May 22, 2014 By
The Wonders of the East is an author’s attempt to not only introduce readers to strange sights they may never see with their own eyes (since most people did not travel extensively), but also to make sense of some things they might see every day.
Music as Text and Music as Image
May 4, 2014 By
Danielle Trynoski reports on ‘Music as Text and Music as Image’ by Susan Boynton at the Medieval Academy of America and Medieval Association of the Pacific Conference
Call for Papers: Moving Women, Moving Objects (300-1500) (ICMA CAA 2015)
April 8, 2014 By
CFP: Moving Women, Moving Objects (300-1500) (ICMA CAA 2015)
The Ottonians and the Word: Gospel Books as Objects, Images, and Texts
March 28, 2014 By
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.
British Library purchases the Catholicon Anglicum
March 21, 2014 By
The British Library has paid £92,500 in order to keep a 500-year old dictionary from leaving the United Kingdom. They announced earlier this week that they had completed the purchase of the Catholicon Anglicum, a 15th-century English-Latin dictionary.
Medieval Manuscripts for Sale
February 23, 2014 By
A guide to buying medieval manuscripts and where you can find medieval manuscripts for sale.
Notarial Convention in the Facilitation of Trade and Economics in Mid-Thirteenth Century Marseille
February 22, 2014 By
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.
Voynich Manuscript partially decoded, text is not a hoax, scholar finds
February 20, 2014 By
A Professor in Applied Linguistics believes he has decoded a few words from the mysterious Voynich Manuscript, a 600-year old work that has baffled scholars for the last hundred years.
Limitations and ethical implications of digitizing medieval manuscripts
February 15, 2014 By
This article seeks to identify limitations and ethical implications encountered when digitizing medieval manuscripts.
Medieval Images of Love
February 12, 2014 By
How did medieval artists depict love? Here are a few images of love from medieval manuscripts
Sealed with the cross: protecting the body in Anglo-Saxon England
January 31, 2014 By
This inscription heads a miniature of the crucifixion in Ælfwine’s prayerbook (Fig. 6.1), a small book made somewhere between 1023 and 1031 for Ælfwine, monk and then dean (later abbot) of the New Minster, Winchester.
The St Albans Psalter now online
January 28, 2014 By
The St Albans Psalter, one of the most impressive medieval manuscripts created in twelfth-century England, has been digitized and is now available to view for free online.
The Lost Secret History of Nicetas the Paphlagonian
January 27, 2014 By
Although the Secret History of Nicetas the Paphlagonian has failed to reach us in its original form, it has probably shaped our knowledge of Byzantium in the ninth and early tenth centuries more than any surviving text.
Sodomy and the Knights Templar
January 26, 2014 By
In this article, I will analyze testimony relevant to the charges of the Inquisition that members of the order of Knights Templar throughout Christendom practiced homosexual acts of various sorts from illicit kisses to sodomy.
Organizing the Greed for Gain. Alfonso X of Spain’s Law on Gambling Houses
January 26, 2014 By
The “Ordenamiento de las tafurerias” is a law code about gambling, established by a certain Maestre Roldan in 1276 or 1277 CE (1314 / 1315 era hisp.)by command of King Alfonso X of Castile. It represents the most detailed and exhaustive regulation of gambling from the Middle Ages, providing useful information about the practice of gambling, the presumed or real problems connected to it, and the measures taken by authorities.
The examination of the Book of Kells using micro-Raman spectroscopy
January 19, 2014 By
Until recently, studies of its dyes and pigments have relied exclusively on techniques such as visual and optical microscopic and spectroscopic examination, and comparison of the appearance of the pigment with specimens prepared using ancient or medieval recipes.
Stereoscopic comparison as the long-lost secret to microscopically detailed illumination like the Book of Kells
January 17, 2014 By
Taking a very close look at the Book of Kells
Between Official and Private Dispute: The Case of Christian Spain and Provence in the Late Middle Ages
January 15, 2014 By
Literary and historical evidence of religious disputes that took place between Jews and Christians during the Middle Ages exists in a varietyof sources.
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