Vikings never interested French Historians. Pagan, illiterate, barbaric, Germanic, everything was despicable in the eyes of the French Historians of the 19th century.
“Flanders was empty and uncultivated and heavily wooded”: Historiography as Urban Resource in the Twelfth Century
June 2, 2018 by
This sentence tells us little about the actual beginnings of the county of Flanders but it does tell us something about the way Lambert imagined the beginnings of the county in the first part of the twelfth century.
Five Things to Know About Gerald of Wales
April 7, 2018 by
Gerald of Wales, or Giraldus Cambrensis, was a twelfth-century cleric who wrote a whole raft of influential works on clerical reform, kingship, and history.
Reframing the Conversation on Medieval Military Strategy
March 21, 2018 by
This question of the history of strategy is a question of intellectual history: did medieval writers generate and transmit derivative and/or original ideas about how to wage war?
Episcopal Virginity in Medieval England
March 14, 2018 by
The literature on medieval sainthood is substantial, rich and varied, but on one point it is almost unanimous: sexuality, and in particular virginity, was of far greater significance to female saints than to their male counterparts.
The ‘joyous entry’ of Archduke Maximilian into Antwerp (13 January 1478): an analysis of a ‘most elegant and dignified’ dialogue
March 14, 2018 by
An in-depth analysis of a contemporary account of Maximilian’s joyous entry into Antwerp (13 January 1478) adds a new perspective to historiography by showing how the public urban spaces functioned as complex social products.
Which Witch?: Morgan le Fay as Shape-Shifter and English Perceptions of Magic Reflected in Arthurian Legend
March 1, 2018 by
The name Morgan le Fay holds many meanings and has appeared in various forms throughout the course of medieval and modern history.
Serbian scientific institutions and medieval research
February 21, 2018 by
Since the beginning of critical historiography, Serbian researchers and historians have dealt with the medieval history of Serbia, Serbian lands, and of its neighboring countries,
The Challenge of Folklore to Medieval Studies
February 12, 2018 by
When folklore began to emerge as a valid expression of a people during the early stages of national romanticism, it did so alongside texts and artifacts from the Middle Ages; it was only as folklore began to develop its own methodology during the nineteenth century that the fields were distinguished.
Eddic Poetry as World Literature
January 26, 2018 by
This article focuses on eddic issues including orality, dating, relationship to the ballad, provenance, international sources, and broadly typological literary relations.
The fall of Rome and the retreat of European multiculturalism: A historical trope as a discourse of authority in public debate
November 29, 2017 by
This paper examines one recent incident of the use of a highly charged trope of Classical history, the Fall of the Roman Empire, as a discourse of authority in current public debates on western multicultural policies, in relation to the tragic events of the Paris terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015.
Archery in the Preface to Procopius’ Wars: A Figured Image of Agonistic Authorship
November 28, 2017 by
This article is a case study in the problems that can arise when a narrow interpretive lens is brought to historical texts by modern historians interested primarily in the facts of military history.
Making or Breaking a King: Kingship Ideals in Anglo-Saxon Historiography
November 16, 2017 by
This research will fit into the niche between works on specific kings and the analyses of those texts pertaining directly to them, since it will add a comparative angle. It will discover the ways in which written medieval sources created a literary image of a king, as opposed to only preserving the facts.
Medieval Sermon Studies since The Sermon: A Deepening and Broadening Field
October 16, 2017 by
Since the publication of The Sermon in 2000, the field of medieval sermon studies has matured into a well-established and growing interdisciplinary area of medieval studies.
The Nineteenth Century Memory of Renaissance Italian Warfare: Ercole Ricotti and Jacob Burckhardt
October 10, 2017 by
Renaissance Italian military history is a sad story of devolution, culminating in conquest by foreign powers. It stands as a “distant mirror” of the foreign oppression endured by nineteenth century Risorgimento Italy, when the academic study of Renaissance military history first began.
Pilgrim and patron: Cnut in post-conquest historical writing
July 10, 2017 by
This article examines a number of short narratives from the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries which relate to the activities of Cnut as king of England.
Letters from the Otherworld: Arthur and Henry II in Stephen of Rouen’s Draco Normannicus
May 3, 2017 by
The poem Draco Normannicus includes a correspondence between King Arthur, now ruler of the Antipodes, and Henry II.
Past and Present in Mid-Byzantine Chronicles: Change in Narrative Technique and the Transmission of Knowledge
April 24, 2017 by
Particular emphasis will be placed on the Chronicle of Theophanes the Confessor and the Chronicle of Symeon the Logothete.
The Historiography of Crisis: Jordanes, Cassiodorus and Justinian in mid sixth-century Constantinople
April 17, 2017 by
This article presents a new interpretation of the historiographical production of Jordanes by situating it in the political and social environment of Constantinople of the years 550-552.
Was There History in the Middle Ages?
April 12, 2017 by
Did medieval writers think they were writing history? Emily A. Winkler takes a closer look at the various forms of ‘history’ during this period.
Gregory of Tours, the Eastern Emperor, and Merovingian Gaul
April 4, 2017 by
This article explores Gregory’s passages on imperial Rome and argues that they were intended to highlight the virtues and vices of particular Merovingian kings in comparison with particular Roman emperors.
The use and the abuse of history, national heritage and nationalism
March 29, 2017 by
‘Icelanders or Norwegians? Leifur, Snorri and national identity then and now’ followed by a panel discussion
The Quennells and the ‘History of Everyday Life’ in England, c. 1918–69
March 19, 2017 by
The Quennells and the ‘History of Everyday Life’ in England, c. 1918–69 By Laura Carter History Workshop Journal, Issue 81 (2016) Introduction: A new social history developed in mid twentieth-century England, one that has seldom been taken seriously by historiographers of social history. The ‘history of everyday life’ involved disparate threads that are challenging to weave […]
Visions in a Ninth-Century Village: an Early Medieval Microhistory
February 27, 2017 by
This article however suggests that an account of a ninth-century peasant’s vision can be read to recover a microhistory of a rural priest in northern Francia, and draws out the implications for how the local societies of the period might be viewed.
‘The revolt of the medievalists’: Directions in recent research on the twelfth-century renaissance
February 11, 2017 by
Ever since Wallace K. Ferguson contributed to making ‘the revolt of the medievalists’ a slogan for the medievalists’ attack on the modernity of Jacob Burckhardt’s Italian renaissance, the question of ‘renaissance’ or ‘renaissances’ has been much discussed.
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