Ten questions to see your knowledge of this time period where beliefs and faith in the Christian church changed dramatically.
Papers on Medieval Prosopography: Session #47 at KZOO 2015
May 29, 2015 By
Three fantastic papers on Prosopography from #KZOO2015.
Shadow of the Sword (The Headsman)
May 21, 2015 By
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau gives us a sympathetic Headsman in Reformation Austria, in the ‘Shadow of the Sword (The Headsman)’.
King’s sister, queen of dissent: Marguerite of Navarre (1492-1549) and her evangelical network
November 7, 2014 By
This study reconstructs the previously unknown history of the most important dissident group within France before the French Reformed Church formed during the 1550s.
Does a Reformation End?: Rethinking Religious Simulation in Sixteenth-Century Italy
October 21, 2014 By
A paper examining the Italian Reformation.
10 Things to See at Southwark Cathedral
September 24, 2014 By
My 10 favourite things about Southwark Cathedral.
A monastic landscape: The Cistercians in medieval Leinster
September 23, 2014 By
This study endeavours to discuss the Cistercian monasteries of Leinster with regard to their physical location in the landscape, the agricultural contribution of the monks to the broader social and economic world and the interaction between the cloistered monks and the secular world.
Boundaries in the making – Historiography and the isolation of late medieval Bohemia
July 27, 2014 By
This paper deals with an episode of early 15th century Bohemian history. During the so-called Hussite wars, a coalition of Catholic powers tried to establish a far-reaching blockade on trade and commerce against the kingdom of Bohemia, which then was considered to be a hotbed of heresy, and to be rebellious against its legitimate ruler and the papal church.
(Re)casting the Past: The Cloisters and Medievalism
July 22, 2014 By
In this essay, I focus on a variety of texts printed using Anglo-Saxon type between 1566 and 1623 in an effort to explore the use of Anglo-Saxon typeface in the early modern period as the use of the Old English language progressed from polemical truncheon to historiographical instrument.
John of Gaunt and John Wyclif
June 14, 2014 By
Historians have always been somewhat puzzled at the alliance of two such men as John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster and third son of Edward III, and John Wyclif, controversialist and reformer.
BOOKS: Canterbury Cathedral
May 4, 2014 By
After visiting Canterbury Cathedral, I was inspired to suggest books that relate to Canterbury’s famous Archbishops, history and beauty.
BOOK REVIEWS: “The Chalice” by Nancy Bilyeau
April 8, 2014 By
My book review of Nancy Bilyeau’s, “The Chalice”.
Bernard of Clairvaux’s Writings on Violence and the Sacred
March 18, 2014 By
Monk, exegete, political actor and reformer, Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) was not just a man of his times; he was a man who shaped his times.
Plague and Persecution: The Black Death and Early Modern Witch Hunts
January 27, 2014 By
The century or so from approximately 1550 to 1650 is a period during which witch-hunts reached unprecedented frequency and intensity. The circumstances that fomented the witch- hunts—persistent warfare, religious conflict, and harvest failures—had occurred before, but witch-hunts had never been so ubiquitous or severe.
St George’s Day: A Cultural History
January 27, 2014 By
The modern celebration of St. George’s Day, frequently associated with intense English nationalism, grew out of a religious feast that commemorated a Middle-Eastern individual who died protesting an intolerant empire.
St. Augustine’s Tower – Hackney, London
November 19, 2013 By
My trip to St. Augustine’s Tower in Hackney, London.
The Legend of the Female Pope in the Reformation
August 2, 2013 By
Though no one believed she reigned with divine approval, for the reformers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the female pope was indeed a godsend.
Blood beliefs in early modern Europe
June 29, 2013 By
This thesis focuses on the significance of blood and the perception of the body in both learned and popular culture in order to investigate problems of identity and social exclusion in early modern Europe.
Historical Thought and the Reform Crisis of the Early Sixteenth Century
February 19, 2013 By
I shall follow what I feel to be the methodologically sound procedure of examining one case in some detail, while at the same time producing evidence to suggest that elements which are operative in this instance may be operative in others as well. What I should like to focus attention upon are certain ideas of history which were current in the early sixteenth century.

Scottish saints cults and pilgrimage from the Black Death to the Reformation, c.1349-1560
January 15, 2013 By
This thesis will question this premise and provide the first indepth study of the cults of St Andrew, Columba of Iona/Dunkeld, Kentigern of Glasgow and Ninian of Whithorn in a late medieval Scottish context, as well as the lesser known northern saint, Duthac of Tain.
Pilgrimage and Embodiment: Captives and the Cult of Saintsin Late Medieval Bavaria
December 24, 2012 By
Chief among the stories contained in these miracle stories are tales of escapes from captivity. Almost forty percent of the reports in the two Munich Latin miracle collections deal with liberations from imprisonment and escapes from captivity of various sorts.
Nordic Witchcraft in Transition: Impotence, Heresy and Diabolism in 14th-century Bergen
November 26, 2012 By
Within the orbit of witchcraft, what is the relationship between sexuality, heresy, and diabolism?
The Holy Roman Empire, the Schmalkald League, and the Idea of Confessional Nation-Building
October 12, 2012 By
Recent research on nationalism draws a fundamental heuristic distinc- tion between political and cultural nationalism. Scholars define the his- torian’s task as the analysis of political and cultural nationalism in each historic context.
“Partners in the same”: Monastic Devotional Culture in Late Medieval English Literature
September 9, 2012 By
To understand this apparent incongruity, it is, I argue, necessary to interrogate more carefully the continuation of monastic literary culture and its gradual diffusion beyond the walls of the cloister.
Does Michelangelo’s poetic veil shroud a secret Luther?
August 28, 2012 By
The thesis poses a question derived from an unlikely nexus of two prominent figures of the Renaissance and the Reformation: the artist whose creative abilities ostensibly dominate the Vatican and religious art, juxtaposed with the rebel who splintered the dominance of Roman Catholicism.
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