Fashion Old and New: Weaving and Tailoring in the Early Medieval and Early Modern Period
Fashion fan? Interested in medieval and early modern textiles? Then this was your session. 2 papers from opposite ends of the spectrum: Early Medieval weaving and Early Modern Tailoring.
Dynastic Politics: Five Women of the Howard Family During the Reign of Henry VIII, 1509-1547
The Howards were the most important noble dynasty of Henry VIII’s reign. Tudor political history cannot be written without them; they lived their lives at its core, in the shadow of the Crown.
Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci to tour British Isles in 2016
Throughout 2016, ten of the finest drawings by Leonardo da Vinci in the Royal Collection will travel to four museums and galleries across the United Kingdom and Ireland in a new exhibition.
Shadow of the Sword (The Headsman)
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau gives us a sympathetic Headsman in Reformation Austria, in the ‘Shadow of the Sword (The Headsman)’.
A Villain and a Monster – The Literary Portrait of Richard III by Thomas More and William Shakespeare
The process of vilification of Richard III started at the end of the fifteenth century, when a well-planned policy of Tudor propaganda was set in motion by Henry VII himself, who commissioned a series of historiographical writings, mainly aiming at the solidification of the newly founded dynasty.
A Young Man’s Progress – The First Book of Fashion
A Young Man’s Progress is art work by London photographer Maisie Broadhead and fashion designer Isabella Newell in collaboration with Cambridge cultural historian Ulinka Rublack.
De Valette’s Battlesword
This Hospitaller sword is shrouded in mystery, but it is well known and it is, in any case, still in Malta.
Interview: Ben Miles on playing Thomas Cromwell in Wolf Hall
Was there ever a time that Thomas Cromwell, lord privy seal of England in the reign of Henry VIII, was not front and center in the culture?
Some Wise Advice from Francesco Guicciardini
Ten of our favourite maxims from the Italian Renaissance scholar Francesco Guicciardini
Tropical fire ants traveled the world on 16th century ships
Thanks to a bit of genetic sleuthing, researchers now know the invasion history of the tropical fire ant, the first ant species known to travel the globe by sea.
The Female Consort as Intercessor in Sixteenth-Century Saxony
In the first part, I will examine how the consort’s position was defined in the 1537 coronation of Christian III and Dorothea of Denmark-Norway.
Visualizing the Body: A Symposium in Honor of the 500th Anniversary of Vesalius’ Birth
Thank-you to Kele Cable of the University of Minnesota for allowing us to post his Storify account of the Visualizing the Body Symposium, held in November 2014
10 Creepy Things to See at the Louvre That Are Better Than the Mona Lisa
If you’re an ancient historian, a medievalist, or early modernist, there are so many other amazing pieces and works of art a the Louvre other than these two tourist staples. Here is my list of cool, creepy, unusual and better than the Mona Lisa at the Louvre in Paris.
Medieval Manuscripts: The Universal Atlas of Fernão Vaz Dourado
Vaz Dourado authored at least four different nautical atlases, each of them including 20 maps, painted between 1568 and 1580, which is to say at the pinnacle of Portuguese cartography.
Eyewitness accounts of the 1510 influenza pandemic in Europe
In 1510, there was little appreciation that a specific respiratory disease might have been recurring over centuries, but historians now believe that influenza had probably been circulating as an epidemic disease since as early as the 9th century AD, if not earlier.
A peasant is a peasant, is a peasant? : Medieval Maritime Peasant Lives
A peasant is a peasant, is a peasant…or is s/he? Was the life of a peasant who lived in the coastal regions of England the same as that of the peasant who made his livelihood toiling on the land for his local lord?
A 16th century view of North America in the Vallard Atlas
The scene above shows the second American map, which is of the East Coast of North America, and is one of the most significant of the Vallard Atlas.
Move over Milan! Late Medieval and Renaissance Fashion in Venice
Milan may be Italy’s current fashion capital, but Venice had an important role to play in the development of the Italian fashion and textile industry since the late middle ages and renaissance period.
The Foxes of Venice
This paper will focus on the process that led to the professionalization of ambassadorial relations and dispatches as a means to display the shift in the Venetian Senate’s political priorities, as it necessitated and enforced a constant and regular influx of foreign knowledge.
Love and Marriage on the Medieval English Stage: Using the English Cycle Plays as Sources for Social History
Much scholarship concerning the concept of “companionate” marriage traces its origins to the early modern period as clergymen, especially Protestant ones, began to publish “guides” to the relationships and respective duties of husbands and wives in the 1500s and 1600s.
Flandria Illustrata: Flemish Identities in the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period
This chapter discusses identity formation in early modern Flanders. It argues that policy makers and their intellectual agents transformed the perception of a province that had been divided by urban rivalries, civil war and conflicts with the Burgundian and Habsburg overlords, into a bastion of the Catholic Counter Reformation with strong ties to the Spanish King and his representatives.
Renaissance Contacts Between Dubrovnik (Ragusa) and the Kingdom of Hungary
During the rule of the Angevin dynasty (1308-82) in Hungary, towns and cities increasingly assumed greater political influence. The first treaty between the King of Hungary and Dubrovnik (in those days Ragusa) was signed in 1358, during the reign of Louis (Lajos) the Great.
Managing Criminal Women in Scotland: An Assessment of the Scarcity of Female Offenders in the Records of the High Court of Justiciary, 1524-1542
The records of Scotland’s High Court of Justiciary that run from 1524 to 1542 contain a remarkably low number of women charged with felonies and pleas of the crown, and reveal the justiciar’s reluctance to convict or execute female offenders.
The Book of Felicity
The Book of Felicity features descriptions of the twelve signs of the zodiac accompanied by splendid miniatures; a series of paintings showing how human circumstances are influenced by the planets; astrological and astronomical tables; and an enigmatic treatise on fortune telling.