My interview with fiction author, SD Sykes about her fantastic medieval crime novel, Plague Land.
The Floating State: Trade Embargoes and the Rise of a New Venetian State
October 1, 2014 By
This paper was given by Georg Christ and examined embargoes and state formation in the late medieval and early modern period in Venice.
Extralegal and English: the Robin Hood Legend and Increasing National Identity in the Middling Sorts of Late Medieval England
September 15, 2014 By
The legend was clearly not the only work of popular culture in what I propose as the long fifteenth century, but it does serve as a very useful representation for examining the growth of Englishness.
Banditry and the Clash of Powers in 14th-Century Thrace: Momcilo and his Fragmented Memory
September 7, 2014 By
In the 14th century, a time of civil wars, religious and dynastic strifes, epidemics, natural disasters and miserable living conditions for the wider strata in the cities and the countryside that increased migratory movements, banditry, an indigenous phenomenon in the Balkan mountainous regions, intermingled with the intensified political struggles.
BOOK REVIEW: Plague Land by SD Sykes
September 4, 2014 By
My review of SD Sykes brilliant medieval thriller, Plague Land.
Race, Periodicity, and the (Neo-) Middle Ages
August 25, 2014 By
My goal is to intervene in ongoing discussions of race and periodicity, particularly vis-à-vis medieval culture, in order to investigate the informing role of the medieval and more particularly of medievalisms in the construction, representation, and perpetuation of modern racisms.
The Depiction of Jews in the Carnival Plays and Comedies of Hans Folz and Hans Sachs in Early Modern Nuremberg
August 23, 2014 By
This study will thus demonstrate that the Bakhtinian model and its critics both contribute to our understanding of the Fastnachtspiel and the development of early modern German attitudes toward Jews.
Conversion on the Scaffold: Italian Practices in European Context
August 23, 2014 By
11 January 1581 was a fine day in Rome. That morning, Michel de Montaigne, recently arrived in the city, had gone out on horseback when he encountered a procession accompanying a condemned man to execution. Montaigne stopped to watch the sight.
Prisons and Punishments in Late Medieval London
July 27, 2014 By
This thesis begins with an analysis of the purpose of imprisonment, which was not merely custodial and was undoubtedly punitive in the medieval period. Having established that incarceration was employed for a variety of purposes the physicality of prison buildings and the conditions in which prisoners were kept are considered.
Ritual, Behaviour and Symbolic Communication in the dispute between Thomas Becket and King Henry II
July 27, 2014 By
From the dispute between Becket and Henry II we see the continuation of many traditional forms of political communication, including the use of symbolic rhetoric and items in the conduct of rituals, and also the deliberate staging of emotions.
THINGS TO SEE: Murder in the Cathedral
June 11, 2014 By
This is my review of the T.S. Eliot’s play, “Murder in the Cathedral”, on at St. Bartholomew in Smithfield, London.
The Headless Norsemen: Decapitation in Viking Age Scandinavia
June 3, 2014 By
I will concentrate my attention only on single and double decapitation burials and mostly those from the area of Scandinavia. What did similar practices mean? What kinds of individuals were subject to decapitation? Were they criminals, slaves, aggressors, deserters swathed in infamy or perhaps unfortunate victims of bloody attacks?
‘Protecting the non-combatant’: Chivalry, Codes and the Just War Theory
May 23, 2014 By
The concept of chivalry, a traditional code of conduct idealised by the knightly class relating to times of both peace and war, dominated the medieval period and many of the scholars who contributed to the principle of jus in bello were in fact writing about chivalry.
Badia Burning: The Spectacle of Violence in 14th-century Tuscany
March 17, 2014 By
The theme of this paper is the use of ecclesiastical properties as sites of theatrical violence, and violence as a major element in the complex discourse between powerful rural lords and the Florentine commune.
Vikings’ demise on foreign soil – a case of ethnic cleansing?
March 8, 2014 By
The discovery of two mass graves in England in 2010 containing the remains of Scandinavian men in their prime from the Viking age against the historical backdrop of Anglo-Saxon England has elicited questions as to whether or not they were victims of ethnic cleansing.
Judith’s Necessary Androgyny: Representations of Gender in the Old English Judith
February 11, 2014 By
The Old English poem Judith explores Anglo-Saxon representations of femininity and masculinity by constructing a double-gendered hero who differs from the biblical version of the same woman.
How cutting off a horse’s tail was a big insult in the Middle Ages
February 9, 2014 By
Want to humiliate your adversary? Attacking his horse and cutting off its tail was the preferred method, according to a recent article.
Violence and Repression in Late Medieval Italy
February 8, 2014 By
Between the second half of the thirteenth century and the first half of the fifteenth, central and northern Italian city-states frequently suffered moments of disruption of the social peace because of factional battles.
Warriors and warfare: ideal and reality in early insular texts
February 6, 2014 By
This thesis investigates several key aspects of warfare and its participants in the Viking Age insular world via a comparison of the image which warriors occupy in heroic literature to their concomitant depiction in sources which are primarily nonliterary in character, such as histories, annalistic records, and law codes.
Pruning Peasants: Private War and Maintaining the Lords’ Peace in Late Medieval Germany
February 3, 2014 By
‘Peasants are best when they grieve, and worst when they rejoice.’
Filicide in Medieval Narrative
January 29, 2014 By
These filicide episodes, regardless of origin, serve a dual purpose within their narratives, to captivate with gripping material and to educate through example. Patterns regarding victims and perpetrators transcend linguistic and cultural boundaries.
Murder Will Out: Kingship, Kinship and Killing in Medieval Scotland
December 17, 2013 By
In fifteenth-century France and England, however, murder became more general, encompassing premeditated killing just as nowadays. Scottish fifteenth-century legislation shows a similar blurring, but in the opposite direction…
Did Orderic Vitalis Have a Concept of Violence?
December 15, 2013 By
When Orderic writes that something happened violently, it was because he was expressing a judgment on whether or not this was a legitimate use of force.
Twilight Tours at the Tower of London!
December 1, 2013 By
A review of the Twilight Tour at the Tower of London!
How much did medieval teachers beat their students?
November 20, 2013 By
Medieval writing suggests classroom punishments such as beating, flogging and whipping were carefully regimented – and were only meant to be used to aid learning.
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