The 1363 English Sumptuary Law: A comparison with Fabric Prices of the Late Fourteenth-Century
This thesis provides a comparison of the 1363 English sumptuary law, the most comprehensive of the fourteenth-century English sumptuary laws, with available fabric prices from the fourteenth century.
Communities and sustainability in medieval and early modern Aragon, 1200-1600
This paper examines the case of sheep raising in Aragon from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century to explore the political dynamics and social criteria that rural communities used to manage their common land, and their role in larger economic and political frameworks.
More Vinland maps and texts. Discovering the New World in Higden’s Polychronicon
This present essay seeks to contribute to the debates over the early mapping of America by investigating the possibility that the Vinland Map (regardless of authenticity) is not the sole visual representation of Norse America, and certainly not the earliest. Rather, the earliest surviving maps of America appear to be a series of T–O derivative maps produced roughly 150 years before the voyages of Columbus as illustrations to Ranulf Higden’s Polychronicon.
Female Discourses: Powerful and Powerless Speech in Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur
Verbal interactions of female characters of Le Morte Darthur are analyzed in various instances of speech behavior, such as advice, apology, conflict managing, complaining, nagging and teasing.
And He Honoured Þat Hit Hade Euermore After’: The Influence of Richard II’s Livery System on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
The theoretical framework for my analysis of Richard II’s use of iconic signs was largely drawn from the works of Charles Peirce, Umberto Eco, and the studies of the iconography of kingship by Louis Marin.
The medieval monastery as franchise monopolist
This paper continues a line of inquiry begun by Ekelund, HCbert and Tollison, (hereafter, E-H-T) which uses the theories of monopoly, rent seeking, and industrial organization to explain the economics of the medieval monastery…
Byzantine Stamp with the Temple Menorah discovered in Israel
The tiny stamp was used to identify baked products and it probably belonged to a bakery that supplied kosher bread to the Jews of Acre in the Byzantine period.
Defining the indefinable: the cultural role of monsters in the Middle Ages
The Middle Ages were littered with monsters. These strange creatures poked their heads out from behind courtly literature; they crept into theological discussions of the Church; they stood alongside factual persons in histories of the period; and they lurked always in the background of the medieval mindset.
The resident ambassador
This is a discussion of the evolution of the office of resident ambassador in fifteenth century Italy. The purpose of this paper is to make clear the extreme differences between the medieval ad hoc ambassador and the resident.
The Conflict between the body and the soul as a metaphor of the moral struggle in the Middle Ages
This study is an examination of a popular way writers of the Middle Ages understood and presented the matter of moral choice. It is an analysis of the habit of medieval authors and preachers of reducing the moral struggle to a conflict between the body and the soul
A tragic case of complicated labour in early Byzantium (404 A.D.)
The study of the works of celebrated physicians of that era reveals that many of them had especially been occupied with the specialties of gynecology and obstetrics.
Dancing with the Dance of the Dead : cemetery of the Innocents and the ramifications of the Macabre
Glaring at us from the pages of illuminated manuscripts, royal sepulchers, and frescoes of Late Medieval churches and cemeteries, macabre cadavers, with their gaping, vermin-infested torsos, emaciated bodies, and grimacing faces, shock and repel.
Season 2 of Museum Secrets Premieres this week!
Join us for a brand new season of Museum Secrets premiering this Thursday, January 12th at 10pm EST/PST!
The science of love in the Middle Ages, the romantic period, and our own time
I begin with a number of fascinating and difficult questions. Why did man originally create, and why does he continue to create, works on the “science of love”?
Girard d’Athee and the Men from the Touraine Their Roles under King John
Although Magna Carta 1215 says very little about the personnel of John’s government, Clause 50 (which was based on chapter 40 of the Articles) does proscribe by name a group of men who originated from the Touraine.
Medieval Mushroom Soup
Medieval Mushroom Soup is from ‘The Cuisine of the Teutonic Grand Masters in Malbork Castle’, by Bogdan Galazka. This mushroom soup takes three different types of flavourful fungus combined with port wine and butter to create a rich, fragrant dish that captivates the pallet.
On the Language of Conversion: Visigothic Spain Revisited
In fifth-century Spain, the Visigoth conquerors – Christians and Arians – had to live with the native Hispani, who were Roman by culture and law and Catholic by faith.
The Enigmatic Sepulchral Monument of Berengaria (ca.1170-1230), Queen of England (1191-1199)
The life and work of Berengaria, her conflicts with various powers over her royal rights and dowry as the former Queen of England and later on as the Lady of Le Mans, and her conflicts with the various ecclesiastical authorities, have been investigated since the 19th century by various scholars.
Christianity and burial in late Iron Age Scotland, AD 400-650
In the period after the fall of Rome and before the Vikings, Scotland became a Christian society, but there are few historical documents to help understand how this happened.
The Archaeology of Play Things: Theorising a Toy Stage in the Biography of Objects
The cemeteries contained the remains of not less than 867 people, some of whom died in childhood, but all of whom, if they had survived the first few years of life…
Fossils as Drugs: pharmaceutical palaeontology
The present paper surveys the medicinal applications of a number of fossils which were well known in classical, mediaeval and renaissance times….
Dreaming of dwarves: Nightmares and Shamanism in Anglo-Saxon Poetics and the Wid Dweorh Charm
Psychological and psychiatric ailments must have baffled early medical practitioners.
Gregorian Chant, the Greatest Unison Music
I speak simply as a teacher of a choir that has labored for many years and as an ardent though humble student of the great musical literature of Georgian Chant.