Martyrs on the Move: The Spread of the Cults of Thomas of Canterbury and Peter of Verona
No matter how one viewed Peter‟s and Thomas‟s personalities, the glaring fact of their instant and enduring cults forces the conclusion that their contemporaries all over Europe saw in them, and especially in their martyrdoms, desirable and compelling prototypes for Christian perfection. The spread and extent of these cults is the subject of this study.
Vilification of Identity and the Exilic Narrative: The Illustrated Pied Piper Story
This paper situates The Pied Piper story as an exilic narrative, part of a larger repertoire of stories that follow the romantic quest-myth formula, a formula that conveys a totla metaphor for the “journey of life”.
Portuguese ecclesiastics and Portuguese affairs near the Spanish cardinals in the roman curia : 1213-1254
The lives, families and clienteles of Pelayo Gaitán and Gil Torres, the two cardinals whose actions I wish to analyse here (1213-1254), seem to be a good example of how instrumental, their ‘natio’ proved to be, in the management of
the affairs they were summoned to deal with.
Martin Bylica at the Court of Matthias Corvinus: Astrology and Politics in Renaissance Hungary
Late in the spring 1468, Matthias Corvinus convened the Hungarian diet in the city of Pozsony. Holding the diet in Pozsony enabled him to impress the Hungarian nobles with the local intellectual community that had begun to form at his fledgling Academia Istropolitana, which he had founded the previous year.
The Heritage of Polish Republicanism
In Polish political debates of half a millenium ago, monarchic ideas were always permeated with republicanism. In that period public discourse had civic virtue as its centerpiece.
“Well Cut through the Body:” Fitted Clothing in Twelfth·Century Europe
Before we go any farther, we should investigate the very practical suggestion that tightly fitted clothing resulted from developments in “cutting and sewing technology.” In the case of twelfth century Europe, however, it seems there was no real change in the tools of the trade; for example, iron shears, which might seem primitive, continued to be used by tailors into the late middle ages.
A Brief History of Ergotism: From St. Anthony’s Fire and St. Vitus’ Dance Until Today
Ergotism appeared in Europe in the early Middle Ages and manifested itself in gangrenous or convulsive forms. Between 1085 and 1927 epidemics of convulsive ergotism were widespread east of the Rhine in Europe
Health and dietetics in medieval preventive medicine: the health regimen of Peter of Spain (thirteenth century)
Health and dietetics constitute the basic concepts of preventive medicine constructed by medieval and Latin Galenism, i.e. the medical theories of Galen (second century) transmitted by Arab commentators (Avicenna, among others). Over time, the concept of health with respect to the human body changed according to specific socio-historic contexts.
Paganism in Conversion-Age Anglo-Saxon England: The Evidence of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History Reconsidered
With the notable exception of R. I. Page, the attitude that historians and archaeologists alike have taken to Bede’s words about the religion(s) of the pre-Christian occupants of conversion-age Anglo-Saxon England has overwhelmingly been to accept what this eighth-century commentator has to tell us.
The Art of the Science of Renaissance Painting
During this study we began to examine paintings for the presence of optical artifacts that could serve as supporting scientific evidence for these visual observations. Here we briefly describe some of the scientific evidence contained within three paintings that demonstrate lenses were in use by certain artists to project images as early as c1425. We present only a general discussion here, and refer interested readers to previous publications for details.
Entering Paradise by fire or charcoal? A glimpse of burial customs in the Viking and Medieval
Perhaps one of the most vivid and illustrative accounts about a Viking burial, takes place at Volga, in today’s Russia. The story is retold by Ibn Fadlan, who was sent to the king of the Bulghārs by Caliph al-Muqtadir in the year 921 A.D.
Iceland’s external affairs in the Middle Ages: The shelter of Norwegian sea power
The main aim of this paper is to test the case of Iceland within the framework of small- state theory and answer its key consideration by examining whether Iceland, as a small entity/country, had external shelter or stood on its own during the Middle Ages.
The alternation between present and past time in the telling of the Bayeux Tapestry story
When an anonymous artist designed the Bayeux Tapestry shortly after the Norman conquest of England he presented some of the action as taking place in the present time and some in the past.
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“Be waar, Hoccleue, I rede thee”: Intertextual Subjectivity in Thomas Hoccleve’s Petitioning Poetry
The way these operate can be seen in the section of La Male Regle from which I excerpted my paper’s title. It comes about three-quarters of the way through the poem when the narrator relates a first-hand account of how he and his Privy-Seal Office colleagues handle a night of drinking.
Machiavelli on Christian Education
My primary point is not to vindicate Christian education as good for the well-being of cities but to complicate the assumptions of the civil religion approach by examining Machiavelli’s reflections on human character and psychology.
More on medieval bras – new details on 15th century find
The discovery of female undergarments from the 15th century is making international headlines. Now more details are being released by the University of Innsbruck.
Bearing the Cross: Syphilis and the Founding of the Holy Cross Hospital in Fifteenth-Century Nuremberg
As syphilis crept up from southern Italy the Nuremberg city council, like many leaders elsewhere, prepared for the impending onslaught of this mysterious new disease. As the highest political authority in the city, the council considered the health of its citizens its responsibility.
Runic Magic
A witty, not to say mischievous, Viking archaeologist has defined the first law of runic studies as ‘for every inscription there shall be as many interpretations as there are runologists studying it.’
The Construction of the femina in Hildegard’s Symphonia
The architectural metaphor used throughout Hildegard’s Symphonia is not an isolated or independent occurrence; rather it is deeply rooted in her theology.
The beginnings of Florence Cathedral. A political interpretation
That the Cathedral project emerged in the context of the complex struggle between elite and popolo in 1293-95 already suggests its heavily politicized origins.
The Folk-Stories of Iceland
The imaginative life of the folk-stories was shaped by an Icelandic rural culture which was homogeneous, simple and poor looked at from the outside, but at the same time enriched by knowledge and practice of poetry, familiarity with a literary tradition and unbroken links with the ancient culture of the country.
Female Body as Geosomatic Apotrope in Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Middleton
As a geographic trope transposed to literary discourse, discovery remains closely linked to the desire for possession. Postcolonial criticism has sought to deconstruct the feminized and sexualized discourses of geographic places and spaces as objects of desire, invasion, and annexation.