Lactose Intolerance in the Middle Ages
New research suggests that medieval people had a similar level of lactose intolerance as modern day people, meaning they could drink milk and eat yogurt and cheese without problems.
Poetics and beyond: noisy bodies and aural variations in medieval English outdoor performance
Pilate opens the Tapiters and Couchers guild’s pageant of Christ before Pilate I in the York Corpus Christi Play by asserting himself acoustically, threatening those who ‘cruelly are cry and’.
The Royal Residence at Tissø in the Viking Age
A 3D animation film visualizing the royal complex at the time around 900 AD.
The Orthodox Heresies: ‘Lollardy’ and Medieval Culture
This is not Margery Kempe’s first run-in with the law. Already, she has been accused multiple times of heresy, of wantonness, and of being a general pest.
The Rise of the French Language in Medieval Europe
A free exhibition, The Moving Word: French Medieval Manuscripts in Cambridge, begins today at Cambridge University Library.
Following in the footsteps of Christ: text and context in the Vita Mildrethae
Goscelin was the most celebrated hagiographer of his generation, whose prolificacy in writing the ‘lives of countless saints’.
Tempus Fugit: The Middle Ages and Time
If you needed to know the time between bells, there were several ways to find out.
The Universal Spider: King Louis XI
He even earned the names’Cunning’ and ‘Universal Spider’ due to the webs of intrigue he would spin around Europe. It seems he was never happier than when he was planning his next scheme.
Women, Gender and Lordship in France, c.1050–1250
Arguing that scholars should follow methods of analysis developed by historians of women in the early Middle Ages and must confront problems in the so-called ‘Duby thesis’, this article shows how anachronistic analytical categories and insufficient source criticism have masked our appreciation of the extensive political activities of non-royal aristocratic women in France during the eleventh to thirteenth centuries.
Under the aegis of the saints. Hagiography and power in early Carolingian northern Italy
This article gives an overview of the features, choices, tastes and models of sanctity characteristic of Italian hagiography, against the background of local contexts and political competition.
Kings, chieftains and public cult in pre-Christian Scandinavia
The article addresses the question of the performance of pre-Christian public cult by political leaders in early medieval Scandinavia.
An abbot between two cultures: Maiolus of Cluny considers the Muslims of La Garde-Freinet
In July 972, Muslim raiders from the citadel of Fraxinetum (modern La Garde-Freinet) abducted Abbot Maiolus of Cluny and his entourage as they crossed the Great Saint Bernard Pass ( Mons Iovis ) in the western Alps.
Depictions of the Scots in the Arthurian Legend
Depictions of the Scots in the Arthurian Legend Diana Jefferies Journal of the Sydney Society for Scottish History: Vol 14 (2013) Abstract This…
Basan and Bata: The Occupational Surnames of Two Pre-Conquest Monks of Canterbury
As hereditary surnames were not common in Anglo-Saxon England, men of the same name were differentiated by sobriquets based on their place of origin, a physical characteristic or occupation. This article argues that Eadui Basan and Aelfric Bata, two eleventh-century monks of Christ Church, had sobriquets, in Latin of fashionable obscurity, that reflected their occupations within the monastic community.
Do you want to take part in the Swaledale Big Dig?
Archaeology enthusiasts in Swaledale are finalising plans for their biggest challenge to date – a two-year community project to help dales folk search for clues to medieval and ancient history in their own back yards.
‘The Torrent of the Human Race:’ The Concept of Movement in the Works of Saint Augustine and Its Impact on the Medieval Imagination
For Augustine, movement was essential in four respects. First, it described the nature of the relationship between an eternal God and a finite, temporal, material world. Second, movement constituted the basic imperative of the Christian message: man’s soul is compelled to move toward God or perish eternally.
Charlemagne, Sir Christopher Lee and Heavy Metal Music
Did you know that the famous actor Sir Christopher Lee is also a heavy metal singer? And his songs are based on the life and times of Charlemagne?
The Inner Exiles: Outlaws and Scapegoating Process in Grettis saga Ásmundarsonar and Gísla saga Súrssonar
Was Icelandic outlawry exceptional? The legal and historical aspect of Icelandic outlawry has been widely studied and commented by scholars (Spoelstra, 1938), either by following indications from the Grágás or through the use of literary examples spread in the sagas.
Arms and the Man: how the Scots who bled with Wallace fought in Braveheart and in History
What Braveheart showed was a parody of an archery barrage which, in fact, would be fairly continuous until most of the arrows available, about forty to each bowman, had been shot. Nor would there be longish pauses between single flights of arrows, in perhaps a sporting spirit in order to give the Scots time to recover their spirits and dress their ranks in time for the next hail of missiles, or, in the film, to bare their arses in vulgar mockery of their enemies.
The Contemporary Evidence for Early Medieval Witchcraft-Beliefs
This article has two main aims. One is to bring to a wider audience a small group of early medieval texts pertinent to the history of witchcraft…
Wellcome Trust puts over 100,000 images online
The Wellcome Trust, a leading British health organization, has created an online database of over 100 000 historical images, including many from the Middle Ages.
Knights of Badassdom
TUGG screenings begin January 21st; available On Demand and Digitally February 11th
Environmental Effects in the Agriculture of Medieval Egypt
Agriculture has been the main source of the economy for all dynasties established in Egypt and the Mamluk kingdom was no exception.
Manuel II Palaeologus in Paris (1400-1402): Theology, Diplomacy, and Politics
The end of the fourteenth century found the Byzantine Empire in a critical state.
Integrative Medicine: Incorporating Medicine and Health into the Canon of MedievalEuropean History
Hitherto peripheral (if not outright ignored) in general medieval historiography, medieval medical history is now a vibrant subdiscipline, one that is rightly attracting more and more attention from ‘mainstream’ historians and other students of cultural history.