Alfred the Great or Edward the Elder? Pelvic bone ‘most likely’ belongs to Anglo-Saxon King
Researchers believe that a pelvic found discovered over fifteen years ago belongs to an English king: either Alfred the Great or his son Edward the Elder.
Orkneyinga saga : A Work in Progress?
The reconstituted text conventionally known as Orkneyinga saga has many points of interest for Old Icelandic literary history, in addition to any intrinsic literary qualities, and its interest as a source for the history and culture of Scandinavian Scotland.
Beowulf in 100 Tweets
How Elaine Treharne took over 3000 lines of Beowulf and made it into 100 tweets.
Review of ‘England in the Time of King Richard III’ online course
Andy C. McMillin reviews the free online course ‘England in the Time of King Richard III’ offered by Future Learn.
BOOKS: Great Reads about Medieval Queens!
Queens Consort: England’s Medieval Queens from Eleanor of Aquitaine to Elizabeth of York Author: Lisa Hilton Publisher: Pegasus (August 3, 2010) Summary England’s medieval…
Hawkers, beggars, assassins and tramps : Fringe characters in the Íslendinga sögur
The paper will identify a number of different types of vagrants portrayed in the sagas and their varying roles within saga plots.
The examination of the Book of Kells using micro-Raman spectroscopy
Until recently, studies of its dyes and pigments have relied exclusively on techniques such as visual and optical microscopic and spectroscopic examination, and comparison of the appearance of the pigment with specimens prepared using ancient or medieval recipes.
Víking – ’rower shifting’? An etymological contribution
There is an extensive literature on the etymology of víking f. ‘freebooting voyage’ and víkingr m. ‘sea warrior’, but none of the well-known suggestions are satisfactory.
The swaddling-clothes of Christ: a medieval relic on display
In the Middle Ages, the most revered relics were those believed to have been in closest contact with Christ, especially when they related to the Passion. However, there were also other popular relics connected with Christ’s infancy, such as his swaddling clothes.
Integrative Medicine: Incorporating Medicine and Health into the Canon of Medieval European History
Hitherto peripheral (if not outright ignored) in general medieval historiography, medieval medical history is now a vibrant subdiscipline, one that is rightlyattracting more and more attention from ‘mainstream’ historians and other studentsof cultural history.
Marvels and Allies in the East. India as Heterotopia of Latin Europe in the 12th Century
It has long been said that Latin Europe lost its connection to the East, specifically to Asia, in the early Middle Ages. But this is only part of the truth. From late Antiquity on, there were Christians in many places between the Mediterranean Sea and China.
A Medieval Sitcom: Lords, Ladies
In 2010, Casey Poma created this short video as his thesis work at California State University – Monterey Bay
Vespucci’s Triangle and the Shape of the World
Interdisciplinary interactions between sixteenth-century travellers and cosmographers produced visual models that challenged normative modes of visual thinking, even as they tried to clarify ideas about the earth’s surface.
Printing with gold in the fifteenth century
Gold printing in the fifteenth century is very rare. There are only two printers who are known to have applied this technique. One of them was Erhard Ratdolt who first used gold for printing a gloriously spectacular full page of dedication in a number of copies of his editio princeps of Euclid.
The Ship in the Field
An article exploring the possibility of a connection between the Vanir gods, specifically the goddess Freyja, with the Scandinavian stone ships and boat burials, and hypothesizing a field of the dead in early Germanic mythology.
Stereoscopic comparison as the long-lost secret to microscopically detailed illumination like the Book of Kells
Taking a very close look at the Book of Kells
Illuminating the Middle Ages
So what lies beyond King Arthur and the Round Table, and some bawdy poems by Chaucer? Is this a period that deserves to be better understood? Might medieval beliefs and attitudes to society, to mankind, to culture and literature offer insights into issues — from the relationship between church and state to the place of man in the universe — that still concern us today?
Late medieval choir stalls and the search for their maker
Christel Theunissen, a graduate student at Radboud University, has created this video introducing the research she is doing on medieval choir stalls.
How to Get Started in Digital History
Video from a Workshop at the 2014 American Historical Association Annual Meeting
Mary, Duchess of Burgundy
As the only child of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, Mary was the heir of a far-ranging, wealthy and diverse realm and she was sometimes called Mary the Rich.
The Beauty of the Bestiary
Bestiaries were encyclopedias of animal life, complete with descriptions of the animals, their places in the world, and often their symbolic relationships to Christianity.
Menstruation in Sacred Places. Medieval and Early-Modern Jewish Women in the Synagogue
How sacred is the Synagogue? Can a woman enter this holy place while menstruating? What is more sacred: the space, or the Holy objects within it?
Corruption at Court? Crisis and the theme of Luxuria in England and France, c. 1340-1422
Why was the behaviour of courtiers such a concern in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries? Historians often take contemporary remarks about the excesses of the court and the immorality of its members as simple observations of fact.
Land and Sea Communications, Fourth–Fifteenth Centuries
The principle that the active and coordinated collaboration of nature and man is an essential requirement for the creation of a network of communications is of fundamen- tal importance.
Who should own this medieval treasure?
The ownership of a collection of medieval treasures worth an estimated $250 million (US) will soon be decided. They will either remain with with a German museum or go to a group of descendants of Jewish art dealers who sold the collection in 1935.