What medieval Europe did with its teenagers
Today, there’s often a perception that Asian children are given a hard time by their parents. But a few hundred years ago northern Europe took a particularly harsh line, sending children away to live and work in someone else’s home. Not surprisingly, the children didn’t always like it.
What Is Your Medieval Profession?
I got Stable Boy!
What is an Australasian parrot doing in a 15th century Italian painting?
The Sulphur-crested Cockatoo is a species of parrot native to Australia and eastern Indonesia. However, you can also see one in the Madonna della Vittoria, a painting made in 1496 by Andrea Mantegna.
New Books on the Vikings
Want to know more about the Vikings? Here are five books that talk about the Norsemen, including their combs and their language.
BOOK REVIEW: A King’s Ransom – Sharon Kay Penman
A King’s Ransom is the follow up to Lionheart and tells the story of King Richard I’s imprisonment in Germany at the hands of Duke Leopold of Austria and Emperor Heinrich VI and of his battle to win back his Kingdom from his rapacious brother John.
The Atlas Blaeu-Van der Hem
This documentary takes a look at the Atlas Blaeu-Van der Hem – one of the largest and greatest atlases ever assembled.
Medieval Magic Tricks
How to turn water into wine, make a cross turn by itself, or have worms appear on cooked meat – some fun medieval magic tricks!
Unpleasant Affairs That Please Us: Admonition and Rebuke in the Letter Collections of the Archbishops of Canterbury, 11th and 12th Centuries
From the Norman Conquest in 1066 up to the famous “murder in the cathedral”2 in 1170, six archbishops of Canterbury ruled over the English church…
Syrian army captures Crac des Chevaliers
Syrian government forces have captured the medieval fortress of Crac des Chevaliers from rebels on Thursday.
Herb-workers and Heretics: Beguines, Bakhtin and the Basques
During the Middle Ages and early Renaissance, the word beguine was used by women to identify themselves as members of a wide-spread and influential women’s movement. The same term was used by their detractors and overt opponents, with the highly charged negative meaning of “heretic.” The etymology of the term “beguine” and ultimate origins of the movement have never been satisfactorily explained.
Some Considerations Regarding the Slavic God Triglav
This article presents a description Triglav, a god or complex of gods in Slavic mythology.
Translating the Life of Merlin
This essay analyses three of the most prominent translations of the Life of Merlin, in order to discern how the translator’s differing methods have resulted in subtle, yet important, changes in meaning.
Guelph Treasure should remain in Germany, commission rules
An advisory commission in Germany has ruled that the Guelph Treasure should remain in a Berlin museum and not be returned to the heirs of the Jewish owners who sold the medieval artefacts to the Nazi state in the 1930s.
Death and the Fraternity: A Short Study on the Dead in Late Medieval Confraternities
Since the publication of Philippe Aries’ ground-breaking The Hour of our Death, historians of confraternities have largely followed his lead and treated confraternities as a “guarantee of eternity.”
The Process of State-Formation in Medieval Iceland
The aim of this article is to analyze the process of state-formation in Iceland in light of some general models of state-formation in Europe in the Middle Ages.
Dietary Laws in Medieval Christian-Jewish Polemics: A Survey
In the religious debate between Jews and Christians, the biblical dietary laws come to illustrate important assumptions concerning the “other.”
Vikings – Review of Season 2 Episode 4: Eye For an Eye
This week’s episode of Vikings contains one of the most strange and disturbing scenes of the entire series
British Library purchases the Catholicon Anglicum
The British Library has paid £92,500 in order to keep a 500-year old dictionary from leaving the United Kingdom. They announced earlier this week that they had completed the purchase of the Catholicon Anglicum, a 15th-century English-Latin dictionary.
Macbeth film ‘Enemy of Man’ looks to raise money on Kickstarter
An independent feature film of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth starring Sean Bean, Rupert Grint and Charles Dance has almost raised half of the $250 000 they are seeking on the crowd-funding website Kickstarter.
The Wardrobe of Margaret of Denmark, Queen of Scotland
Margaret of Denmark dressed at the height of fashion in mid-15th century Scotland.
Military Technology in the writings of John of Salisbury
John was one of the best-educated men of his day and worked as a clerk to the archbishops of Canterbury; later in life, he became the treasurer of Exeter Cathedral and also the bishop of Chartres. John was a prolific author who wrote three major books, two saints’ lives, two moralistic poems, and 325 personal letters.
Tolkien’s translation of Beowulf coming out this spring
In 1926, J.R.R. Tolkien, who would later go on to write The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, completed his own translation of the Old English poem Beowulf. Eighty-eight years later that work is going to be published for the first time
What we now know about the Staffordshire Hoard
The entire Staffordshire Hoard, over 4000 pieces, has been brought together for the first time since being discovered in 2009. Experts are now making fascinating new discoveries as they put together the collection.
Cold and Wet, Hot and Dry: The Knowing of Woman’s Kind in Childing
The Knowing of Woman’s Kind in Childing is an important and significant medieval medical text because it has a self-identified female audience and a female-orientated medical focus.
Dutch medieval bone and antler combs
Bone and antler combs are common finds in medieval northern europe. Two major types occur in the netherlands: the composite comb, usually made of antler, and the longbone comb.