The soldier’s life: martial virtues and hegemonic masculinity in the early Byzantine Empire
This dissertation argues that martial virtues and images of the soldier’s life represented an essential aspect of early Byzantine masculine ideology. It contends that in many of the visual and literary sources from the fourth to the seventh centuries CE, conceptualisations of the soldier’s life and the ideal manly life were often the same.
Leiðarvísir: Its Genre and Sources, with Particular Reference to the Description of Rome
For the last two centuries, Leiðarvísir has been the subject of great interest by scholars from a variety of disciplines: not only Old Norse scholars, but also historians, geographers, toponymists and scholars of pilgrimage have studied and analysed this work.
Old Norse Influence in Modern English: The Effect of the Viking Invasion
It is estimated that there are around 400 Old Norse borrowings in Standard English. These borrowings are amongst the most frequently used terms in English and denote objects and actions of the most everyday description.
The Augustinian Canons in England and Wales: Architecture, Archaeology and Liturgy 1100-1540
The Augustinian canons remain very much the Cinderellas of British medieval monastic history.
Chronicles and historiography: the interrelationship of fact and fiction
This paper indicates some of the challenges posed by fourteenth-century chronicles while focusing on contemporary testimonies about Clement V, pope between 1305 and 1314.
The Cyrurgia of Albucasis and other works, 1500
Four surgical treatises, printed in the last year of the fifteenth century, make up the oldest illustrated printed book in the Sibbald Library. The second one, the Cyrurgia of Albucasis, is the most interesting and I shall deal only briefly with the others.
Religion and Economy in Pre-Modern Europe: The Medieval Commercial Revolution and the Jews
Jews have often been described as the moneylenders for medieval Europe and considered central in Europe’s shift from a barter economy to a profit economy. This dissertation challenges that narrative historiographically and empirically.
The emergence of concentrated settlements in medieval Western Europe: explanatory frameworks in the historiography
There is now a general scholarly consensus that the concentration of rural people into settlements in Western Europe (as opposed to dispersed or scattered habitations across the countryside) occurred in various stages between the eighth and twelfth centuries, though with regional divergences in precise timing, speed, formation, and intensity.
Norse cultural reaction to climate change during the little ice age and their societal collapse in Greenland
This study aims to understand the adaptations of the Norse Greenlanders to climate change in their new home.
Greek in Marriage, Latin in Giving: The Greek Community of Fourteenth-century Palermo and the Deceptive Will of Bonannus de Geronimo
This article discusses the pitfalls that can occur in the study of ethnicity in the me- dieval period in the context of the potential existence of two separate Greek minori- ties—one indigenous and one immigrant—in fourteenth-century Latin-dominated Palermo, Italy.
Viking researchers help British Museum translate Norse culture
The first major exhibition on Vikings at the British Museum for over 30 years which opened on 6 March in London highlights a new research project by Viking experts at The University of Nottingham.
Trinity College Dublin marks anniversary of Battle of Clontarf with conference and exhibition
This year marks the 1000th anniversary of the Battle of Clontarf, one of the most important events in Irish history.
Antoinette of Bourbon, Duchess of Guise
Antoinette of Bourbon was the formidable matriarch of the Guise family in sixteenth century France. She had many children who were instrumental in international politics as well as in religious life including her daughter Mary of Guise, Queen of Scotland.
Proving Fifteenth Century Promises
Twentieth century common law lawyers know that a plaintiff has a remedy for the breach of a promise to do something in the future. Such a promise was not actionable until the early Renaissance period in England.
Slavic and Greek-Roman Mythology, Comparative Mythology
In this paper I will present a number of similarities between Greek and Roman deities and the Slavic ones, basing my research as much as possible on the information provided by an etymological analysis, a description of the deity as well as rituals, offerings, sacrifices and celebrations dedicated to the deities.
She Shall Be Saved in Childbearing: Submission,Contemplation of Conception, and Annunciation Imagery in the Books of Hours of Two Late Medieval Noblewomen
In this piece, I suggest that such books were also constructed with the intention of instilling certain virtues within the young and newly-married woman—namely, submission and a humble desire for motherhood.
Food and prejudice: a western ambassador in Byzantium
On the 4th of June, 968, Liutprand of Cremona made landfall at Constaninople as ambassador for the German emperor Otto I.
Researchers trace medieval pilgrimage route in Scotland
A report released earlier this month has revealed the ways medieval pilgrims would travel to the one of Scotland’s most holiest sites.
Theories of the Nonsense Word in Medieval England
The goos the cokkow and the doke also
So cryede kek kek kokkow quek quek hye
BOOK REVIEWS: “The Chalice” by Nancy Bilyeau
My book review of Nancy Bilyeau’s, “The Chalice”.
Call for Papers: Moving Women, Moving Objects (300-1500) (ICMA CAA 2015)
CFP: Moving Women, Moving Objects (300-1500) (ICMA CAA 2015)
Books by Jacques Le Goff
Here are just a few of his books, which have been translated into English and offer a glimpse at one of the leading historians of the Middle Ages.
How to Win Friends and Influence People: Medieval Bishops edition
‘To be a bishop during this time was to be a leader who might crown kings or provoke a rebellion. So the question we’re asking is, if you wanted to become a bishop, who did you need to know?’
Knightly Bird Vows: A Case Study in Late Medieval Courtly Culture
In the late Middle Ages, there was a series of instances wherein knights vowed upon birds.