Materiality in the Queenship of Isabeau of Bavaria
This thesis revisits the origins of Isabeau of Bavaria’s notorious reputation – her ‘Black Legend’.
‘Send More Socks’: On Mentality and the Preservation Context of Medieval Letters
A survey of the voices from the garbage dump – the letters on wood excavated at the Roman fortress at Vindolanda, the Bryggen harbour site in Bergen and Medieval Novgorod – can provide an illuminated contrast to the corpus of Latin letters from the early medieval West.
Remediating Viking Origins: Genetic Code as Archival Memory of the Remote Past
In this article we explore how the remote past is made relevant in the present for participants in a study of population genetics in the UK.
Palaces, Itineraries and Political Order in the Post-Carolingian Kingdoms
What did the same-but-different post-Carolingian kingdoms owe to their predecessors, and how should we characterise that debt if not in simple terms of continuity or change?
Disputing Identity, Territoriality, and Sovereignty: The Place of Pomerania in the Social Memory of the Kingdom of Poland and the Teutonic Ordensstaat
This dissertation analyzes state-formation, the development of historical consciousness, and the construction of identities in medieval Europe.
Medieval Morocco comes to the Louvre
The Louvre opened its Medieval Morocco: An Empire from Africa to Spain exhibition today, which will feature over 300 artefacts covering the North African kingdom’s history during the later Middle Ages.
Thank you for buying this issue of The Medieval Magazine
Thank you for buying this issue of our digital magazine. Click here to download the issue
Maritime Southeast Asia: The View from Tang-Song China
The following are annotated, critical translations of monographs from the Older and Newer Tang Histories concerning the foreign peoples and kingdoms of Maritime Southeast Asia.
Who is Your Medieval Alter Ego?
Who would you have been if you had lived in the medieval era? Take the test and find out!
Medieval Parenting Advice
For as long as there have been children, there has been parental advice. This week, let’s take five minutes to look at two Middle English texts that deal with advice
Medieval glass artefacts shed new light on Swedish history
Archaeological finds of glass material from Old Lödöse, a Swedish trade centre in the High Middle Ages, call for a revision of the country’s glass history.
The Episcopal Body and Sexuality in Late Medieval England
How was long-term celibacy thought to affect the health of religious men? How could medical knowledge help clerics to achieve bodily purity?
Byzantine art exhibition now open in Chicago
A new exhibition, Heaven and Earth: Art of Byzantium from Greek Collections, opened last month at the Art Institute of Chicago, and showcases more than 60 superb artworks of the Byzantine era, from the 4th to the 15th centuries.
The Gendered Nose and its Lack: ‘Medieval’ Nose-Cutting and its Modern Manifestations
Rather clearer is its connection with patriarchal values of authority and honor: the victims of such punishment have not always been women, but this is nevertheless a gendered punishment of the powerless by the powerful.
Profile of a Plant: The Olive in Early Medieval Italy, 400-900 CE
The essay illuminates some of the ways that early medieval Italian communities engaged their environmental inheritance, how they recast the stolid olive to fit local contingencies.
What warrior from history are you?
Spartan, Samurai or Knight: What warrior from history are you?
1,300 year old ski discovered in Norway
As glaciers in Norway melted this summer, 390 artefacts dating back to over 6,000 years ago have emerged from the ice. This includes a 1,300 year old ski, a rune stick and ancient arrows.
Animal bites in the Middle Ages
Medieval authors suggested varied treatments for bites. The initial act usually was to distinguish between the bites of venomous beasts (snakes, scorpions and rabid dogs were included here) and non-venomous animals (hares, cats and non-rabid dogs, for example)
This Week in Medieval Manuscript Images
Wild women, big fish and scary faces are among the nearly 40 medieval manuscript images collected from Twitter in the last week.
Should Columbus Day still be celebrated?
‘The fact that Columbus brought slavery, enormous exploitation or devastating diseases to the Americas used to be seen as a minor detail – if it was recognized at all – in light of his role as the great bringer of white man’s civilization to the benighted idolatrous American continent. But to historians today this information is very important. It changes our whole view of the enterprise.’
Viking Hoard discovered in Scotland
Scottish officials announced today “a hugely significant find” – the discovery of a Viking Hoard in Dumfries. Over 100 artifacts dating back to the 9th and 10th century have been found, including a solid silver cross and a Carolingian pot.
‘There is more to the story than this, of course’: Character and Affect in Philippa Gregory’s The White Queen
Philippa Gregory has critiqued gendered representations of Elizabeth Woodville and has stated that her 2009 novel The White Queen fictionalises Woodville’s history with the aim of challenging such depictions.
Peasant Anger and Violence in the Writings of Orderic Vitalis
This paper examines the representation of peasant anger in the writings of Orderic Vitalis. In his texts, Orderic often associates peasant anger with divine vengeance and just violence.
Viking Chiefs, Irish Kings and Exported Princesses
One of the earliest records which we have of the Deisi, the native kingdom in which Viking Woodstown were constructed, is their origin legend
When gold was medicine
If you came to a medieval physician with a problem such a trembling heart or melancholy, he may give you gold as part of your cure.