What’s new in medieval studies? Here are ten open-access articles published in September, which include pieces focusing on medieval England and Poland.
This ongoing series on Medievalists.net highlights what has been published in journals over the last month that deal with the Middle Ages. All ten articles are Open-Access, meaning you can read them for free. We have a special tier on our Patreon where you can see the full list of the 73 open-access articles we found.
Felons’ chattels and English living standards in the later fourteenth and fifteenth centuries
By Chris Briggs, Ben Jervis, Alice Forward, Tomasz Gromelski and Matthew Tompkins
The Economic History Review
Abstract:The later fourteenth and fifteenth centuries have long occupied an intriguing and contested place in discussions of England’s long-run economic development. One key issue around which debate has coalesced is the living standards of the population as a whole and of different groups within it. We contribute to this debate by bringing forward new evidence on the material living standards of peasants, artisans, and wage-earners in the countryside and small towns. This consists of lists of goods and chattels forfeited to the crown by felons, fugitives, and outlaws. This material, found in the archive of the royal escheator, is not without its problems. Yet, a careful quantitative analysis of both the overall valuations of forfeited goods and the incidence of specific items in such lists of forfeitures shows that there was relatively little change in the later fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. This is surprising, given the traditional characterization of this period as a time of rising consumption during the ‘golden age of the labourer’. This later medieval evidence is contextualized through the analysis of similar forfeiture data relating to the sixteenth century.
Court, doors, crowns, turbans, and thrones: insignia, models, and rituals from the Visigothic Kingdom to al-Andalus
By Elsa Cardoso
Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies
Abstract: This article addresses how the newly established Islamic imperial power—with its new religious identity—adapted or rejected previous Late Antique rituals, insignia, and court representations in the Iberian Peninsula. The article focuses especially on sources that deal with these representations under the Umayyad Emirate and Caliphate (756–1031). It employs a comparative perspective with the Visigothic Kingdom of Toledo (mid-sixth century–711) to evaluate the adoption, reassessment, or rejection of previous models. It also considers exemplary cases that took place after the Islamic conquest of 711 through the so-called period of the governors (711–756). Based on written and material sources, such as pictorial representations, coins, ceramics, ivories, votive crowns, and textiles, the article evaluates the Peninsular context prior to the arrival of Islam and the development of these models throughout the Umayyad period.
Bolesław the Brave of Poland’s Embassy to Byzantium in 1018: Power, Diplomacy, and Symbolism at the Turn of the First Millennium
By Zbigniew Dalewski
Byzantinische Zeitschrift
Abstract: Referring to Thietmar of Merseburg’s account of the embassy sent by Bolesław the Brave of Poland to Byzantium following his conquest of Kyiv in 1018 – an event recorded in two different forms in two versions of Thietmar’s chronicle – this article explores the significance the Polish ruler placed on establishing relations with the Byzantine Empire. The study argues that Bolesław’s efforts to forge these connections should be interpreted not only in the context of Polish-Byzantine relations, but rather within the broader framework of ideas associated with Byzantium in the political culture of the Latin West at the turn of the first millennium. It demonstrates that for the Polish rulers, as for many other rulers in Latin Europe, Byzantium, with its ceremonies and symbols, served as an important reference point for concepts of legitimate rulership.
Runnymede’s memorials and landscapes: Magna Carta and England’s wider communities of belonging
By Tim Edensor and Ben Wellings
Political Geography
Abstract: This article explores the memorials at Runnymede, Surrey, to analyse the multiple expressions of Englishness, and the diverse ways in which England’s political imaginary extends far beyond the borders of England itself. Whereas much comment on Englishness since the Brexit referendum of 2016 has characterised it as an inward-looking, parochial and even inherently racist, our analysis shows how it has been constructed as highly connected with other parts of the world, notably through how Magna Carta has been incorporated into national and supra-national narratives beyond England. Our analysis discloses how Runnymede’s memorials, forms that exemplify the increasingly diverse forms of material commemoration that are proliferating and decentring traditional designs, express shifting, competing meanings of England and divergent links to other people and places: the Empire and Commonwealth, the so-called English-speaking peoples and the Anglosphere, and multicultural Britain’s connections with the wider world. Besides these symbolic encodings, through autoethnographic and cultural analysis, we investigate the affective and sensory impact of each memorial in an already symbolically and affectively charged landscape.
History written in charcoals. Dendrochronology of Barczewko
By Anna Elzanowska and Arkadiusz Koperkiewicz
npj Heritage Science
Abstract: Barczewko (German: Alt Wartenburg) is a village in northeastern Poland that vanished in 1354 due to Lithuanian invasion, sharing the fate of lost cities. A hill called the “Old City” preserves memories of this event and contains a rich deposit of early urban relics, including artefacts, remains of a large fire, and a cemetery of early settlers and victims. This site is a classic ‘Pompeian case’ in archaeology, where a sudden, well-dated event provides valuable insights into the era. The precise fire destruction date and the city’s brief existence offer excellent reference points for dendrochronology. Researchers aim to compare dendrochronological analysis with historical records, demonstrating the method’s ability to establish absolute dates. The local oak chronology spans 253 years (1081–1333) and is among the longest developed solely from charred wood, showcasing dendrochronology’s effectiveness in dating short-term historical events.
Aldborough and the metals economy of northern England, c. AD 345–1700: a new post-Roman narrative
By Christopher P. Loveluck, Martin J. Millett, Simon Chenery, Carolyn Chenery, Rose Ferraby, Charles French, Catherine Langdon, Fiona E. Moore, Ben Pears, Robert Scaife and Phillip Toms
Antiquity
Abstract: Increasing interdisciplinary analysis of geoarchaeological records, including sediment and ice cores, permits finer-scale contextual interpretation of the history of anthropogenic environmental impacts. In an interdisciplinary approach to economic history, the authors examine metal pollutants in a sediment core from the Roman metal-producing centre of Aldborough, North Yorkshire, combining this record with textual and archaeological evidence from the region. Finding that fluctuations in pollution correspond with sociopolitical events, pandemics and recorded trends in British metal production c. AD 1100–1700, the authors extend the analysis to earlier periods that lack written records, providing a new post-Roman economic narrative for northern England.
O vis eternitatis, Text Expression, and Performance in the Music of Hildegard von Bingen
By Honey Meconi
Religions
Abstract: The article analyzes the responsory O vis eternitatis, the symbolic opening of Hildegard von Bingen’s primary music collection, to show how Hildegard’s musical choices support the key words and concepts of the composition. It examines usual components of construction, such as mode, melisma, range, and repetition, and shows that the piece is suffused with repetition in a manner not previously detailed. The article also explores a feature usually overlooked in writings on Hildegard’s music: the employment of ornamental neumes to highlight text, identifying instances of unusual frequency or rare use of specific neumes. The article then compares three significantly different recordings of O vis eternitatis, concluding that modern difficulties in the performance of ornamental neumes mean that our renditions today can never fully realize Hildegard’s conceptions. Stripped of their ornaments, Hildegard’s compositions resemble statuary from antiquity that has lost its original paint over the centuries—no longer as the creator intended, but still beautiful and deeply pleasing.
Ability and Authority in the Context of Crisis and Conflict: The Mid-Fifteenth Century
By David M. Robinson
Journal of Chinese History 中國歷史學刊
Abstract:The Ming dynasty’s survival depended on locating and employing men with the ability to direct military forces, and contemporary observers were deeply concerned with the nexus of command, troop morale, and dynastic fighting capacity. This essay focuses on the years following the Tumu Crisis of 1449, a time when dynastic authorities were particularly alive to issues of military ability, and it draws on the perspectives of two men, the Minister of War, Yu Qian 于謙 (1398–1457), and another more junior official, Ye Sheng 葉盛 (1420–72). The essay offers a snapshot of how military ability was defined, cultivated, assessed, and rewarded. Further, it suggests that, read carefully, the writings of Ye Sheng and Yu Qian not only offer insight into the views of elite civil officials but also shed light, however faint and wavering, on military labor and working conditions for those who fought and commanded for a living.
Maritime Power in Northern Norway during the Viking Age and Medieval Period: Evidence from Monumental Boathouses Tracing the Rise and fall of the Bjarkøy Clan
By Stephen Wickler, Marit Chruickshank and Ragnhild Myrstad
Journal of Maritime Archaeology
Abstract: The excavation of multiple monumental boathouses at Nergården on Bjarkøy Island in northern Norway was undertaken from 2019 to 2022 by the authors and supplemented with Ground Penetrating Radar survey data. Results provide detailed insights into the construction and use of three boathouses dating from the Viking Age to the High Medieval Period. Excavations initially focused on a long and narrow 29 × 6 m (m) Viking Age boathouse modified and expanded to a significantly larger three-aisled structure in the first half of the eleventh century.
Further excavation revealed an open-air workshop for boat maintenance adjacent to the expanded boathouse in the eleventh and twelfth century. This was followed by the construction of a monumental medieval boathouse that covered the workshop area and was in use from the second half of the twelfth century until the end of the fourteenth century. This three-aisled boathouse had an interior length well over 22 m and width of 9 m between the inner roof-bearing walls. Detailed 3D models combined archaeological data with traditional handwork knowledge to reconstruct each of the boathouses.
The collective results reveal the role of the Nergården boathouses as material signifiers for maritime power exercised by the Bjarkøy clan as recorded in the saga literature and other written sources. The Bjarkøy boathouse investigations provide a case study for an overarching research project incorporating recent data from two other locations with exceptionally large boathouses, Sand on Tjeldøya and Holsneset in Lofoten, both in Norway. These sites have close parallels to the Bjarkøy structures reflecting the importance of Viking Age and medieval maritime communication and power in the north.
Clay Speaks of Adaptation: Pottery from Frankish Palestine
By Yara A. Zoabi and Rabei G. Khamisy
Palestine Exploration Quarterly
Abstract: During the Frankish period, the local society of the Levant underwent significant changes following the arrival of diverse groups of newcomers. The interactions and integration among individuals from various ethnic backgrounds are manifested in the diverse material culture they left behind, whether as monumental as a fort or as mundane as a broken dining dish. The connection between ceramic wares and the identity of those who produced and used them has long intrigued researchers studying different historical periods. Ceramic wares of the Frankish period were made in abundance in various production centres, comprising both local pottery and imported vessels that reached the kingdom through its main port city of Acre and other coastal cities, including Jaffa, Tyre, and Beirut. Through examination of ceramic assemblages from diverse sites in the western Upper Galilee region (Figure 1), this research demonstrates that pottery serves not as a reliable indicator of ethnic identity or socio-economic status, but rather as evidence of complex cultural adaptation between Western and Eastern societies that reflects both preference and necessity.
We found 73 open-access articles from September – you can get the full list by joining our Patreon – look for the tier that says Open Access articles in Medieval Studies.
What’s new in medieval studies? Here are ten open-access articles published in September, which include pieces focusing on medieval England and Poland.
This ongoing series on Medievalists.net highlights what has been published in journals over the last month that deal with the Middle Ages. All ten articles are Open-Access, meaning you can read them for free. We have a special tier on our Patreon where you can see the full list of the 73 open-access articles we found.
Felons’ chattels and English living standards in the later fourteenth and fifteenth centuries
By Chris Briggs, Ben Jervis, Alice Forward, Tomasz Gromelski and Matthew Tompkins
The Economic History Review
Abstract:The later fourteenth and fifteenth centuries have long occupied an intriguing and contested place in discussions of England’s long-run economic development. One key issue around which debate has coalesced is the living standards of the population as a whole and of different groups within it. We contribute to this debate by bringing forward new evidence on the material living standards of peasants, artisans, and wage-earners in the countryside and small towns. This consists of lists of goods and chattels forfeited to the crown by felons, fugitives, and outlaws. This material, found in the archive of the royal escheator, is not without its problems. Yet, a careful quantitative analysis of both the overall valuations of forfeited goods and the incidence of specific items in such lists of forfeitures shows that there was relatively little change in the later fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. This is surprising, given the traditional characterization of this period as a time of rising consumption during the ‘golden age of the labourer’. This later medieval evidence is contextualized through the analysis of similar forfeiture data relating to the sixteenth century.
Click here to read this article
Court, doors, crowns, turbans, and thrones: insignia, models, and rituals from the Visigothic Kingdom to al-Andalus
By Elsa Cardoso
Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies
Abstract: This article addresses how the newly established Islamic imperial power—with its new religious identity—adapted or rejected previous Late Antique rituals, insignia, and court representations in the Iberian Peninsula. The article focuses especially on sources that deal with these representations under the Umayyad Emirate and Caliphate (756–1031). It employs a comparative perspective with the Visigothic Kingdom of Toledo (mid-sixth century–711) to evaluate the adoption, reassessment, or rejection of previous models. It also considers exemplary cases that took place after the Islamic conquest of 711 through the so-called period of the governors (711–756). Based on written and material sources, such as pictorial representations, coins, ceramics, ivories, votive crowns, and textiles, the article evaluates the Peninsular context prior to the arrival of Islam and the development of these models throughout the Umayyad period.
Click here to read this article
Bolesław the Brave of Poland’s Embassy to Byzantium in 1018: Power, Diplomacy, and Symbolism at the Turn of the First Millennium
By Zbigniew Dalewski
Byzantinische Zeitschrift
Abstract: Referring to Thietmar of Merseburg’s account of the embassy sent by Bolesław the Brave of Poland to Byzantium following his conquest of Kyiv in 1018 – an event recorded in two different forms in two versions of Thietmar’s chronicle – this article explores the significance the Polish ruler placed on establishing relations with the Byzantine Empire. The study argues that Bolesław’s efforts to forge these connections should be interpreted not only in the context of Polish-Byzantine relations, but rather within the broader framework of ideas associated with Byzantium in the political culture of the Latin West at the turn of the first millennium. It demonstrates that for the Polish rulers, as for many other rulers in Latin Europe, Byzantium, with its ceremonies and symbols, served as an important reference point for concepts of legitimate rulership.
Click here to read this article
Runnymede’s memorials and landscapes: Magna Carta and England’s wider communities of belonging
By Tim Edensor and Ben Wellings
Political Geography
Abstract: This article explores the memorials at Runnymede, Surrey, to analyse the multiple expressions of Englishness, and the diverse ways in which England’s political imaginary extends far beyond the borders of England itself. Whereas much comment on Englishness since the Brexit referendum of 2016 has characterised it as an inward-looking, parochial and even inherently racist, our analysis shows how it has been constructed as highly connected with other parts of the world, notably through how Magna Carta has been incorporated into national and supra-national narratives beyond England. Our analysis discloses how Runnymede’s memorials, forms that exemplify the increasingly diverse forms of material commemoration that are proliferating and decentring traditional designs, express shifting, competing meanings of England and divergent links to other people and places: the Empire and Commonwealth, the so-called English-speaking peoples and the Anglosphere, and multicultural Britain’s connections with the wider world. Besides these symbolic encodings, through autoethnographic and cultural analysis, we investigate the affective and sensory impact of each memorial in an already symbolically and affectively charged landscape.
Click here to read this article
History written in charcoals. Dendrochronology of Barczewko
By Anna Elzanowska and Arkadiusz Koperkiewicz
npj Heritage Science
Abstract: Barczewko (German: Alt Wartenburg) is a village in northeastern Poland that vanished in 1354 due to Lithuanian invasion, sharing the fate of lost cities. A hill called the “Old City” preserves memories of this event and contains a rich deposit of early urban relics, including artefacts, remains of a large fire, and a cemetery of early settlers and victims. This site is a classic ‘Pompeian case’ in archaeology, where a sudden, well-dated event provides valuable insights into the era. The precise fire destruction date and the city’s brief existence offer excellent reference points for dendrochronology. Researchers aim to compare dendrochronological analysis with historical records, demonstrating the method’s ability to establish absolute dates. The local oak chronology spans 253 years (1081–1333) and is among the longest developed solely from charred wood, showcasing dendrochronology’s effectiveness in dating short-term historical events.
Click here to read this article
Aldborough and the metals economy of northern England, c. AD 345–1700: a new post-Roman narrative
By Christopher P. Loveluck, Martin J. Millett, Simon Chenery, Carolyn Chenery, Rose Ferraby, Charles French, Catherine Langdon, Fiona E. Moore, Ben Pears, Robert Scaife and Phillip Toms
Antiquity
Abstract: Increasing interdisciplinary analysis of geoarchaeological records, including sediment and ice cores, permits finer-scale contextual interpretation of the history of anthropogenic environmental impacts. In an interdisciplinary approach to economic history, the authors examine metal pollutants in a sediment core from the Roman metal-producing centre of Aldborough, North Yorkshire, combining this record with textual and archaeological evidence from the region. Finding that fluctuations in pollution correspond with sociopolitical events, pandemics and recorded trends in British metal production c. AD 1100–1700, the authors extend the analysis to earlier periods that lack written records, providing a new post-Roman economic narrative for northern England.
Click here to read this article
O vis eternitatis, Text Expression, and Performance in the Music of Hildegard von Bingen
By Honey Meconi
Religions
Abstract: The article analyzes the responsory O vis eternitatis, the symbolic opening of Hildegard von Bingen’s primary music collection, to show how Hildegard’s musical choices support the key words and concepts of the composition. It examines usual components of construction, such as mode, melisma, range, and repetition, and shows that the piece is suffused with repetition in a manner not previously detailed. The article also explores a feature usually overlooked in writings on Hildegard’s music: the employment of ornamental neumes to highlight text, identifying instances of unusual frequency or rare use of specific neumes. The article then compares three significantly different recordings of O vis eternitatis, concluding that modern difficulties in the performance of ornamental neumes mean that our renditions today can never fully realize Hildegard’s conceptions. Stripped of their ornaments, Hildegard’s compositions resemble statuary from antiquity that has lost its original paint over the centuries—no longer as the creator intended, but still beautiful and deeply pleasing.
Click here to read this article
Ability and Authority in the Context of Crisis and Conflict: The Mid-Fifteenth Century
By David M. Robinson
Journal of Chinese History 中國歷史學刊
Abstract:The Ming dynasty’s survival depended on locating and employing men with the ability to direct military forces, and contemporary observers were deeply concerned with the nexus of command, troop morale, and dynastic fighting capacity. This essay focuses on the years following the Tumu Crisis of 1449, a time when dynastic authorities were particularly alive to issues of military ability, and it draws on the perspectives of two men, the Minister of War, Yu Qian 于謙 (1398–1457), and another more junior official, Ye Sheng 葉盛 (1420–72). The essay offers a snapshot of how military ability was defined, cultivated, assessed, and rewarded. Further, it suggests that, read carefully, the writings of Ye Sheng and Yu Qian not only offer insight into the views of elite civil officials but also shed light, however faint and wavering, on military labor and working conditions for those who fought and commanded for a living.
Click here to read this article
Maritime Power in Northern Norway during the Viking Age and Medieval Period: Evidence from Monumental Boathouses Tracing the Rise and fall of the Bjarkøy Clan
By Stephen Wickler, Marit Chruickshank and Ragnhild Myrstad
Journal of Maritime Archaeology
Abstract: The excavation of multiple monumental boathouses at Nergården on Bjarkøy Island in northern Norway was undertaken from 2019 to 2022 by the authors and supplemented with Ground Penetrating Radar survey data. Results provide detailed insights into the construction and use of three boathouses dating from the Viking Age to the High Medieval Period. Excavations initially focused on a long and narrow 29 × 6 m (m) Viking Age boathouse modified and expanded to a significantly larger three-aisled structure in the first half of the eleventh century.
Further excavation revealed an open-air workshop for boat maintenance adjacent to the expanded boathouse in the eleventh and twelfth century. This was followed by the construction of a monumental medieval boathouse that covered the workshop area and was in use from the second half of the twelfth century until the end of the fourteenth century. This three-aisled boathouse had an interior length well over 22 m and width of 9 m between the inner roof-bearing walls. Detailed 3D models combined archaeological data with traditional handwork knowledge to reconstruct each of the boathouses.
The collective results reveal the role of the Nergården boathouses as material signifiers for maritime power exercised by the Bjarkøy clan as recorded in the saga literature and other written sources. The Bjarkøy boathouse investigations provide a case study for an overarching research project incorporating recent data from two other locations with exceptionally large boathouses, Sand on Tjeldøya and Holsneset in Lofoten, both in Norway. These sites have close parallels to the Bjarkøy structures reflecting the importance of Viking Age and medieval maritime communication and power in the north.
Click here to read this article
Clay Speaks of Adaptation: Pottery from Frankish Palestine
By Yara A. Zoabi and Rabei G. Khamisy
Palestine Exploration Quarterly
Abstract: During the Frankish period, the local society of the Levant underwent significant changes following the arrival of diverse groups of newcomers. The interactions and integration among individuals from various ethnic backgrounds are manifested in the diverse material culture they left behind, whether as monumental as a fort or as mundane as a broken dining dish. The connection between ceramic wares and the identity of those who produced and used them has long intrigued researchers studying different historical periods. Ceramic wares of the Frankish period were made in abundance in various production centres, comprising both local pottery and imported vessels that reached the kingdom through its main port city of Acre and other coastal cities, including Jaffa, Tyre, and Beirut. Through examination of ceramic assemblages from diverse sites in the western Upper Galilee region (Figure 1), this research demonstrates that pottery serves not as a reliable indicator of ethnic identity or socio-economic status, but rather as evidence of complex cultural adaptation between Western and Eastern societies that reflects both preference and necessity.
Click here to read this article
We found 73 open-access articles from September – you can get the full list by joining our Patreon – look for the tier that says Open Access articles in Medieval Studies.
See also our list of open-access articles from August
Top Image: Hildegard von Bingen by Karlheinz Oswald, Eibingen – photo by Gerda Arendt / Wikimedia Commons
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