It is often said that every object tells a story. This book brings that idea to life through fifty items from the Middle Ages, ranging from spoons to shields.
Excerpt:
Welcome to the captivating world of the ‘Medieval Cabinet of Curiosities’. In this extraordinary book, we invite you to embark on a journey through time, exploring fifty real objects from the medieval era that have been meticulously chosen, analysed, and beautifully drawn. The aim of this book is to fictively create a cabinet of curiosities, bringing together unique and often little-known objects. The selection process has been rigorous and the final choices are purely subjective. They offer a glimpse into the richness of medieval art, revealing stories that have long been concealed in the shadows of museums and churches.
Who is this book for?
This is an enjoyable book for anyone interested in the material culture of the Middle Ages. Each of its fifty entries devotes two or three pages to a distinctive and often unusual object. The selection is remarkably diverse, ranging from ice skates made from bone to a shield fashioned from antlers. The book also helpfully identifies where these objects can be found, usually in museum collections.
“Overall, this was a fun book to pick up and flick through, and it is likely to contain things you have not seen before, and some facts you did not know. Chevalier wishes this book to be a ‘temporal travel guide through a fascinating era’ but it does not always provide sufficient depth in its object biographies to fully achieve this. Rather like the cabinet of curiosities it is emulating, its value lies less in completeness and more in the pleasure of using things to tell tales.” ~ review by Linzi Harvey for the Chartered Institute of Archaeologists
The Author
Lorris Chevalier is an emerging medievalist whose varied work in the field has included serving as a historical adviser on several major films. He is also a columnist here at Medievalists.net, so we are delighted to see his work published in book form.
Lorris tells us why he wrote this book:
The idea came from a fascination with objects that resist easy explanation. Museums and churches are full of items that people walk past without really seeing them. I wanted to bring attention back to them—to treat each one as a story waiting to be told. The medieval world was intensely visual and symbolic. Objects were not just functional; they were often charged with meaning and understood as such.
He adds that:
A Medieval Cabinet of Curiosities is less a traditional history book and more a guided encounter with forgotten things. Through its carefully curated artifacts—from surgical tools to mysterious manuscripts—it reconstructs a past that feels both alien and strangely immediate.
A Medieval Cabinet of Curiosities
By Lorris Chevalier
Amberley
ISBN: 978 1 3981 2555 1
It is often said that every object tells a story. This book brings that idea to life through fifty items from the Middle Ages, ranging from spoons to shields.
Excerpt:
Welcome to the captivating world of the ‘Medieval Cabinet of Curiosities’. In this extraordinary book, we invite you to embark on a journey through time, exploring fifty real objects from the medieval era that have been meticulously chosen, analysed, and beautifully drawn. The aim of this book is to fictively create a cabinet of curiosities, bringing together unique and often little-known objects. The selection process has been rigorous and the final choices are purely subjective. They offer a glimpse into the richness of medieval art, revealing stories that have long been concealed in the shadows of museums and churches.
Who is this book for?
This is an enjoyable book for anyone interested in the material culture of the Middle Ages. Each of its fifty entries devotes two or three pages to a distinctive and often unusual object. The selection is remarkably diverse, ranging from ice skates made from bone to a shield fashioned from antlers. The book also helpfully identifies where these objects can be found, usually in museum collections.
“Overall, this was a fun book to pick up and flick through, and it is likely to contain things you have not seen before, and some facts you did not know. Chevalier wishes this book to be a ‘temporal travel guide through a fascinating era’ but it does not always provide sufficient depth in its object biographies to fully achieve this. Rather like the cabinet of curiosities it is emulating, its value lies less in completeness and more in the pleasure of using things to tell tales.” ~ review by Linzi Harvey for the Chartered Institute of Archaeologists
The Author
Lorris Chevalier is an emerging medievalist whose varied work in the field has included serving as a historical adviser on several major films. He is also a columnist here at Medievalists.net, so we are delighted to see his work published in book form.
Lorris tells us why he wrote this book:
The idea came from a fascination with objects that resist easy explanation. Museums and churches are full of items that people walk past without really seeing them. I wanted to bring attention back to them—to treat each one as a story waiting to be told. The medieval world was intensely visual and symbolic. Objects were not just functional; they were often charged with meaning and understood as such.
He adds that:
A Medieval Cabinet of Curiosities is less a traditional history book and more a guided encounter with forgotten things. Through its carefully curated artifacts—from surgical tools to mysterious manuscripts—it reconstructs a past that feels both alien and strangely immediate.
You can learn more about this book from the publisher’s website.
You can buy this book on Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk
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