The Florentine Army in the Age of the Companies of Adventure
The Florentine army was, in contrast to the current literature, not an ad hoc and temporary entity but the product of careful consideration and coordination.
Justinian and the Corpus Iuris: An Overview
Justinian’s codification is the bridge that links Antiquity, the Byzantine Empire, and Europe. It is also the link between civil law and common law, and between canon law and civil law.
Warriors and Civilians in the Crusade Movement: Military Identities and Status in the Liberation and Defence of the Holy Land (1096-1204)
The canonical definition of crusades as penitential pilgrimages meant that most expeditions during the first century of the movement included large numbers of non-combatants, which caused significant problems with regard to discipline and logistics.
Marco Polo on the Mongol State: Taxation, Predation, and Monopolization
The aim of this article is to bring attention to Marco Polo’s descriptions of economic and political features of the Mongol empire that are especially meaningful when viewed through the lens of Austrian economics.
The Authoritative Text: Raymond of Penyafort’s editing of the Decretals of Gregory IX (1234)
The Decretals has long been understood as a key text for the study of the medieval papacy, the rise of scholasticism within the universities, and the extension of the Church’s jurisdiction into almost every area of medieval life.
Cross-Channel Marriage and Royal Succession in the Age of Charles the Simple and Athelstan (c. 916-936)
This article discusses the marriages of four Anglo-Saxon princesses to Continental kings and princes between the years 917 and 930.
Lollardy, Hussitism and the Scottish Inquisition, c.1390-c.1527
Despite a peculiar constellation of factors that make Scotland in this period quite unique, and because of a patchy and fragmentary archival record, scholars have paid virtually no attention to Scotland when considering those issues that have shaped the historiography of medieval Europe.
The Viking Great Army in England: new dates from the Repton charnel
The size and nature of Great Army winter camps has been used as a proxy to estimate the size of the invading forces, but with divergent results. An accurate understanding of the chronology at Repton is therefore essential for improving our knowledge in these areas.
The ‘light touch’ of the Black Death in the Southern Netherlands: an urban trick?
In this article an array of dispersed sources for the Southern Netherlands together with a new mortmain accounts database for Hainaut show that the Black Death was severe, perhaps no less severe than other parts of western Europe.
The Evangelical Pearl: The Last Masterpiece of Medieval Female Mysticism
This paper explores the writings of the anonymous, 16th-century female author of The Evangelical Pearl. Written in the Dutch vernacular and first published in 1537, the work proved to be a popular and influential one.
High-tech scans reveal secrets of medieval burial stones in Scotland
The latest digital photography techniques applied to the ancient burial stones at Inchinnan Parish Church in western Scotland have revealed that one of the stones, thought to be medieval in date, was originally carved much earlier..
Byzantine fountain and pools discovered in Israel
Archaeological Excavations in Ein Hanniya Park in Rephaim Valley National Park, Israel, have uncovered impressive and significant finds, including pools and an elaborate fountain dating back 1500 years, a capital typical of First Temple-era royal estates, and a rare silver coin.
The Medieval History of the Tower of London
Popular author and historian Toni Mount explores the fascinating history of the Tower of London in honour of her latest medieval murder mystery, The Colour of Murder.
The Heart of Dread: A Case Study of Fear in Old Norse Culture
The misplaced idea of the Middle Ages as a period of unmediated emotion is still popular. Yet, by studying both textual and material culture from the period, recent scholarship in the history of emotions has proved that this is not the case.
The Medical Response to the Black Death
Even though medicine in the Middle East was marginally more advanced than European medicine, physicians in both regions were unsuccessful at treating the Plague; however, the Black Death served to promote medical innovations that laid the foundations of modern medicine.
The Women around an Emperor: Margaret of Austria
In the third in a series of features exploring the early modern women whose lives intersected in some way with that of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, Natalie Anderson examines the life of Margaret of Austria.
Gender Ambiguity in Medieval Iceland: Legal Framework and Saga Dynamics
In the judgmental genre of the Icelandic family saga, gender transgression is always central to plot dynamics and this is its only rationale for inclusion.
Eight centuries of the risk-free rate: bond market reversals from the Venetians to the ‘VaR shock’
This paper presents a new dataset for the annual risk-free rate in both nominal and real terms going back to the 13th century.
Assembling the archaeology of the global Middle Ages
Responding to recent developments in archaeological theory and growing interest in the ‘global Middle Ages’, an approach to exploring relations between local and global processes in the medieval world is proposed.
Making an Impression: The Display of Maps in Sixteenth-Century Venetian Homes
Maps were versatile objects that could demonstrate that the owner was a cultured, cosmopolitan man educated about the world, reinforce his professional or trade standing, or enhance a military persona, all to the glorification of the family name.
Modeling plague transmission in Medieval European cities
The Black Death pandemic swept through Europe during the Middle Ages leading to high mortality from plague. How it spread, the transmission of the disease within and between cities, remains a subject of controversy among scientists and historians.
Prisoners of War in the Albigensian Crusade, 1209-1229
The Albigensian Crusade is generally considered a brutal war because of the manner in which both sides treated the enemy, especially the prisoners. This article analyzes the causes of this apparent absence of war conventions.
Captives in Mediaeval Spain: The Castilian-Leonese and Muslim Experience (XI-XIII Centuries)
War in the borders between Castilian-Leonese kingdom and al-Andalus during the 11th-13th centuries was an economic activity in which booty allowed some people to enrich themselves, while captives were a substantial part of the war profits.
Ibn Sa,di on Truth-Blindness
In his biographical dictionary, the well-known Andalusian scholar al-Humaydi gives an account of the unhappy experience of an earlier compatriot of his, Abu ‘Umar Ahmad b. Muhammad b. Sa,di, in the theological debating societies of Baghdad.
Barnet: the ongoing archaeological search for Greater London’s only medieval battlefield
The Wars of Roses, the great dynastic 15th-century conflict between the houses of Lancaster and York, was marked by a series of bloody battles, one of which took place on the boundary of the London Borough of Barnet and Hertfordshire.