Technologies of appearance: Hair behaviour in early medieval Europe
I will outline the archaeological evidence for a concern with hair and grooming between the fifth and eleventh centuries AD
The Origin of the European Mediaeval Drama
The starting point of drama is religion. The root of the modern drama is based on the ritualistic resources of primitive religions.
Virtual prototyping of medieval weapons for historical reconstruction of siege scenarios starting from topography and archaeological investigations
Therefore, the aim of this research is the development of methodologies for reconstructing virtual scenarios of sieges, starting from the scarce information available
Fairies and the Fairy World in Middle English Literature: the Orpheus Tradition from the Classical Era to the Middle Ages
I decided I wanted to know more about those “medieval fairies”: were there other Middle English poems where I could find them?
Arabic-speakers in Norman Sicily
On the arrival of the Normans around 1060, Arabic was the dominant language but by 1250 prestigious Romance vernaculars could be heard almost everywhere.
A Quest for the Black Knight: Casting People of Color in Arthurian Film and Television
Must actors of color be portrayed as the “Other” when (or if) given roles in films made in the West about the European Middle Ages?
Women and the Crusades
Did women support crusades? Did women go on crusades? If they did, did they fight?
The Commerce of the German Alpine Passes During the Early Middle Ages
In addition to the inability of the manor to be self-sufficient, the human desire for luxuries, foreign goods, such as fine clothing, highly decorated weapons, and exceptional foods, especially foreign wines and spices, tended to keep commerce alive.
Blue and Green Eyes in the Islamicate Middle Ages
In this paper I examine usages of classical Arabic words with the z-r-q root to understand how they are differently mobilised in the Qur’ān, Qur’ānic commentaries, hadith, early medical treatises and words of adab.
European Postal Networks
During the early sixteenth century state postal routes, based on a sequence of horses ridden by a single rider across a series of organised stages, were developed across Europe and were progressively transformed into public services.
Between Fiction and Falsehood: The Ethics of Lying in the Sagas of Icelanders
This paper discusses a series of episodes from the Sagas of Icelanders in which one character attempts to deceive another.
Leprosy at the edge of Europe—Biomolecular, isotopic and osteoarchaeological findings from medieval Ireland
We propose that the Vikings were responsible for introducing leprosy to Ireland.
Built on a True Dream: The Medieval Church and Its Representation in Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth
This thesis aims to illustrate the way in which Follett has depicted the medieval Church of the twelfth century and answer the question of whether this depiction is a historical accurate representation.
“Now thrive the Armourers”: The Development of the Armourers’ Crafts and the Forging of Fourteenth-century London
This thesis ultimately seeks to understand how and why the London armourers came to be so closely associated with the politics and uprisings of London’s controversial mayor, John Northampton (1381-1383).
“La Damoisele del chastel”: women’s role in the defence and functioning of castles in medieval writing from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries
In this paper I will argue that medieval sources that refer to women’s involvement in the defence of castles and the role of castles in society was based on a combination of gender stereotypes, social realities and military pragmatism that should not be take at face value.
Red lights in the sky, hunger in sight: aurora borealis and famine between experience and rhetoric in the early Middle Ages
The purpose of the present paper is to analyse the mental and cultural attitudes of early medieval people towards one celestial “unidentified” phenomenon: aurora borealis.
The Macclesfield Cattle Enterprise of Edward the Black Prince, and why it failed, 1354 to 1376
Most of the Macclesfield cattle were not bought, but transferred from other places on the prince’s estates. One major source at the beginning was the other manors of the earldom in Cheshire as cattle farming was wound up in them, mostly from Frodsham and some from Drakelow and Shotwick
Collapse, Reconfiguration or Renegotiation? The Strange End of the Mercian Kingdom, 850-924
The Kingdom of Mercians is generally assumed to have come to an end, largely as a result of Viking incursions, in the late ninth century
The Battle of the Standard (1138): A benchmark of Norman and English assimilation
The battle of the Standard (1138) shall be used as a benchmark to assess the degree of assimilation between the Normans and English.
The world view of the anonymous author of the Greek Chronicle of the Tocco, 14th-15th centuries
Written in 3923 ‘political verses’, the anonymous Chronicle of the Tocco is an epic family chronicle, which describes the history of the Tocco family – mainly the deeds of Carlo I Tocco, as well as the events which took place in Western Greece and the islands of Zakynthos, Leukas, Cephalonia and Ithaca during the years 1375-1422.
Slander and the right to be an author in fifteenth-century Spain
Slander or maldecir functioned as common currency in well-publicized poetic exchanges that have been preserved in fifteenth-century cancioneros.
The Bright Side of the Knife: Dismemberment in Medieval Europe and the Modern Imagination
Together with hazardous quests, plagues, peasant squalor, witches, trials by ordeal, and makeshift projectiles (including catapulted livestock and annoying monosyllables), dismemberment in Monty Python’s dark Arthurian world is a commonplace
Breaking with tradition(?): Female representations of heroism in Old English poetry
The characters of Grendel’s mother, Judith, and Juliana serve as primary examples for this analysis. This dissertation identifies these three figures as exhibiting a heroic ethos, explores how they fit into and deviate from the defined Old English heroic ideal
The Young Caliph and his Wicked Advisors: Women and Power Politics under Caliph Al-Muqtadir (r. 295–320/908–932)
This article explores the role of women as contenders for power at al-Muqtadir’s court.