‘The Halved Heads’: Osteological Evidence for Decapitation in Medieval Ireland
This paper examines the osteological evidence for decapitation from 30 skeletal assemblages dated to the medieval period (6th to 16th century) from Ireland.
The Military Legacy of Richard the Lionheart
Authors look back at the entirety of the reign and reach two common conclusions: 1) he was a neglectful and mostly-absent ruler of England, but 2) he attained spectacular success in war, which was, after all, his primary interest.
The Bayeux Tapestry: Author, Art and Allegory
The Bayeux Tapestry is a complex visual history of the Norman Conquest of England. Its creation and the story it weaves were defined by its dichotomous authorship, its physical form as textile art and its analogous narrative imagery.
Insults Hurt: Verbal Injury in Late Medieval Frisia
Abba’s wife had told Feye Scroer’s wife that Feye was to die very soon and had also been married to another woman all the while. If he were to die now, she said, he would be damned forever
Lasting Falls and Wishful Recoveries: Crusading in the Black Sea Region after the Fall of Constantinople
This paper examines the Black Sea question in the second half of the 15th century, with special emphasis on crusading and religious questions.
Of thieves, counterfeiters and homicides: crime in Hedeby and Birka
Material evidence of prehistoric crime is rare. A compilation of finds from Hedeby harbour however offers three case studies, where three different offences – thievery, counterfeiting and homicide – are likely.
Christians in the amphitheater? The ‘Christianization’ of spectacle buildings and martyrial memory
This article presents an overview of the archaeological evidence for Christian spaces inside spectacle buildings – stadia, hippodromes, theaters and amphitheaters.
Incest in Early Medieval Society
The question of what persons and why can have sexual relations with each other and consequently, can contract marriage, is of basic importance for the functioning of every society, irrespective of time, place and the degree of the society’s development.
Sewing as Authority in the Middle Ages
Analysing manuscripts, relics, indulgences, and even a bishop’s mitre, the article argues that stitching was a way to enact, or intensify, the ritual purpose of objects, whether that was ceremonial, devotional, or authoritative.
Rituals of Royalty: Prescription, Politics and Practice in English Coronation and Royal Funeral Rituals c. 1327 to c. 1485
This thesis examines English royal ritual culture in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, focusing specifically upon the rituals of coronation and funeral.
Reinventing the Hero: Gardner’s Grendel and the Shifting Face of Beowulf in Popular Culture
In twentieth- and twenty-first century Anglophone culture, the impact of Beowulfiana — what we call that amorphous mass of materials that have accumulated around the poem — has been widespread yet subtle.
’I’m gonna git Medieval on your ass’: Pulp Fiction for the 90s – the 1190s
We feel confident in asserting that there are any number of telling informative analogies between Pulp Fiction and medieval chivalric literature, particularly Arthurian romance.
The Defensive Role of Church Round Towers: A Re-Assessment
Towers were erected essentially to house church bells so was the defensive roll of the tower incidental to that roll or integral to its purpose?
Building Materials in Anglo-Saxon Churches and Towers
Church historians know that the Romans had used a wide range of building materials, which in theory could also have been used in construction during the Anglo-Saxon period.
Medieval Baltimore: Using American Medievalism to Teach about the European Middle Ages
The article describes the experience of teaching undergraduate college students the history of Medieval Europe through individual research projects using the city of Baltimore (USA), its buildings, monuments, museums, and the professional medievalists working and residing in the area.
Plague, Settlement and Structural Change at the Dawn of the Middle Ages
The plague of Justinian definitely hit the coastal areas of the lands surrounding the Mediterranean as well as the inland areas connected with the sea
Christianisation of the Piast Monarchy in the 10th and 11th Centuries
Which facts testify to the beginning of the Christianisation process of a given country and which ones indicate its conclusion?
Mathematical games in Europe around the year 1000
This paper addresses the question: which board games could Gerbert have played? There are also astronomical games.
Trial by Battle in France and England
This dissertation surveys the history of trial by battle in the French-speaking regions of the European continent and England, concentrating on the period between roughly 1050 and 1350 when it was most practiced.
The Sumptuous Use of Food at Castle Marienburg (Malbork) at the Start of the Fifteenth Century
The prestige role of luxury food consumption was particularly visible during meetings of an international character: Teutonic-Lithuanian, Teutonic-Polish or Teutonic-Polish-Lithuanian, to which the grand master would come accompanied by the highest Order’s officials.
How to Create a Legend? An Analysis of Constructed Representations of Ono no Komachi in Japanese Medieval Literature
Although the historical figure known to us as Ono no Komachi (ca. 825–ca. 900) is considered to have been a famous and talented female court poet of the Heian Period in Japan, not much is known about her actual life.
Crusading Warfare, Chivalry, and the Enslavement of Women and Children
The subject of the treatment of prisoners taken in crusading warfare, long neglected, has attracted considerable interest in the last fifteen years, but more can still be said, particularly on the ways in which crusaders dealt with their enemies’ women and children, the archetypal non-combatants.
‘Great Moravian State’: a controversy in Central European medieval studies
The idea that Great Moravia was the earliest state of Central European Slavs, which was a direct predecessor of the statehood of the Czech Přemyslids, the Polish Piasts and the Hungarian Arpáds family, remains very much alive in the Central European region.
Live Role-play of Medieval Fantasy and its relationship to the Media
Medieval Fantasy, as an entertainment genre, supplements historical images of the Middle Ages with elements of myth in adventure stories featuring magicians, knights and ladies, castles, dragons, swords, and sorcery that are routinely consumed and absorbed.