Deep Ditches and Well-built Walls: A Reappraisal of the Mongol Withdrawal from Europe in 1242
As an alternative explanation, it posits that European fortifications produced a strategic problem that the Mongols were unable to surmount in the 1240s with their available manpower and siege engine technology.
Messages from the Otherworld: The Roles of the Dead in Medieval Iceland
The ghosts in sagas are no phantoms or incorporeal spirits, but appear to the living in their physical and tangible bodies at a dark time of the day or year. The dead look the same as they used to when they lived, and are thus easily recognized by the living.
The Papacy, Inquisition and Saint Guinefort the Holy Greyhound
The legend of St Guinefort the Holy Greyhound reveals the medieval Church engaged in a familiar struggle: to balance popular piety with orthodox teaching.
More than Mothers: Juries of Matrons and Pleas of the Belly in Medieval England
Common law was an all-male system, with one glaring exception: juries of matrons.
Vikings, Picts and Scots: Biocultural Identity in Medieval Scotland
This thesis investigates the nature of identity in 8th to 13th century Scotland, by incorporating both burial context and osteological information.
The Geopolitics on the Silk Road: Resurveying the Relationship of the Western Türks with Byzantium through Their Diplomatic Communications
These empires attempted to take advantage of the newly shaped situation arising after such great movements strategically, each in their own interest. How did they achieve their goals and what problems were they confronted with?
Dating the Viking Age Settlement of Iceland
This thesis tackles a globally significant issue in archaeology and palaeoecology that is subject to fierce and long-running debate – how best to synthesize large sets of radiocarbon (14C) dates to determine the most accurate and precise age ranges for key events in history.
Anglo-Saxon hegemony in Early Medieval Britain
The evidence presented in this thesis, however, rather point to a large degree of continuity between Roman and Anglo-Saxon Britain, both when it comes to the rural population and the elite.
Difficult and deadly deliveries?: Investigating the presence of an ‘obstetrical dilemma’ in medieval England through examining health and its effects on the bony human pelvis
The skeletal samples examined in this study are from medieval English populations with long-established agricultural diets. Bony pelvic metrics analyzed are from the St. Mary Spital assemblage, and demographic and pathological data from St. Mary Spital were compared to the East Smithfield Black Death cemetery assemblage.
‘More of a Burden Rather Than a Benefit’: Perceptions of Crusading Women and How They Developed From the Eleventh to Fourteenth Centuries
Were women only a ‘burden’ to the crusades or did they challenge this perspective and benefit the movement?
Old Age in Viking-Age Britain
Did the same negative attitudes towards the old exist in Viking-Age England? What was considered ‘old’ in Viking-Age colonial society? And, what sort of life could the old individual expect?
How Did the Norsemen in Greenland See Themselves? Some Reflections on ‘Viking Identity’
We can contrast two possibilities: 1) that there was an overarching Scandinavian cultural unity in the Viking Age, or 2) that there were distinct cultural identities in different parts of what is often called the “Viking world.”
The Mind’s Eye: Visualizing Encyclopedic Knowledge in the Later Middle Ages
The present project examines two exceptional fifteenth-century French copies of this encyclopedia (BnF fr. 9141 and BnF fr. 135/6), and interprets them in light of the shifting intellectual culture and evolving reading practices of late-medieval lay audiences.
Hadrian IV (1154-1159) and the “bull” Laudabiliter: a historiographical review
This work represents an exploration into the historiography of a hotly debated historical document known as Laudabiliter.
Windows on a medieval world: medieval piety as reflected in the lapidary literature of the Middle Ages
The lapidary literature of the Middle Ages has been overlooked as a source for the study of medieval Christian piety.
Warriors and women: The Sex Ratio of Norse Migrants to Eastern England Up To 900 AD
It suggests that female migration may have been as significant as male, and that Norse women were in England from the earliest stages of the migration, including during the campaigning period from 865.
Outlawry in the Icelandic Family Sagas
The present study scrutinizes the outlawry and outlaws that appear in the Icelandic Family Sagas.
The Mongol Peace and Global Medieval Eurasia
The Mongol moment has found its place in new scholarship on early forms of globalisation in Eurasia.
Heavy Metal Meets Byzantium! Contact Between Scandinavia and Byzantium in the Albums ‘The Varangian Way’ (2007) and ‘Stand Up and Fight’ (2011) by the Finnish Band Turisas
The Finnish Heavy Metal band Turisas has focused on the subject of Byzantium and its relations with Scandinavia.
International Relation’s Medieval-Sovereignty Debate: Three Rival Approaches
When did a recognizably modern concept of sovereignty first emerge in Europe? Historically, can we point to a medieval idea of sovereignty? If so, how did this historically specific idea of sovereignty differ from its modern counterpart?
The First Christian Rus’ Generation: Contextualizing the Black Sea Events of 1016, 1024 and 1043
What caused the largely naval wars of 1016, 1024 and 1043 which involved commanders and rulers of Rus’ and Byzantium? Have modern interpretations of these events done justice to them?
Medieval Property Investors, ca. 1300–1500
The subject of this article is the role of freehold land and property in the developing commercial economy of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
The Forgotten Battle of Bevershoutsveld, May 3, 1382: Technological Innovation and Military Significance
It may have been at Bevershoutsveld where gunpowder weapons first decided the outcome of a battle.
A thirteenth-century theory of speech
Robert Grosseteste (c.1175–1253) was a celebrated medieval thinker, who, as well as writing on philosophy and theology, developed an impressive corpus of treatises on the natural world.