The Cooks of the Canterbury Tales: The Backstage of Bourgeois Social Drama
This article aims at analysing Chaucer’s depiction of the cooks in the Canterbury Tales, and to discuss their function in contributing to the social changes as figures at the backstage of bourgeois social drama.
A Landmark in the History of Chinese Ceramics: The Invention of Blue-and-white Porcelain in the Tang Dynasty (618–907 A.D.)
This study investigates the origin and development of Tang blue-and-white porcelain.
Corporate Monarchy in the Twelfth-Century Kingdom of Jerusalem
While the conflicts between Queen Melisende of Jerusalem and the men in her family have received considerable scholarly attention, explanations for the ease with which they reconciled remain elusive.
Visionary “Staycations”: Meeting God at Home in Medieval Women’s Vision Literature
However, with a touch of irony of my own, I would like to argue that something akin to the “staycation” does have currency in medieval religious literature.
Beowulf at the Movies: From Anglo-Saxon Poetry to Modern Cinema
Are there differences between the character’s portrayal in the poem and the cinematic adaptations? To what extent has cinema reinvented monstrosity in Beowulf? How does this reflect our modern day view of humanity or the beast within?
Economic Power in Rome. The role of the city’s elite families (the 1400-1500 period)
In this paper we examine a less explored area, namely the existing relationship between political stability and the economic success of the merchant elite
The past and future of De Velitatione Bellica and Byzantine Guerrilla Warfare
This manual contains a great deal of seemingly plausible advice on how to engage in low-intensity warfare along the Byzantine-Islamic frontier across the Tauros and Anti-Tauros Mountains.
The armour of the common soldier in the late middle ages
The designation Harnischrödel (rolls of armour) lumps together different kinds of urban inventories. They list the names of citizens and inhabitants together with the armour they owned, were compelled to acquire within their civic obligations, or were obliged to lend to able-bodied men
The Units of Time in Ancient and Medieval India
This is a preliminary survey of time units used or mentioned in ancient and medieval works written in Sanskrit and other Indian languages.
Eve’s Sin, Woman’s Fault: A Medieval View
The fall of Adam and Eve has been a favourite theme in literary and religious literature down through the ages both with Christian and non-Christian authors.
Byzantine painting treatises: the case of Codex Panteleimoniensis 259
This article aims to examine the material of a codex entitled Hermeneia of the Painters.
The Danger of the Soft Life: Manly and Unmanly Romans in Procopius’s Gothic War
Rather than uncovering the Goths, Byzantines, and Italians “as they really were,” this paper seeks to unearth some of the purpose and reasoning behind Procopius’s gendered depictions and ethnicizing worldview.
The Shortcomings of the Mongol Art of War as seen in China, Korea and Eastern Europe
This paper will briefly discuss the nature of the Mongol armies and some of their successes before exploring their shortcomings in a select number of regions
Prisons and Punishments in Late Medieval London
In the history of crime and punishment the prisons of medieval London have generally been overlooked.
Doing Things beside Domesday Book
Domesday Book is the collective name attached to two different bodies of text. Colloquially known as “Great” and “Little” Domesday, they represent successive documentary phases of the inquest undertaken by agents of William the Conqueror in 1086.
Cultures of Clothing in Later Medieval and Early Modern Europe
In this introductory essay, I intend to clarify the discipline of costume history by offering an overview and synthesis of the scholarship of the last two decades
Pope Gregory VII and Count Eblous II of Roucy’s Proto-Crusade in Iberia c. 1073
This article surveys the surviving material regarding Gregory VII and Eblous of Roucy’s expedition to Iberia c. 1073.
Children of a One-Eyed God: Impairment in the Myth and Memory of Medieval Scandinavia
This thesis counters scholarly assumptions that the impaired were universally marginalized across medieval Europe. It argues that bodily difference in the Norse world was only viewed as a limitation when it prevented an individual from fulfilling roles that contributed to their community.
A literary history of the ‘Soul and Body’ theme in medieval England
This theme is preserved and developed in several medieval English texts, both in prose and verse, dating from the tenth to the fifteenth century.
Miter and Sword: Fighting Norman Bishops and Clergy
This thesis examines Norman bishops and abbots, and their involvement in warfare, either as armed combatants, or commanders of military forces in Normandy, and later in England after William the Conquerors invasion in 1066.
Astronomical and Atmospheric Observations in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and in Bede
Chronicles and narrative histories of the Early Middle Ages contain a number of entries relating to astronomical events and atmospheric phenomena.
A memoir of the court of Henry VII
The memoir of the court of Henry VII for the years of 1486-90, contained in BL, MS Cotton Julius B. XII, fols. 8v-66r, represents an invaluable source for the study of court and socio-political life during the early years of the reign of Henry VII.
The Politics of Hegemony and the ‘Empires’ of Anglo-Saxon England
This examination does not intend to add to that ‘wild confusion’ by proposing a new definition of empire to encompass the hegemonies of Æthelstan and Cnut, nor does it seek to force those disparate kingships into an existing definition of the term. Rather, it simply questions whether it makes sense for historians to use the term ’empire’ to denote a distinct and coherent category of political power in the context of Anglo-Saxon monarchical hegemonies.
Jacopo de’ Barbari’s ‘View of Venice’ (1500): Image Vehicles Past and Present
This essay focuses on an iconic and ground-breaking woodcut – Jacopo de’ Barbari (c. 1460/70–1516) and Anton Kolb’s View of Venice (1500) – and an interactive museum installation that I first developed for Duke University’s Nasher Museum of Art.