Using Gems in Medieval Spells
David Porreca examines how the magical spells found in the Picatrix made use of precious gems.
Ten Thoughts on Game of Thrones, Season 4 Episode 6: The Laws of Gods and Men
Tyrion goes on trial as we catch up on some of the other storylines in Game of Thrones.
New study to look at Norse farming on the Orkney Isles
A year-long study will begin this fall that will look look at herding economies in the Orkney Isles from the 8th to the 15th century AD.
How Chickens looked different in the Middle Ages
A new study on domestic chickens has revealed that until the end of the Middle Ages they looked very different from the ones we see on farms today.
Seals and Sea Ice in Medieval Greenland
With a view to placing such developments in the context of changes in the past, the focus of this paper is an interdisciplinary study of the interaction of different seal species in Arctic/North Atlantic regions with sea ice, and, more specifically, the implications for the Norse settlements in Greenland in medieval times.
Music as Text and Music as Image
Danielle Trynoski reports on ‘Music as Text and Music as Image’ by Susan Boynton at the Medieval Academy of America and Medieval Association of the Pacific Conference
The Fables of Leonardo da Vinci
When wine is consumed by the drunkard, it takes revenge on the drinker.
New Books on the Vikings
Want to know more about the Vikings? Here are five books that talk about the Norsemen, including their combs and their language.
Dietary Laws in Medieval Christian-Jewish Polemics: A Survey
In the religious debate between Jews and Christians, the biblical dietary laws come to illustrate important assumptions concerning the “other.”
Pigs and Pollards: Medieval Insights for UK Wood Pasture Restoration
In this article, I examine the medieval evidence for how pig husbandry functioned in wood pasture in England.
What Medieval Teeth can tell us
When a University of Oklahoma researcher and an international team of experts analyzed the dental calculus or plaque from teeth preserved for 1,000 years, the results revealed human health and dietary information never seen before.
Sickness in the Nidaros Cathedral?
Up towards the ceiling vault of the Nidaros Cathedral, a number of artworks are hidden from public view. Many of the stone sculptures portray mythological animals and other scary creatures. In such company, one would imagine that human faces were also intended to evoke fear and anguish. Do they depict people with diseases?
The ‘Wiles of Women’ Motif in the Medieval Hebrew Literature of Spain
Most famous of all, perhaps is the tale of the woman whose husband leaves for battle. Her lover then sends his boy to tell her he is coming to her, and she seduces the boy.
The Biennial Chaucer Lecture: For the Birds
In The Squire’s Tale, Chaucer draws on the genre of romance as a way into thinking about the cultural place of falcons.
Get Interactive: Teach the Middle Ages for Ages 5 to 25
A list of activities, discussions, and assignments to support teaching the Middle Ages. Many of these suggestions can be adjusted for different ages, but I’ve arranged them in a roughly age-progressive order.
Drug Overdose, Disability and Male Friendship in Fifteenth-Century Mamluk Cairo
Shihab al-Din al-Hijazi (1388-1471) was an unexceptional legal student in Mamluk Cairo, who, at the age of 24, overdosed on marking nut, a potent plant drug valued for its memory-enhancing properties
How cutting off a horse’s tail was a big insult in the Middle Ages
Want to humiliate your adversary? Attacking his horse and cutting off its tail was the preferred method, according to a recent article.
A Medieval Autobiography
Forty years of the life of Opicino de Canistris, priest and writer in 14th century Italy, in his own words.
Seeing again : geometry, cartography and visions in the work of Opicinus de Canistris (1296-C.1354)
Set against erratic textual content, the images in the Palatinus are combinations of mathematical forms, collection of figures and zodiac symbols.
Byzantine Church and Mosaic discovered in Israel
Archaeologists working for the Israel Antiquities Authority have uncovered the remains of a 1500 year old Byzantine church south of Tel Aviv. It includes a large mosaic and inscriptions in Greek.
Phthiriasis: the riddle of the lousy disease
Of all the legendary and fantastic diseases of ancient times, phthiriasis, or the lousy (lisease, wvas the most intriguing and bizarre. In the corrupted humours of the sufferers of this disease, lice were believed to develop by spontaneous generation, and tumours full of these insects rose on the skin.
The Universal Spider: King Louis XI
He even earned the names’Cunning’ and ‘Universal Spider’ due to the webs of intrigue he would spin around Europe. It seems he was never happier than when he was planning his next scheme.
Mary, Duchess of Burgundy
As the only child of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, Mary was the heir of a far-ranging, wealthy and diverse realm and she was sometimes called Mary the Rich.
The Beauty of the Bestiary
Bestiaries were encyclopedias of animal life, complete with descriptions of the animals, their places in the world, and often their symbolic relationships to Christianity.