Movie Review: Pope Joan – Medieval Legend Comes to Life Onscreen
Released in 2009, also under its German title, ,Die Päpstin,, ,Pope Joan’ recounts the medieval legend of Johanna von Ingleheim, a woman who disguised herself as a man, lived as a monk, and eventually went on to become pope in the ninth century.
The Empire that was always Decaying: The Carolingians (800-888)
According to most textbooks, the first Western empire to succeed its late Roman predecessor suddenly burst upon the scene, on Christmas Day 800 in Rome, when Pope Leo III turned Charles, King of the Franks and Lombards, and patricius (protector) of the Romans, into an imperator augustus
Last Words from a Medieval Mother to her Son
Yesterday, I stumbled across a passage from the Liber Manualis, written by a ninth-century Frankish woman named Dhuoda to her fifteen-year-old son.
Questions and Answers with Alcuin
What are teeth? – The millstones of our biting.
Against the Currents of His Day: Brittany, Louis the Pious, and Elite Insurrection
During Louis the Pious’s 36-year reign, he spent much of his time convening assemblies, securing his borders, and trying to govern his empire, rather than conquering and expanding aggressively as his father and grandfather, Charlemagne and Pepin, had done.
The Frankish War-Machine of Charles Martel
The Franks had a war-machine that was a highly effective and mobile under the leadership of Charles Martel. It fought from the North Sea in the north to the Mediterranean Sea in the south and from Aquitaine in the west to Bavaria in the east.
Historian discovers evidence of malaria from the Early Middle Ages
In his paper, ‘Malaria and Malaria-Like Disease in the Frankish Empire, c.450-950, Timothy Newfield examines over fifty references to illnesses which appear in Merovingian and Carolingian sources
European Weather Extremes in the Lifetime of Charlemagne (c.742–814 CE)
An army of people, digging for a whole season, yet their efforts end in muddy ruin. Was it a project that was doomed from the start?
Charlemagne’s Denarius, Constantine’s Edicule, and the Vera Crux
In 806 a much-discussed silver denarius bearing the likeness of Charlemagne was issued. This is called the “temple-type” coin due to the (as yet unidentified) architectural structure illustrated on the reverse side, and which is explicitly labeled as representing the epitome of “Christian Religion.”
CONFERENCES: The Stellinga, the Saxon Elite, and Carolingian Politics
This is my summary of a paper presented at the Institute of Historical Research on the causes of the Stellinga uprising in the Carolingian period.
716: A Crucial Year For Charles Martel
The early years of Charles Martel’s life are all but obscured from the historian’s view.
An aspect of Alcuin: ‘Tuus Albinus’ – peevish egotist? or parrhesiast?
In over 270 letters from about a decade and a half, alcuin of york (†804) informed, advised, consoled and admonished contemporaries, reacted to current events, and maintained a circle of friends and partners in reciprocal prayer that extended from Jerusalem to Ireland and from rome to salzburg. Alcuin left york in the 780s to become a friend and chief advisor to Charlemagne.
Palaces, Itineraries and Political Order in the Post-Carolingian Kingdoms
What did the same-but-different post-Carolingian kingdoms owe to their predecessors, and how should we characterise that debt if not in simple terms of continuity or change?
The Contours, Frequency and Causation of Subsistence Crises in Carolingian Europe (750-950)
The Contours, Frequency and Causation of Subsistence Crises in Carolingian Europe (750-950) Timothy P. Newfield Crisis Alimentarias en la Edad Media: Modelos, Explicaciones…
Scholars, Teachers and Students in Early Medieval Europe: Towards a Total Network
This talk, part of a larger project, is concerned with intellectuals (scholars, teachers and their students) active in the late eighth through ninth centuries, a period usually referred to as the Carolingian Renaissance.
Competition and tradition: Carolingian political rituals, 751-800
In 751, the Carolingians supplanted the traditional ruling dynasty of Francia. This article surveys Carolingian political rituals between 751 and 800, and argues that ritual was one means through which this new royal family sought to construct and legitimate its authority against its dynastic competitors.
Miracula, Saints’ Cults and Socio-Political Landscapes: Bobbio, Conques and post-Carolingian society
Despite the centrality of monastic sources to debates about social and political transformation in post-Carolingian Europe, few studies have approached the political and economic status of monasteries and their saints’ cults in this context, to which this thesis offers a comparative approach.
Charlemagne still kicking 1200 years later or Morangles Early Medieval Holidays
T.S. Morangles takes a trip to see all things Carolingian and Merovingian!
Asteriscos et obelos suis locis restitui – the revision of the Psalter during the Carolingian Renaissance
Today, I would like to discuss one type of early medieval psalter and the one feature that discerns this type – and that is the presence of critical signs.
An Introduction to the Mechanical Arts in the Middle Ages
A brief overview of where these “mechanical arts” fit into the scholastic world. The thesis of the “Dark Ages” often suggests that there was a discontinuity in knowledge between Antiquity and the Renaissance, and perhaps nowhere so obviously as in the mechanical arts. This is certainly false…
The Carolingian Army and the Struggle against the Vikings
There have been many previous studies of the Carolingian army, but none examining the ninth-century armies which faced the Viking invasions.
How Destructive were the Vikings?
Danielle Trynoski reports on the paper “How Much Material Damage Did the Northmen Do in Northern Europe?” given by Lesley Anne Morden
Making a difference in tenth-century politics: King Athelstan’s sisters and Frankish queenship
In the early years of the tenth century several Anglo-Saxon royal women, all daughters of King Edward the Elder of Wessex (899-924) and sisters (or half-sisters) of his son King Athelstan (924-39), were despatched across the Channel as brides for Frankish and Saxon rulers and aristocrats. This article addresses the fate of some of these women through an analysis of their political identities.
Charles the Fat and the Viking Great Army: The Military Explanation for the End of the Carolingian Empire
In late July 885 a large Viking fleet gathered at the mouth of the River Seine and began to move upstream in the direction of Paris.
Queenship, Nunneries and Royal Widowhood in Carolingian Europe
Fulk‟s letter therefore introduces us to some central aspects of Carolingian thinking about the appropriate behaviour of laywomen especially, and serves as a way into the principal themes of this article. In particular, it is noticeable that the archbishop highlighted his expectations of Richildis in two roles: her supposed misdemeanour was concerned specifically with a failure to meet her obligations as a widow and as a queen.