The Legend of the Purgatory of Saint Patrick: From Ireland to Dante and Beyond
“Yes by Saint Patrick …. Touching this vision here It is an honest ghost, that let me tell you” (Hamlet, Act I, Scene 5)
Contemplating the Evolution of Medieval Double-Entendre Literature
The linguistic composition of the Exeter Book Riddles supports this, and in fact, the genre became a refuge for contemporary colloquial speech which was seen as coarse and lower class within the ideologies of Christianity and Germanic heroism.
The Liber Vitae of Durham (BL MS Cotton Domitian A. vii): a discussion of its possible context and use in the later middle ages
The Durham Liber Vitae belonged in the later Middle Ages to Durham Cathedral Priory and, to understand its context, the history of the communities which produced it must be understood.
Reality and Truth in Thomas of York: Study and Text
The investigation is conducted through a study of opposites into which being is divided. These opposites are principally the one and the many, potency and act, truth and falsity.
The Light was retreating before Darkness: Tales of the Witch hunt and climate change
Little by little, out of the old conviction —pagan and Christian— of evil interference in atmospheric phenomena evolved the belief that some people may use malign sorcery to set off whirlwinds hail, frosts, floods and other destructive weather events.
Bernard of Morlaix: the literature of complaint, the Latin tradition and the twelfth-century “Renaissance”
Bernard of Morlaix was a monk of the order of Cluny who flourished around 1140. Excerpts from one of his poems appear in some anthologies of medieval Latin verse1 and he is briefly noticed in some works on the twelfth-century renaissance, but he has received little critical attention and only one of his poems has been translated from the Latin.
Brigit: Goddess, Saint, ‘Holy Woman,’ and Bone of Contention
Brigit1 and Patrick, two saints from the beginnings of Christianity in Ireland in the fifth century CE, retain their popularity with Catholic Christians to this day.
Personal’ Rituals: The Office of Ceremonies and Papal Weddings, 1483-1521
This analysis reveals the increasing involvement of papal ceremonialists in the preparation and supervision of wedding events,5 highlighting the ceremonialists’ own broad definition of their mandate and a pragmatic approach to the boundaries of papal ritual.
The Welsh Female Saint: Patterns within a Social Framework
Historia Divae Monacellae, the Latin Life of Melangell is also comparatively late in composition, with the earliest manuscript being from the 16th century, but possibly drawing on earlier written sources.3 When we look at the availability of written texts relating to male saints the difference in source material is immediately evident.
“The Wrath of the Northmen”: The Vikings and their Memory
These raiding peoples emerge out of all three Scandinavian homelands–Norway, Sweden, and Denmark–sending off their young men all over the known world in search of wealth and prestige.
Animals on Trial
The history of animals in the legal system sketched by Evans is rich and resonant; it provokes profound questions about the evolution of jurisprudential procedure, social and religious organization and notions of culpability and punishment, and funda-mental philosophical questions regarding the place of man within the natural order.
Scotland’s Pope: Benedict XIII
Scotland’s Pope: Benedict XIII J. H. Baxter (Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History in the University ofSt. Andrews) Scot’s Magazine (1929) Abstract In the…
Historical Thought and the Reform Crisis of the Early Sixteenth Century
I shall follow what I feel to be the methodologically sound procedure of examining one case in some detail, while at the same time producing evidence to suggest that elements which are operative in this instance may be operative in others as well. What I should like to focus attention upon are certain ideas of history which were current in the early sixteenth century.

The Poisoned Image of the Borgias: A Look at the Public Image of Pope Alexander VI and His Children
Upon Rodrigo Borgia’s ascension to the papacy in 1492 and assumption of the name Alexander VI, the masses of Rome who watched his parade and celebration with hopeful eyes welcomed him eagerly, despite his wild ways and indiscretions as a cardinal.
The Church and sexuality in medieval Iceland
From its earliest days Christianity has attempted to control human sexuality. The letters of Paul and the writings of the Church Fathers praise the state of virginity above that of marriage, and within matrimony permit sex only for procreation.
The ‘Prehistory’ of Gregory of Tours: An Analysis of Books I-IV of Gregory’s Histories
In northern Gaul in the second half of the sixth century, a bishop of Tours, Georgius Florentius Gregorius, known to posterity as Gregory of Tours, composed eight books of hagiography and ten books of history. These testaments survive as evidence of the politics, society and theology of this post-imperial world.
The Progression of the Fork: From Diabolical to Divine
This paper is about ‘Design and the Tools of the Table, 1500–2005’ curated as part of the Cooper Hewitt exhibit on utensils.
Literal and Symbolic: the Language of Asceticism in Two Lives of St Radegund
Since Radegund was never martyred, it is through her ascetic practice, a vicarious martyrdom, that her sanctity must be constructed. Both Fortunatus and Baudonivia treat Radegund’s ascetic practices as a means of creating the powerful body of a saint, a living relic, but the differences in the two writers’ approaches are notable.
The speaking cross, the persecuted princess and the murdered earl: the early history of Romsey Abbey
The Old-English note may have begun life as an endorsement, either to the grant of privileges or (what is perhaps more likely) to the agreement about the woodland belonging to Romsey, a notice of which has become attached to it; it was not uncommon when diplomas were collected into cartularies for such endorsements to be used as ‘headings’ for the text.
Picturing Gregory: The Evolving Imagery of Canon Law
This paper surveys images created for the opening of the Liber extra between around 1240 and 1350, from a variety of standpoints: iconography, page layout, patrons and readers – and also suggests possible ideological agendas that might be embedded in the illustrations.
The British Kingdom of Lindsey
The first piece of evidence which offers support for the above contention comes from the kingdom-name ‘Lindsey’ itself. Two forms of this name exist in Anglo-Saxon sources, reflecting two different Old English suffixes:6 Lindissi (later Lindesse, as used by Bede and the earliest manuscripts of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle)7 and Lindesig…
Reconstruction of the diet in a mediaeval monastic community from the coast of Belgium
The aim of the present article is to report the results of stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis on skeletons from a Belgian mediaeval population, and to look at variations in diet that may relate to age and social status.
The Church Atrium as a Ritual Space: The Cathedral of Tyre and St Peter’s in Rome
This paper will attempt to outline a perspective on ritual and space regard ing the Early Christian atrium by confronting two cases of early church atria: one known from a literary source, the other from its archaeological reconstruction.
The Eternity of the World and Renaissance Historical Thought
Medieval and Renaissance controversies over the Aristotelian doctrine of “the eternity of the world” have hitherto been treated as disputes restricted to natural philosophers and theologians.