The acts of the Earls of Dunbar relating to Scotland c.1124-c.1289 : a study of Lordship in Scotland in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries
The thesis seeks to analyse the nature of the Dunbar lordship, uncovering its particular and essential features, yet placing and assessing it in the context of twelfth and thirteenth-century Scottish aristocratic society.
Cultural Changes in England resulting from the Battle of Hastings
This paper, in examining the reigns of the Ethelred, Canute, Harold Harefoot and Hardicanute, and Edward the Confessor, will show how they came to power, the legacy each left – if any — and how the events during each reign ultimately led to the Battle of Hastings, with William the Conqueror’s victory changing England forever.
The Road of a Thousand Years
Zigmantas Kiaupa is Professor of History at the Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas and Senior Researcher at the History Institute in Vilnius. He is editor-in-chief of the history annual “Lietuvos istorijos metraštis” and author of several books and numerous articles.
The Cluniac Priories of Galicia and Portugal: Their Acquisition and Administration 1075-ca.1230
It goes without saying that two topics are central to progress on all the rest, and it is to these that the present paper will address itself. First, the problem of acquisition…Secondly, the problem of administration…
Historian uncovers cases of ransoms paid to Vikings in the 11th century
How much were two women worth in 11th century Iberia? For the Vikings the price was a blanket of wolf skin, a sword, a shirt, three scarves, a cow and some salt.
Al Zahrawi: The Father of Modern Surgery
Among many Moslem scholars who shared in enlightening the path of medical human knowledge is ‘Alzahrawi’ who is regarded as the father of modern surgery, and rightfully so. He was a great surgeon, a pioneer in surgical innovation and a great teacher whose comprehensive medical texts had shaped the European surgical procedures up until the renaissance and later.
Sex, Lies, and Mosaics: The Zoe Panel as a Reflection of Change in Eleventh-Century Byzantium
The subject is the mosaic known as The Zoe Panel, located in the South Gallery of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. The mosaic was originally produced between 1028 and 1042, and subsequently altered sometime before 1050.
Hildegard of Bingen: Interdisciplinarian of Medieval Europe
Born in 1098, Hildegard was the tenth child to Hildebert von Bermersheim and his wife Mechtild. They were a very well‐to‐do family of the free nobility from the Bermersheim region of Germany. When she was eight years old, Hildegard’s parents dedicated her to the church as a tithe. Hildegard was placed in a Benedictine monastery in an enclosed room with an anchoress and tutor named Jutta von Sponheim.
Canute and his Empire
The first mention of Canute in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is in the entry for 1013, where it is recorded that his father Sweyn, after taking hostages from the conquered territories of Northumbria, Lindsey, and the Five Borough Towns,
An introduction to the investigation into the mental health of female medieval mystics
While the Medieval ascription to madness is known, in the light of recent psychological and medical insights, I will explore alternative explanations for the extreme behaviour of devout women in the Middle Ages.
The role of the Norman kings in the framing of the British Constitution
I attempted to show how William respected the Anglo-Saxon constitution in its main principles. The Conquest, together with the influence of the system of government then prevaling on the Continent brought about some changes…
Sin, Penance and Purgatory in the Anglo‐Norman Realm: The Evidence of Visions and Ghost Stories
Historians have tended to explore these two changes of the ‘long twelfth century’ — the reinvention of penance and the rise of purgatory — in isolation from each other. Here I intend to focus on the relationship between the two, and to look in particular at one aspect of it: the implications of theological change for perceptions of the fate of the dead.
A medieval Arabic analysis of motion at an instant : the Avicennan sources to the forma fluens/fluxus formae debate
The first and foremost topic of classical and medieval physics is the concept of motion
(Grk. kine ̄sis, Arb. h ̇ araka, Lat. motio). Within the complex of issues and problems associated with motion, the question ‘in which category does motion itself belong?’ occupied a position of considerable importance in scholastic natural philosophy.
Skeletons found at mass burial site in Oxford could be ’10th-century Viking raiders’
Thirty-seven skeletons found in a mass burial site in the grounds of St John’s College in Oxford may not be who they initially seemed, according to Oxford University researchers studying the remains.
Temptation and Redemption: A Monastic Life in Stone
The monks who wrote the legend of Eugenia and those of the other transvestite women/monks were explicitly including a female in an all male monastic milieu. Women, as a rule, were not allowed in male monastic enclosures; the Rule at Cluny strictly forbade any women to enter the grounds.
Olaf Haraldsson’s Relics – an Example of ‘Hagiocracy’ in Scandinavia
The model of “the suffering leader” was quite a common model of saint-hood in the medieval North. Throughout the Middle Ages, the majority of the saints venerated in the West (especially in non-Mediterranean countries), were kings and princes.
Ottonian Imperial Art and Portraiture: The Artistic Patronage of Otto III and Henry II
Ottonian Imperial Art and Portraiture represents the first art historical consideration of the patronage of the Ottonian Emperors Otto III (983-1002) and Henry II (1002-1024).
Diagnostics in Late Medieval Sources
Medieval medicine as a scientific discipline was constituted generally in the 11th and 12th century on the basis of Latin translations of Arabic and Greek medical texts.
The Lebor Gabála Érenn at a Glance: an Overview of the 11th Century Irish Book of Invasions
This document is intended as an orientation for students of the Lebor Gabála Érenn (LGE), a refresher for those who have read it in the
past, and a rapid reference in relation to the genealogy of persons mentioned in the LGE.
The Urban Structure of the Jewish Quarter of Girona
The studies that have been carried out to date on the tenth and eleventh-century Jewish community are rather few, in contrast to research done on the community in the twelfth century and thereafter, where documentary and archaeological sources abound.
Sacred Conquest and Ecclesiastical Politics: The Normans and the Church in the Eleventh Century
The Normans’ success hinged upon their ability to appear as divinely appointed rulers who served, protected, and guided the Church in the countries they held. They derived authority from the Church, and they also exercised authority over it.
Boniface’s Booklife: How the Ragyndrudis Codex Came to be a Vita Bonifatii
The most recent addition to the family of literary genres may be the booklife. Finding its origin in Roland Barthes’s Roland Barthes and now taught in English departments, the booklife proposes a union of sorts of writing and living. Whether the genre will be long-lived is an open question, that it can be fruitful is not in doubt. But medievalists already knew that the dividing line between book and life is always thin, especially if that life has been lived in and among books.
Viking Ethnicities: A Historiographic Overview
The word ‘viking’ is itself used by different scholars to mean different things. Its use in Modern English stems from the early 19th century and it was broadly used to describe people of Scandinavian cultural identity active in the 9th, 10th and 11th centuries.
The Place of the Papacy in the Ecclesial Piety of the 11th-century Reformers
In the tenth century, it was still the Ecclesia rather than the pope which constituted the fundamental reality. The men of the Gregorian reform, in contrast, saw the Church as dependent upon the pope and derived in some way from papal power.