Advocating change: monasteries, territories and justice between East and West Francia, 11th-12th centuries
This article looks at the question of the formation of territorial principalities in western Europe through the issue of ecclesiastical advocacy.
‘Part of our commonwealth’: a study of the Normans in eleventh-century Byzantine historiography
‘Part of our commonwealth’: a study of the Normans in eleventh-century Byzantine historiography Alexander Olson (Simon Fraser University) Simon Fraser University: Faculty of…
Charlemagne Father of the Continent. The Ideology of the European Christian Empire
Did ever Charles the Great had such a modern European ideology or it is just about a forced modernization of his ideas.
Plague and Persecution: The Black Death and Early Modern Witch Hunts
The century or so from approximately 1550 to 1650 is a period during which witch-hunts reached unprecedented frequency and intensity. The circumstances that fomented the witch- hunts—persistent warfare, religious conflict, and harvest failures—had occurred before, but witch-hunts had never been so ubiquitous or severe.
Florence Cathedral: The Design Stage
No list of the outstanding Gothic monuments of Europe could fail to include the Cathedral of Florence, yet its place in medieval architecture remains anomalous. Anomalous above all is its unprecedented design, which integrates a rib-vaulted basilica, a domed octagon, and a triconch of fifteen extruded chapels.
An abbot between two cultures: Maiolus of Cluny considers the Muslims of La Garde-Freinet
In July 972, Muslim raiders from the citadel of Fraxinetum (modern La Garde-Freinet) abducted Abbot Maiolus of Cluny and his entourage as they crossed the Great Saint Bernard Pass ( Mons Iovis ) in the western Alps.
Integrative Medicine: Incorporating Medicine and Health into the Canon of Medieval European History
Hitherto peripheral (if not outright ignored) in general medieval historiography, medieval medical history is now a vibrant subdiscipline, one that is rightlyattracting more and more attention from ‘mainstream’ historians and other studentsof cultural history.
Marvels and Allies in the East. India as Heterotopia of Latin Europe in the 12th Century
It has long been said that Latin Europe lost its connection to the East, specifically to Asia, in the early Middle Ages. But this is only part of the truth. From late Antiquity on, there were Christians in many places between the Mediterranean Sea and China.
Vespucci’s Triangle and the Shape of the World
Interdisciplinary interactions between sixteenth-century travellers and cosmographers produced visual models that challenged normative modes of visual thinking, even as they tried to clarify ideas about the earth’s surface.
Land and Sea Communications, Fourth–Fifteenth Centuries
The principle that the active and coordinated collaboration of nature and man is an essential requirement for the creation of a network of communications is of fundamen- tal importance.
Floods and weather in 1342 and 1343 in the Carpathian Basin
Concerning weather, weather-related extremes and catastrophic consequences, 1342 was an extraordinary year in most parts of Central Europe, even in such an extraordinary decade as the 1340s. Accounting with the seven flood events (including one Danube flood) mainly of great magnitude, at present 1342 is the most important known flood year of medieval Hungary.
Reconsidering Agatha, Wife of Eadward the Exile
The antecedents of Agatha, wife of Eadward the Exile and ancestress of Scottish and English monarchs since the twelfth century and their countless descendants in Europe and America, have been the subject of much dispute…
Worldly Unease in Late Medieval European Travel Reports
Comparing the Book of John Mandeville with Jean de Jeanville’s Vie Saint Louis and William of Rubruck’s Journey, this chapter argues that cosmopolitan perspectives in these texts seem to emerge in spite of rather than because of their contacts with other cultures.
Medieval Cookbooks: Something to Inspire the Medieval Cook in all of us!
Baby it’s cold outside. Brrrrr! It’s January, snow is blowing, frost is nipping at your toes – it’s a great time to cook a hearty, hot meal. Want to make it even better? Try a medieval menu! Here are a few books to inspire the medieval cook in all of us.
The Montfortian bishops and the justification of conciliar government in 1264
In 1266, five English bishops were suspended from office for supporting Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester, in rebellion against King Henry III.
Commons in the late medieval Crown of Aragon: Regulation, uses and conflicts, 13th-15th centuries
In this paper, we shall show some characteristics of the use of pastures and commons in the Crown of Aragon between the thirteen and fifteenth centuries.
Devil Worship in the Middle Ages
Probably the most reasonable explanation of the Devil worship phenomenon at this time is a combination of both of these hypotheses. Lingering ideas of pre-Christian cults of Diana and the Homed God became entwined with the doctrine of the Catholic Church concerning evil.
Henry Ill’s Plans for a German Marriage (1225) and their Context
In this paper I would like to investigate how these and other factors influenced the two major marriage projects pursued by Henry III in 1225: the king himself was to marry a daughter of the duke of Austria, and his sister Isabella the son and heir of Emperor Frederick I, Henry (VII).
Construction Materials and Building Constructions in the Architecture of Medieval Rus, from the 10th to the Beginning of the 12th Centuries
Construction Materials and Building Constructions in the Architecture of Medieval Rus, from the 10th to the Beginning of the 12th Centuries Bernhard Flüge…
Political Science in Late Medieval Europe: The Aristotelian Paradigm and How It Shaped the Study of Politics in the West
While scholars have provided many interesting insights into the role of Aristotle in shaping later political theory, I argue that they are inadequate to explain the rapid “Aristotelianization” of political thought in the later Middle Ages.
The Medieval Metal Industry Was the Cradle of Modern Large-Scale Atmospheric Lead Pollution in Northern Europe
This study indicates that the contemporary atmospheric pollution climate in northern Europe was established in Medieval time, rather than in the Industrial period. Atmospheric lead pollution deposition did not, when seen in a historical perspective, increase as much as usually assumed with the Industrial Revolution (1800 A.D.).
A Cell of their Own: The Incarceration of Women in Late Medieval Italy
I will then move to sketch the social profile of female inmates, mainly drawing on the records of Le Stinche, the Florentine municipal prison, during its first century of activity, circa 1300–1400.
Glass Bridges: Cross-Cultural Exchange between Florence and the Ottoman Empire
During the medieval period, the main aim of the crusades was recovery of the Holy Land. However, this changed in the fifteenth century for various reasons.
Blood beliefs in early modern Europe
This thesis focuses on the significance of blood and the perception of the body in both learned and popular culture in order to investigate problems of identity and social exclusion in early modern Europe.
The European Reconquest of North Africa
The chief structural features of Africa Minor are simple. The territory consists of a long strip of land bounded on the north by the Mediterranean,on the south by the Sahara, on the east by the Gulf of Tripoli and the Libyan Desert, on the west by the Atlantic.