Requiem For a Lost Age
Conventional wisdom said medieval Christian graves – the plain remains of the pious – held little interest for archaeologists. Now cemetery excavations have revealed an extraordinary world of fear, superstition, care and mourning. Roberta Gilchrist reports on a major new study.
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.
Sacred rules, secular revelations:the conceptions of rights in pre-modern Europe
Before examining what this ‘something else’ is, it is necessary to pause a moment to consider the very idea of ‘medieval human rights’. To many the phrase may appear to be an oxymoron. Certainly, the popular image of the Middle Ages is as the ‘Dark Ages’ and, more broadly, with religious and preternatural superstition and ignorance.
A Quiet Revolution – The Horse in Agriculture, 1100-1500
The partnership of man and horse on the land goes back a long time, but, as John Langdon shows, it was not until after the Conquest that the horse really began to come into its own.
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…
Types of physical exercise in Medieval Serbia (XII-XIV century)
It is often said of a nation that it is as rich as its history. All the efforts and desire to get to the roots of our past lead us inevitably to the Middle Ages and connect us to the spirit of the rule of the House of Nemanjić. A profound influence this dynasty exerted on the history of the people of Serbia points out their greatness and significance. Serbian army from the period of the Nemanjić reign was famed for its bravery, agility, endurance, persistence, wisdom and skillfulness varying by the type of warfare. Brave voivode and warriors were the apple of Serbia’s eye, which in turn caused heroism to become a lifestyle.
Medieval reads for Dad!
Father’s Day is just around the corner – here are some fun medieval reads to make his day special!
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.
The Roman De La Rose and the Thirteenth Century Prohibitions of Homosexuality
This paper, a tentative approach by someone who is not an expert in this area or on this text, argues that Guillaume de Lorris offers a veiled description of a male to male love relationship.
Living the middle life, secular priests and their communities in thirteenth-century Genoa
It has long been known among medievalists that secular priests, like Pagano, standing in front of their churches, rubbing elbows with the other clerics and lay people walking past,occupied a central place within medieval society. Not only did they carry out important duties within the institutional Church, but they also participated in the community life of both city and countryside.
The War Against Heresy in Medieval Europe
No surviving writer suggested on the eve of the millennium that the propagation of heresy of heresy among the people of Western Europe was active, or that any of the heresies of antiquity had survived.
Saints and sinners in the works of Marie de France
What was Marie trying to share with her twelfth century audience when she wrote The Lais?
Arrow-loops in the Great Tower of Kenilworth castle: Symbolism vs Active/Passive ‘Defence’
In 1931, Sidney Toy measured and drew arrow-loops in the top gallery of the Great Tower at Kenilworth and his drawings are reproduced here (Figs. 1 – 6), by permission of the Society of Antiquaries of London
Partners in Rule: A Study of Twelfth-Century Queens of England
The queens of twelfth-century England provide a prime example of how the queen was not, in fact, powerless in the rule of her realm, but rather a significant governmental official who had the opportunity to take a complementary part in royal rule that suited her strengths.
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.
Thomas Bradwardine: Forgotten Medieval Augustinian
In spite of this dearth of scholarly publications on Bradwardine, he deserves serious consideration. From a church historical perspective, he represents a resurgence of a relatively pure Augustinianism in the late Middle Ages.
Perfect Virgins and Suicidal Maniacs: Monks in Early Thirteenth-Century Pastoralia
This summary is of a paper that was the last in the English Cistercian series at Kalamazoo.
Azodi Hospital and University in Shiraz (10th – 14th Century AD)
Hospitals have a long history throughout the history of medicine. First hospitals are originated from Persia in ancient times in the Sassanid Dynasty (2nd to 6th century AD).
The Court of Beast and Bough: Contesting the Medieval English Forest in the Early Robin Hood Ballads
The medieval English forest has long been a space of contested legal meanings. After King William I first created the 75,000-acre New Forest, the English monarchy sought to define the vert, both legally and ideologically, as a multiplicity of sites in which the king’s rights were vigorously enforced.
Robin Hood Comes of Age
While some Robin Hood books are clearly intended for young readers, others blur the boundaries, sometimes in ways we can applaud, since they help break down artificial boundaries dividing fiction for children from that for adults.
Charting the “Rise of the West”: Manuscripts and Printed Books in Europe, A Long-Term Perspective from the Sixth through Eighteenth Centuries
These arguments suggest that the number of manuscripts and printed books produced in a given society are complex measures of economic performance and societal capabilities, and are therefore a valuable guide to the study of long-term economic change.
Llywelyn ab Iorwerth : the making of a Welsh prince
Finally, this thesis seeks to address the limitations on Llywelyn’s successes, in light of succeeding events and concludes with a discussion of Llywelyn’s legendary status in the modern world.
Faith and reason: charting the medieval concept of the infinite
I would like to start with some assumptions. First, I take it for granted that the apposition of negative terms to the Almighty God became quite early an accepted practice in Christianity, which caused in turn that the infinite, as an opposite term to something easily convenient to positive delineation, was admitted in the repertoire of God’s adverbial description.
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.