The Grand Jury: The Medieval and the Modern
What is a grand jury, and how did this institution—originally designed as a check to rampant, unjust state power—come under the dominion of prosecutors and police?
The Sheriff Solution: Medieval Law Enforcement for a Modern World
The Metropolitan Police Service – the first modern police force – was only created in London in 1829. So what were the structures in place for keeping order before that?
Fatness and Thinness in the Middle Ages
What did medieval people, living in a preindustrial time of food scarcity, think about fatness and thinness?
The Bastille is Being Stormed
Though the French Revolution is most definitely postmedieval—and unrivalled for the apathy many of my undergraduates have shown towards it—never has the fall of the French feudal regime been more relevant to current events.
Touch in the Middle Ages
In these times, I want to bring out one thing that medieval people knew but we seem to have forgotten: Touch is necessary and fundamental.
Coping with Pandemics in the Middle Ages
Medieval people differed from us in their ways of coping with a pandemic, but they felt similar helplessness.
The Coronavirus is not the Black Death
The novel coronavirus COVID-19 has sickened almost 86,000 and killed more than 2,900 people, spread worldwide, and caused stock markets to tumble. Analogies to the Black Death, the outbreak of bubonic plague that wiped out between one-half and two-thirds of the population of Europe from 1347–51, were inevitable.
Combining Chivalry and Technology: The Last Knight and Making Marvels at the Metropolitan Museum
The classic view of museums are like churches: Solemn places in which the priesthood of Connoisseurship guards its treasures like holy relics and hands down interpretations like papal bulls.
Pennsic, Or What I Did on My Summer Vacation
For the past 48 years, around 10,000 people have been gathering every summer for a festival that’s been described as ‘medieval Burning Man.’
In Defence of the Society for Creative Anachronism
There’s always been a fraught relationship between medieval academia and the Society for Creative Anachronism
Game of Thrones: The Final Scorecard
Well, our collective 11-year journey has finally ended, the Iron Throne has been won…
The Battle of Winterfell: The Official Medievalists Postgame Analysis
Here’s the post-game, Monday-morning quarterback explanation of everything that went wrong with the Battle of Winterfell from the guy who brought you Game of Thrones and the Medieval Art of War.
Black Metal, Folkish Heathenism, Church Burning, and Medievalism
The revival of ancient religions and the love of powerful, loud music can be used for good, or for ill.
Game of Thrones, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the Roots of Modern Fantasy
With the coming of the final season of HBO’s Game of Thrones, the mainstreaming of the medieval-fantasy genre that began with Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies is complete.
The History Channel’s Knight Fight: How Historically Accurate is it?
Taking a look at the History Channel’s newest ‘medieval’ show Knight Fight.
Medievalisms: Notre-Dame Cathedral and the Re-creation of the French Past
What many don’t realize is that the majority of what one sees when one looks at Notre-Dame’s west façade is a modern restoration.
Medievalisms: The Society for Creative Anachronism
There are tens of thousands of people who want to recreate the Middle Ages “as they ought to have been.” But what is the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) and what is its future?