Did Purchasing Power Parity Hold in Medieval Europe?
This paper employs a unique, hand-collected dataset of exchange rates for five major currencies (the lira of Barcelona, the pound sterling of England, the pond groot of Flanders, the florin of Florence and the livre tournois of France) to consider whether the law of one price and purchasing power parity held in Europe during the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries.
BOOK REVIEW: A Triple Knot by Emma Campion
BOOK REVIEW: A Triple Knot by Emma Campion I had the pleasure of reading another Emma Campion (Candace Robb) novel recently. Campion, who…
Living la vita apostolica: Life expectancy and mortality of nuns in late-medieval Holland
Living la vita apostolica: Life expectancy and mortality of nuns in late-medieval Holland Jaco Zuijderduijn (Utrecht University ) Centre for Global Economic History:…
Women’s use of religious literature in late medieval England
This thesis explores women’s access to and use of the religious literature circulating in England from c. 1350 to c. 1500.
England’s First Attempt to Break the Commercial Monopoly of the Hanseatic League, 1377-1380
During the second half of the fourteenth century English traders first seriously threatened the Hanseatic League’s commercial monopoly in the Baltic. The League, attempting to defendits monopoly, treated the English unjustly,where upon in 1377 the English Parliament rescinded the charter that granted the League important concessions and privileges in its English trade.
Boundaries in the making – Historiography and the isolation of late medieval Bohemia
This paper deals with an episode of early 15th century Bohemian history. During the so-called Hussite wars, a coalition of Catholic powers tried to establish a far-reaching blockade on trade and commerce against the kingdom of Bohemia, which then was considered to be a hotbed of heresy, and to be rebellious against its legitimate ruler and the papal church.
The Image of the City in Peace and War in a Burgundian manuscript of Jean Froissart’s Chronicles
The present essay, which complements a study scheduled for publication in 2000 in a volume arising from a colloquium on the theme Regions and Landscapes held in July 1997 at the International Medieval Congress, Leeds, attempts to build on this work.
The American Dark Ages and the Terrorist Witch in Season of the Witch
In this article we argue that medieval films are not to be analyzed according to their faithfulness to the known historical sources, but that they can only be fully analyzed by understanding medievalist codes, traditions and (filmic) intertextuality.
What’s the Matter?: Medieval Literary Theory and the Irish Campaigns in The Bruce
John Barbour’s Bruce, composed in the mid 1370s, is the first long poem in the Scots vernacular. It contains twenty books, the first thirteen of which trace the Wars of Liberty from their origins until triumph at the Battle of Bannockburn. At this point the Irish ‘matter’ enters the poem.
The Legend of the Pied Piper in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: Grimm, Browning, and Skurzynski
This paper examines the changes that were made in the literary telling and retelling of the story of the Pied Piper during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, comparing the folktale “Die Kinder zu Hameln” (1816) by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, the poem “The Pied Piper of Hamelin”(1842) by Robert Browning, and the book What Happened in Hamelin (1979), by Gloria Skurzynski.
The Identity of the St Bees Lady, Cumbria: An Osteobiographical Approach
USING AN OSTEOBIOGRAPHICAL approach, this contribution considers the identity of the woman found alongside the St Bees Man, one of the best-preserved archaeological bodies ever discovered. Osteological, isotopic and radiocarbon analyses, combined with the archaeo- logical context of the burial and documented social history, provide the basis for the identifica- tion of a late 14th-century heiress whose activities were at the heart of medieval northern English geopolitics.
Mapping the Medieval Countryside
My summary of a Institute of Historical Research session on the digitization of records in Late Medieval England.
Royal and Magnate Bastards in the Later Middle Ages: The View from Scotland
Theory and Practice in Scotland and Elsewhere Medieval Scotland’s law on bastardy is set out in the lawbook Regiam Majestatem (c.1320)…In England things were different, as Michael Hicks has demonstrated. Admittedly, English heraldic practice eventually followed the French, and the formula ‘X bastard of Y’ is occasionally found for magnates’ bastards.
John of Gaunt and John Wyclif
Historians have always been somewhat puzzled at the alliance of two such men as John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster and third son of Edward III, and John Wyclif, controversialist and reformer.
Illegitimacy and English Landed Society c.1285-c.1500
This study begins with a survey of the legal issues surrounding illegitimacy and the context within which landowners were able to make provision for illegitimate children. Subsequent chapters examine wills and estate settlements to consider the actual provision for illegitimate children made by individuals in different circumstances.
Like Father Like Son? Henry III’s Tomb at Westminster Abbey as a Case Study in Late Thirteenth-Century English Kingship
Who was this king, and who made this grand monument to him? An inscription around the edge of the upper tomb chest identifies its occupant as Henry III, the English king who died in 1272 after a reign of fifty-six years.
Holy rulers and the integration of the medieval Serbian space
This paper proposes a new line of analysis of the rich body of medieval Serbian royal hagiography.
Medicine on Trial: Regulating the Health Professions in Later Medieval England
Given the hurdles one faced in trying to stay healthy in later medieval England, it should come as no surprise that the medieval English placed a premium on competent medicine.
Power relations in the royal forests of England patronage : privilege and legitimacy in the reigns of Henry III and Edward I
The England of the Plantagenets (1189–1377) which honed the royal forest system was a typically medieval land. Its ultimate foundations lay upon the long established notion of the three estates: those who fought, those who prayed, and those who worked.
Time, space and power in later medieval Bristol
With a population of almost 10,000, Bristol was later medieval England’s second or third biggest urban place, and the realm’s second port after London. While not particularly large or wealthy in comparison with the great cities of northern Italy, Flanders or the Rhineland, it was a metropolis in the context of the British Isles.
Primstav and Apocalypse Time and its Reckoning in Medieval Scandinavia
This work is intended as an exploration of methods of time-reckoning and conception in Medieval Scandinavia. In the main this is tied to the dynamism between a duality: that of the cyclical and linear models of time‟s progression. Involved in this study are sources verbal and pictoral.
Jewish Shock-Troops of the Apocalypse
It would not be difficult to dismiss the legend of the Antichrist in its medieval manifestations as pure fantasy—analogous to such entertaining motifs as fire-breathing dragons, unicorns, enchantments and the like.
Mortality in the Fifteenth Century
For decades medieval historians have placed population at the centre of they concerns, but it is only in recent years that their studies have begun to constitute a respectable branch of historical demography.
BOOKS: Canterbury Cathedral
After visiting Canterbury Cathedral, I was inspired to suggest books that relate to Canterbury’s famous Archbishops, history and beauty.