The rationale of gestures in the West: Third to Thirteenth Centuries
The culture of the Middle Ages has sometimes been called a ‘culture of gestures’ or a ‘gestural culture’.
Impoverished mothers and poor widows: negotiating images of poverty in Marseille’s courts
Impoverished mothers and poor widows: negotiating images of poverty in Marseille’s courts By Susan McDonough Journal of Medieval History, Vol.34:1 (2008) Abstract: In the…
Shifting categories of the social harms associated with alcohol: examples from late medieval and early modern England
Shifting categories of the social harms associated with alcohol: examples from late medieval and early modern England By Jessica Warner American Journal of…
The Murder of Henry Clement and the Pirates of Lundy Island
The Murder of Henry Clement and the Pirates of Lundy Island By Frederick M. Powicke Ways of medieval life and thought, by Frederick…
Defining the gentleman and the gentlewoman in the Italian Renaissance
Here I wish to discuss the way the figures of the gentleman and the gentlewoman developed in European culture during the Renaissance.
Personae, Same-Sex Desire, and Salvation in the Poetry of Marbod of Rennes, Baudri of Bourgueil, and Hildebert of Lavardin
Personae, Same-Sex Desire, and Salvation in the Poetry of Marbod of Rennes, Baudri of Bourgueil, and Hildebert of Lavardin Pugh, Tison Comitatus Vol.31…
The Medieval Prison: A Social History
The Medieval Prison: A Social History By Guy Geltner Princeton University Press, 2008 ISBN: 978-0-691-13533-5 The modern prison is commonly thought to be the…
Conception Through Infancy in Medieval English Historical and Folklore Sources
Conception Through Infancy in Medieval English Historical and Folklore Sources By Barbara Hanawalt Folklore Forum, Vol. 13:2 (1980) Synopsis: Uses coroners rolls, a…
Prisoners in the Castellany of Arras in the Early Fourteenth Century
The fiscal arrangements for the prison, including the charges on prisoners and the provision made for indigent prisoners, can be used to obtain other information on such matters as normal terms of imprisonment, the composition of the prison population, prison conditions, and the fate of prisoners.
Sports Spectators from Antiquity to the Renaissance
Although medieval spectators were often unruly and sometimes riotous, the evidence I have thus far gathered indicates that their disorders never approached the level of tumult exhibited by Byzantine fans.
Sports of the Byzantine Empire
Sports of the Byzantine Empire By Barbara Schrodt Journal of Sport History, Vol.8:3 (1981) Introduction: From the fourth century A.D. until the fall of Constantinople…
Sports and Recreations in Thirteenth-Century England: The evidence of the Eyre and Coroners’ Rolls
This article presents what has been gleaned about sports, pastimes, and recreations of thirteenth-century people from a representative sample of the public records of medieval England.
Sport and Social Hierarchy in Medieval England
This paper will analyze military sports, hunting sports, and ball play within one society, England, from 1100-1500.
The Medieval Tournament: A Functional Sport of the Upper Class
Sport has often both mirrored and conditioned many aspects of particular social classes; change in one has often effected change in the other. The tournament and the medieval upper class appear to have been related in this way.
The Windmill: A Medieval ‘Steam Engine’?
Examines the invention and development of the Windmill in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, including how these machines worked. Further discussion is given on the use of windmills in England during the early fourteenth century.
A Mediaeval Burglary
A 24-page lecture from 1915 about a little known burglary of King Edward I’s treasure room in 1303. There remains some mystery of who did it, this real-life story has drama, interesting characters, scandal, cover-up, and provides a sense and feel of the times from a ground-up perspective. Includes a hand-drawn map and two relevant manuscript pages.
Moral Regulation and Civic Identity in London 1400-1530
Moral Regulation and Civic Identity in London 1400-1530 By Stephanie Tarbin Our Medieval Heritage: Essays in honour of John Tillotson for his 60th birthday…
Making and Using the Law in the North, c. 900-1350
It is clear that medieval Nordic law was transmitted orally long before it was written down. The Icelandic Free State law-book known as the Grágás, for example, specifically addresses its audience, reminding them that “tomorrow we go to the law mountain” Various other stylistic traits indicate previous oral transmission.
The Agrarian Problem in the Early Fourteenth Century
Until recently it was widely believed that feudal tenurial relationships sanctioned and facilitated the extra-economic exploitation of tenants by their lords. Together, the heaviness of rent charges and the arbitrariness of lordship discouraged and depressed tenant investment in agriculture.
Portuguese Crypto-Jewish Ballads: A Passagem do Mar Vermelho and A Pedra Mara
Some New Christians managed to escape abroad, founding Jewish communities in Bordeaux, London, Amsterdam, and other cities (Azevedo 359-430). With the union of the Portuguese and Spanish crowns (1580-1640), the number of those who moved to Spain and its American colonies was so great that the word “Portuguese” became practically synonymous with “Jew.”
Women, Suicide, and the Jury in Later Medieval England
Were medieval jurors more inclined to condemn female self‐killers to a suicide’s death because of the familiar figure of the mad, possessed woman?
Representations of Anglo-Saxon England in Children’s Literature
The way in which children’s authors have translated medieval history into their own “historicity” has changed during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as popular and scholarly attitudes toward the Middle Ages have changed. Looking at these changes, my purpose in this thesis will be to answer two questions: why would children’s authors draw upon Anglo-Saxon England for their subject matter? And, what relevance does children’s literature have for an audience of medievalists?
“Alien” Encounters in the Maritime World of Medieval England
This essay explores these encounters, whether on English shores, on board ship, or abroad in foreign ports.
Church and nation: The discourse on authority in Ericus Olai’s Chronica regni Gothorum (c. 1471)
The Chronica regni Gothorum or Chronicle of the realm of the Goths is the first Swedish national history in Latin prose. It was completed after 1471 by a member of the Uppsala cathedral chapter, Ericus Olai, who, arguably, intended his work primarily for the readership of his own arch see. Ericus professed to compile a history of the Swedish realm from the birth of Christ until his own time and according to the succession of kings and bishops governing from Uppsala.
Between Herbals et alia: Intertextuality in Medieval English Herbals
The study points out the close relationship between medical recipes and recipe-like passages in herbals (recipe paraphrases). The examples of recipe paraphrases show that they may have been perceived as indirect instruction.