Horror and Violence in The Canterbury Tales
A large amount of brutality, subjugation, and death can be be found within the most famous literary work of the Late Middle Ages, Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales.
Archaeologists discover medieval man ‘broken on the wheel’
An archaeological dig in Milan has uncovered the remains of a young man who suffered massive injuries, likely caused by torture and execution while being ‘broken on wheel’.
Medieval torture with Larissa ‘Kat’ Tracy
What was torture really like in the Middle Ages? Larissa ‘Kat’ Tracy joins Danièle to talk about iron maidens, dungeons, executions and more on The Medieval Podcast.
Domestic violence against women as a reason to sanctification in Byzantine hagiography
The lives of Matrona of Perge, Mary the Younger and Thomaïs of Lesbos are rare examples of how domestic violence against women could be also interpreted as a reason to sanctify the woman suffered abuses of this sort.
The Great Western Schism, Legitimacy, and Tyrannicide: The Murder of Louis of Orléans (1407)
I will argue that the use of this kind of vocabulary during the Schism may have facilitated a slip into the rhetoric of tyrannicide, and may have incited it. I will suggest that the climate and rhetori of the Schism may have led John the Fearless to rationalize tyrannicide against his cousin, Louis of Orléans.
Digital map reveals medieval London’s homicide ‘hot spots’
First digital map of the murders recorded by the city’s Coroner in early 1300s shows Cheapside and Cornhill were homicide ‘hot spots’, and Sundays held the highest risk of violent death for medieval Londoners.
Five Murders in Medieval Oxford
When trying to understand acts of violence in the Middle Ages, historians often have to turn to government records. Here are five official accounts of murders that took place in the city of Oxford at turn of the 14th century.
Homicide and Suicide in Viking Age Scandinavia
What was the perception and conception of homicide and suicide in the Viking Age Scandinavia, and to what extent is that traceable in the written and archaeological sources?
The Calamity of Violence: Reading the Paris Massacres of 1418
The prelude to the massacres began on the night of 29 May 1418. The city had been brutally occupied for five years by the Armagnacs, the ruling junta hostile to both the Parisians and the populist Burgundian party that the vast majority of the capital’s residents favored.
Axlar-Björn: The Only Serial Killer of Iceland
Axlar-Björn, or Björn of the farm Öxl, was executed in 1596 for having murdered at least 18 people.
The Giving and Withholding of Consent in Late Twelfth-Century French Literature
My investigations into the depiction and punishment of rape in late twelfth-century literature in northern France stem from a particular interest in some of the earlier branches of the Roman de Renart.
Soldiers, Villagers and Politics: Military Violence and the Jacquerie of 1358
The Jacquerie of 1358 remains a hotly contested incident, but the importance of soldiers as a cause of the revolt is one of the few things on which scholars agree.
Anglo-Saxon Punishments: The Price of a Pinky
Recognizing that an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, medieval lawmakers believed that justice could be satisfied by aggressors making financial compensation to victims.
Not All Fun and Games: The Dangers of the Medieval Tournament
The tournament, with all its elements of theatre and spectacle, was the ideal showground for martial skill, chivalric values, and medieval masculinity. But, behind the glamour, was a dangerous sport that often involved life or death circumstances.
The Bolognese Societates Armatae of the Late 13th Century
The Bologna archives preserve the bye-laws of 24 „armed societies”, dating from between 1230 and the early 1300s, written in good notary Latin. Though known to exist in other Italian city-states, only few non-Bolognese armed society bye-laws are preserved.
The Rhythms of Vengeance in Late Medieval Marseille
Interpersonal violence was common in late medieval Marseille, as it was everywhere in Europe. In the fourteenth century, the city was riven by warfare between two great factions involving some of Marseille’s leading families.
Mutilation and the Law in Early Medieval Europe and India: A Comparative Study
Such penalties, the rhetoric surrounding their use, and the circumstances in which they were prescribed sound very familiar to a historian of early medieval Europe, where the language and targets of such precepts were similar to those set out in the Indian material.
Trial by Combat: The Bloody Business of Justice
As a community of the faithful, medieval people believed that no matter how evenly or unevenly matched the fighters were, the one who was innocent would prevail, but trial by combat was not often a black-and-white thing.
Medieval Executions: The View from the Scaffold
Let’s take a brief look at what judicial execution was really like in the Middle Ages.
On the Mutilation and Blinding of Byzantine Emperors from the Reign of Heraclius I until the Fall of Constantinople
The article takes a diachronic approach to the questions regarding Byzantine emperors and pretenders who were blinded or mutilated.
Unravelling a medieval murder mystery
In the ultimate cold case an Aberdeen historian has re-examined a 600 year old murder, fitting of a plot for Game of Thrones.
Top 10 Most Brutal Medieval Deaths
When being broken on the wheel is not enough! Ten brutal ways to die from the Middle Ages.
Policing Violence: Royal and Community Perspectives in Medieval France
It is the purpose of this thesis to demonstrate that there were legitimate and acceptable forms of violence that could be used to police society.
Cross-Border Representations of Revolt in the Later Middle Ages: France and England During the Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453)
Combing through more than eighty chronicles from the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century, we have only been able to find some fifteen examples of popular revolt in England and France being reported by authors from the other side of the channel.
Spousal Abuse in Fourteenth-Century Yorkshire
One area which historians of marriage have chosen to focus on in particular as a measure of love within marriage is spousal abuse. Two approaches have been employed in this respect.