Siblings and the Sexes within the Medieval Religious Life
Contact between the sexes within the religious life presented a perennial source of anxiety for medieval churchmen.
The Christmas relics that came to medieval England
If you wanted to see the manger where Jesus Christ was born, or the finger bones of Saint Nicholas (the original Santa Claus), you could have done so at an English abbey in the 15th century.
The Lost Women of Prémontré: Finding and Following the Footsteps of Medieval Women
In the mid-12th century, the chronicler Herman of Tournai wrote that there were more than 10,000 Premonstratensian sisters spread across northern France.
The Occupation of Gotland by the Teutonic Knights, 1398-1408
In 1398, the Teutonic Order occupied the island of Gotland and its city, Visby. The knights held the island for ten years.
Project to discover who came to Mount Athos in the Middle Ages
Zachary Chitwood of Mainz University will set up a comprehensive database that will include the inhabitants and visitors of Athos over a period of 700 years.
Belgian abbey to recreate medieval beers
Grimbergen Abbey in Belgium has revealed it has received the permits to build a new microbrewery, where they will combine brewing traditions from medieval books from the abbey’s library with modern and innovative techniques to craft limited-edition batches of premium beers.
Accounting in an English medieval abbey
Let us consider the accounting problems for an abbey, a monastery, one of the prominent social institutions of the middle ages, a center for many activities: religious, social, cultural and economic.
Who Owned Augustine’s Bones? The Hermits of St. Augustine
Today we will look at the relics of St. Augustine and the tug-of-war that broke out over them in the fourteenth century.
Liturgy Matters: Benedictine Women’s Communities in Medieval England
Katie Bugyis is pursuing her current book project, “Liturgy Matters: Benedictine Women’s Communities in Medieval England,” which reclaims the materiality of Benedictine nuns’ liturgical practices by viewing these women as “technologists” who transformed—and were transformed by—their sensual engagement with the objects they created, acquired, handled, and treasured.
The Thirteenth-Century Cartulary and Archives at the Abbey of Prémontré: Material Practices in the Scriptorium
The cartulary of the Abbey of Prémontré is well-known amongst scholars of the early history of the Premonstratensian Order, as well as those who study the economic, social, and religious history of southern Picardy in the 12th and 13th centuries.
How to be a Holy Man and a Pragmatist: The story of Hybald
Any type of leader will often have to balance their convictions with pragmatism. For a seventh-century Anglo-Saxon abbot, perhaps there could be a way to display both.
The medieval nun who faked her own death
The launch this month of ‘The Northern Way’ research project, which looks at the Archbishops of York from 1304 to 1405, is revealing some fascinating stories, including that of a nun who made an elaborate plan to escape her own convent.
10 Videos about Monks and Nuns in the Middle Ages
Want to learn more about the medieval world of monks and nuns? Here are ten videos we found that offer some quick information on monasticism in the Middle Ages.
“From what is earthly to what is divine”: The Story of Caritas Pirckheimer, Renaissance Woman
An abbess fighting for her nuns, a scholar of humanism, and a historian of the Franciscans.
Virgin Sacrifice in the 12th century: The Hortus Deliciarum
If you put a group of bookish virgins up against a monster bent on devouring the world, what do you get? Something approximating salvation, right?
Torture and Confession in the Templar Interrogations at Caen, 28–29 October 1307
Perhaps more clearly than anywhere else in the documentation of the “Trial of the Templars,” these acts reveal how royal agents extracted confessions from the Templars in the weeks following their arrest.
700-year-old floor discovered by archaeologists at Bath Abbey
Archaeologists have discovered a stunning 13th century tiled floor during renovation works for Bath Abbey’s Footprint Project.
You Only Die Twice? Abbots between Community and Empire: The Cases of Martin of Tours and Benedict of Aniane
Th is article compares the deaths of two abbots as told by contemporary observers
Monasticism without frontiers : the extended monastic community of the Abbot of Cluny in England and Wales
Cluniac monasteries, so called because of their relationship to the abbot of Cluny in Burgundy, have been estimated to have numbered over seven hundred foundations at one time, distributed throughout France and in England, Wales, Scotland, Lombardy, and Spain.
Lost but not yet Found: Medieval Foundlings and their Care in Northern France, 1200-1500
The High Middle Ages was an important period of transition in the care of France’s “miserable persons,” that is, the poor, sick, widows, orphans, aged, and infirm.
Tiny Edens: What you can find in a medieval monastery’s garden
Here are five garden elements you’d regularly find on a monastery’s grounds.
Before Dracula: The Rise and Fall of Whitby Abbey
But in addition to Bram and Dracula, Whitby Abbey has more stories to tell; and they are much more ancient than the immortal Count.
Monastic Reform and the Geography of Christendom: Experience, Observation and Influence
Historians have suggested that tropes about the desert, solitude, etc., drawn from early texts found their way into mainstream accounts of monastic change in the period c. 1080–1150; this paper challenges this model.
The Novice-master in the Cistercian Order
Information relating to the novice master has to be rather sought in the customs, constitutions and in similar texts. Their explanations and regulations come closer to the practices of the respective community than can be expected from rules.