Latin Patrons, Greek Fathers: St Bartholomew of Simeri and Byzantine Monastic Reform in Norman Italy, 11th-12th Centuries
St Bartholomew of Simeri (ca. 1050-1130), a Greek monastic founder and reformer from Calabria, saw the effective end of Byzantine imperial power in southern Italy in 1071, the conquest of Muslim Palermo by Robert Guiscard the following year, and the rise of the Norman kingdom of Roger II at the end of his life.
If the afterlife looks like a banquet
Medieval literature would prove the huge success of such an idea, so we are compelled to stop for a moment and ask ourselves the reasons for this reception. Why did men use to link heaven with repletion? And what shape did this longing take inside of their minds?
The Power of Word: Preachers in Medieval Dubrovnik
In the pastoral of the Franciscan and Dominican orders preaching became the principal task of their mission. Preaching manuals represented the basis of the new art. The preachers also used sermon collections, Bible concordances and exempla collections.
A monastic landscape: The Cistercians in medieval Leinster
This study endeavours to discuss the Cistercian monasteries of Leinster with regard to their physical location in the landscape, the agricultural contribution of the monks to the broader social and economic world and the interaction between the cloistered monks and the secular world.
Religious Education as the Basis of Medieval Literature
The medieval literature was written with a purpose to teach Christian dogmas to the masses. The prose and poetry of the time meant to show men the ugliness of sin and the beauty of goodness.
Privacy in the Middle Ages
I thought it might be worth taking five minutes to address just one of these statements: privacy is a relatively new idea.
Christian Charm Discovered on 1,500-year-old Tax Receipt
A 1,500 year old papyrus fragment found in The University of Manchester’s John Rylands Library has been identified as one the world’s earliest surviving Christian charms.
Narratives of resistance: arguments against the mendicants in the works of Matthew Paris and William of Saint-Amour
The rise of the new mendicant orders, foremost the Franciscans and Dominicans, is one of the great success stories of thirteenth-century Europe. Combining apostolic poverty with sophisticated organization and university learning, they brought much needed improvements to pastoral care in the growing cities.
Banditry and the Clash of Powers in 14th-Century Thrace: Momcilo and his Fragmented Memory
In the 14th century, a time of civil wars, religious and dynastic strifes, epidemics, natural disasters and miserable living conditions for the wider strata in the cities and the countryside that increased migratory movements, banditry, an indigenous phenomenon in the Balkan mountainous regions, intermingled with the intensified political struggles.
BOOK REVIEW: Plague Land by SD Sykes
My review of SD Sykes brilliant medieval thriller, Plague Land.
Holy Islands and the Otherworld: Places Beyond Water
In this article I attempt to demonstrate that there is a connection between holy islands and notions of an Otherworld beyond water. I believe that the essence of holy islands is their location on the other side of water.
Monsters: An etymological and cultural reading of the ‘freak’ in the Middle Ages
That the medievals did not interpret ‘freaks’ as an insult to creation is the theme of this paper, showing that medieval thought on the disabled body was not as ‘backward’ as the Dark Ages school of popular historical perception teaches
Manor Village and Individual in Medieval England
This thesis explores peasant life of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in England from information found in the manorial court rolls-the village court records–of Ramsey Hepman grove and Bury.
The Knight, the Hermit, and the Pope: Some Problematic Narratives of Early Crusading Piety
A much more general question, one that extends beyond the geographic confines of the Limousin and the period between 27 December 1095 and 15 August 1096 is why an individual choose to confront any of these difficulties at all. Why did they go?
Pope Joan and the Black Swan: Medieval Christianity as a Resource for Gender Justice in the Church
This essay offers resources from within medieval European Christianity in a feminist reading of the Christian dogma of hypostatic union, medieval political theory on royal twinning, and two medieval legends on the numinous double.
Conversion on the Scaffold: Italian Practices in European Context
11 January 1581 was a fine day in Rome. That morning, Michel de Montaigne, recently arrived in the city, had gone out on horseback when he encountered a procession accompanying a condemned man to execution. Montaigne stopped to watch the sight.
Objections to Episcopal Elections in England, 1216-1272
Objections to Episcopal Elections in England, 1216-1272 Katherine Harvey Nottingham Medieval Studies: 55 (2011), pp. 125-48 Abstract In August 1228, following the death…
Women’s Devotional Bequests of Textiles in the Late Medieval English Parish Church, c.1350-1550
My investigation is set within the context of the current high level of interest in the workings of the late medieval parish.
Amending the Ascetic: Community and Character in the Old English Life of St. Mary of Egypt
Among the most eligible saints for such treatment, Mary of Egypt deserves particular consideration: her popularity is evidenced by over a hundred extant Greek manuscripts of her Life and her uniquely prominent position in the Lenten liturgical cycle in the Eastern Church.
The Adamites: Hippie Heretics of the Middle Ages
Wandering through forests and hills, some of them fell into such insanity that men and women threw off their clothes and went nude, saying that clothes had been adopted because of the sin of the first parents, but that they were in a state of innocence.
“Viking” Pilgrimage to the Holy Land fram! fram! cristmenn, crossmenn, konungsmenn! (Oláfs saga helga, ch. 224.)
The Viking predilection for travel and adventure made it easy for Christianized Scandinavians to adopt the idea of pilgrimage. It was, after all, not entirely unlike their own secular tradition of going a-viking.
Women, Heresy, and Crusade: Toward a Context for Jacques de Vitry’s Relationship to the Early Beguines
Grundmann‘s search for a founding figure is understandable in light of the problematic nature of Beguine institutional history. Beguine historiography has long struggled with the anomalous lack of clear foundation documents and accounts.
Saints’ Cults in Medieval Livonia
Saints’ cults played a crucial role in medieval society. Although we know very little about the beliefs and rituals of the indigenous peoples of Livonia, either before or after the thirteenth-century conquest, we may assume that the process of Christianization must have caused major changes in their religious practices.
Death as an architect of societies Burial and social identity during the Viking Age in South-western Scania
In my opinion, the mono-cultural Viking Age is largely the product of one past social group, that had imposed on us their narration about the events, through production of tangible and durable monuments and sources. If analysis of the past should be of any value, it needs to be not only specifically spatially located, but also socially located.