‘I Felt like Jumping for Joy’: Smile and Laughter in Medieval Imagery
With a starting point in ‘the gothic smiles’ of the sculptures of the great cathedrals in the thirteenth century, my aim is to draw attention to the importance of international ideals in local affairs.
Passover in the Middle Ages
In the Middle Ages the two holidays of Passover and Easter had become the focal point for displays of hatred and the occasion for libels against Jews.
14th century cave discovered in England
A team of rail workers doing repairs near the the English town of Guildford have uncovered a small cave believed to be from the 14th century.
Coping with Pandemics in the Middle Ages
Medieval people differed from us in their ways of coping with a pandemic, but they felt similar helplessness.
Anchorites: Life in Spiritual Self-Isolation
This week on The Medieval Podcast, Danièle talks about anchorites, men and women who enclosed themselves for life to contemplate their religious beliefs. She also explores some of the work of Julian of Norwich, perhaps the most famous anchorite of the Middle Ages.
Beguines with Tanya Stabler Miller
Often, people think of the women of medieval Europe as either wives or nuns: women whose lives and property were under the control of someone else. But what tends to be forgotten is that for some women there was a third option: to become a beguine. This week, Danièle speaks with Dr. Tanya Stabler Miller about who the beguines were, and what medieval society thought of them.
Glass-Breaking: An Affective Process
The iconoclasm of the English Reformation was marked by a transformation from reinterpreted 15th-century theological doctrine to tangible action
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.
Camino de Santiago: The Medieval Route from Oviedo
‘He who visits Santiago but not San Salvador visits the servant but not the Lord’
Jesus the Shopkeeper
The striking vision of Christ as a cook, a pharmacist, and a merchant fits right into Blannbekin’s physical world of Vienna and spiritual world of religious instruction.
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.
Why medieval people were fasting on Fridays
In British Library MS Harley 2253, there exists a short passage which explains ‘Reasons for Fasting on Friday’
Bartered Bodies: Medieval Pilgrims and the Tissue of Faith
The journey disciplined and dirtied the body, exposed the travellers to danger and death, and denied their normal comforts.
Haunting Matters: Demonic Infestation in Northern Europe, 1400-1600
This dissertation will show the ways in which learned writings about demons reveal insights into the cultural and intellectual history of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century western Europe.
The Papacy, Inquisition and Saint Guinefort the Holy Greyhound
The legend of St Guinefort the Holy Greyhound reveals the medieval Church engaged in a familiar struggle: to balance popular piety with orthodox teaching.
Windows on a medieval world: medieval piety as reflected in the lapidary literature of the Middle Ages
The lapidary literature of the Middle Ages has been overlooked as a source for the study of medieval Christian piety.
The Shroud of Turin was in the Byzantine Empire before 1204 AD, researchers suggest
Could the Shroud of Turin have been displayed in the Byzantine Empire before the thirteenth-century? A pair of Italian scholars suggest so, basing their theory on micro-particles of gold found on the famous cloth
The Holy Spirit in Female Form: Medieval Tales of Faith and Heresy
The stories of Guglielma of Milan and Na Prous Boneta of Montpelier – how they became associated with the Holy Spirit – and how the Catholic Church responded to them.
Visionary “Staycations”: Meeting God at Home in Medieval Women’s Vision Literature
However, with a touch of irony of my own, I would like to argue that something akin to the “staycation” does have currency in medieval religious literature.
So You Want to Be a Medieval Priest
It might seem like one of the more glamorous professions in the Middle Ages – as a priest you could run a church and offer moral leadership to your parishioners. But here are a few drawbacks to being a medieval priest.
Eve’s Sin, Woman’s Fault: A Medieval View
The fall of Adam and Eve has been a favourite theme in literary and religious literature down through the ages both with Christian and non-Christian authors.
Religion on the Frontier: Identity and Ritual Adaptations after the Anglo-Saxon migration
This paper will explore what it meant to practice religion on a frontier compared to the core, where the religion was based, by contrasting Anglo-Saxon ritual practices in Britain and the Continent.
Why are dragons and monsters carved into Norway’s stave churches?
The richly decorated portal at Urnes stave church in Norway has often been interpreted in light of paganism. That’s wrong, according to a new stave church study.
What was the fate of the ‘True Cross’ in the Byzantine-Sassanid Wars?
Despite the fact that there is a relative abundance of contemporary or near contemporary sources on Heraclius’ campaigns, it is hard – if not impossible – to retrace the chronology of the events leading up to the restoration of the Cross.