The Rise of Muscovy
Kievan Rus which was founded in 880 was made up of a loose knit alliance between small city states in what is today western Russia. The most powerful of these city states was Kiev. During the early thirteenth century the Mongol continued their march west until they conquered Kievan Rus in 1240.
Finland, Tallinn and the Hanseatic League: Foreign Trade and the Orientation of Roads in Medieval Finland
What was the role of Finland in the trade of the Hanseatic League in the Middle Ages? Thisquestion has been widely discussed in Finnish history since 1882, when J.W. Ruuth publishedhis study on the relationship between Finland and the Hanse before 1435.
Construction Materials and Building Constructions in the Architecture of Medieval Rus, from the 10th to the Beginning of the 12th Centuries
Construction Materials and Building Constructions in the Architecture of Medieval Rus, from the 10th to the Beginning of the 12th Centuries Bernhard Flüge…
Review: Prince Vladimir
If the Anglo-Saxons bemoan about the mist surrounding the Dark Ages, wait till you meet Russians!
Rus’, Varangians and Birka Warriors
Viking Age remains displaying a number of distinct similarities stand in strategic locations alongthe Eastern trade routes from Birka to Kiev.
Ryurik Rostislavich (d. 1208?): the Unsung Champion of the Rostislavichi
One of the most active champions of the Rostislavichi fortunes, whose political career the chroniclers record for some fifty years, was Rostislav’s son Ryurik. His career, however, was one of political turmoil.
The Meaning of the Middle Ages: Fans, Authors, and Industry
This was a very enjoyable paper given on the topic of medievalism and the predominance of a European perspective in almost all fantasy literature. Young examined three authors who were moving away from the traditional telling of fantasy by subverting the typical pseudo-medieval narrative or by moving away from European cultures towards embracing Eastern, Aztec and other non-European worlds.
‘Fromm thennes faste he gan avyse/This litel spot of erthe’: GIS and the General Prologue
This paper was given at the Canada Chaucer Seminar on April 27, 2013.
Delivering stability: Primogeniture and autocratic survival in European monarchies 1000-1800
Although the dominating position of primogeniture at the end of the period might seem natural given primogeniture’s many advantages for the monarch and the ruling elite it was first rather late in history that the principle came to dominate Europe.
Russian Pilgrims in Constantinople
If one compares the Russian Anthony text with the original Mercati Anonymus text, the longest and most detailed of the three extant contemporary Western descriptions of the shrines of Constantinople, one finds that the Latin text includes only twenty of the seventy-six religious shrines mentioned by the Russian enumeration.
The Effects of the Mongol Empire on Russia
This paper looks at the Mongol Empire’s impacts on Russia in terms of religion, art, language, government, and the ultimate rise of Moscow.
The Schism that never was: Old Norse views on Byzantium and Russia
It is my contention that, in the general view of Icelanders, the Christian world was united, ’catholic’ in the original meaning of the word. Christianity in the East was thought to have similar roots to Christianity in Iceland and differences between the religions of Nordic and Eastern people were considered insignificant.
A Distant World: Russian Relations with Europe Before Peter the Great
Despite their isolation and poverty, the Slavic plowmen succeeded in settling this unforgiving region, expanding their numbers, and, most importantly, creating the beginnings of a trading network along the many rivers of the region—the western Dvina, the Volkhov, the northern Dvina, and the Dniepr and its tributaries.
The Amber Trail in early medieval Eastern Europe.
The standard method employed in characterization studies of amber, namely infrared spectrography, can discriminate roughly between Baltic amber and amber from other European sources…
The Forgotten Text of Nikolai Golovin: New Light on the Igor Tale
Mann argues that a rare text of the Skazanie o Mamaevom poboishche comes from an early, fifteenth-century redaction that scholars could never locate—a redaction that is the prototype for all the redactions that have been studied heretofore. He maintains that unique parallels between this redaction and the Slovo o polka Igoreve support the hypothesis that the Igor Tale was an oral epic song in a tradition that actually continued into the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when oral tales about the Kulikovo Battle (1380) were composed. He places the new parallels in the context of other evidence for oral composition in the Igor Tale.
The lure of the Kremlin: the court of Ivan the Terrible and global networks in the sixteenth century
This lecture will demonstrate that the court of Ivan the Terrible (1530-1584) and other tsars was actually a focus point of exchange in technology, commodities and ideas with both the East and the West,
Reflection of European Sarmatia in Early Cartography
While looking for the origins of the state of Lithuania, it is the study of old maps that helps solve a number of riddles, so far weighing on the history of our nation. Historical data, traced in maps and their images, unrestricted by any political, religious or pseudo- scientific taboos, allow us to cast a broad view on the dim and distant past of our state.
Labor Markets After the Black Death: Landlord Collusion and the Imposition of Serfdom in Eastern Europe and the Middle East
The differences in the imposition of serfdom led to different economic and political effects for the peasantry in Europe. In Western Europe, wages rose, grain prices fell, and the consumption of meat, dairy products, and beer increased. More and more peasants moved into a widening “middle class” that could afford to buy manufactured goods.
Marriage Impediments in Canon Law and Practice: Consanguinity Regulations and the Case of Orthodox-Catholic Intermarriage in Kyivan Rus’, ca. 1000–1241
This paper focused on marriage alliances in Eastern Europe and the issue of canon law and consanguinity.
Biological Warfare at the 1346 Siege of Caffa
On the basis of a 14th-century account by the Genoese Gabriele de’ Mussi, the Black Death is widely believed to have reached Europe from the Crimea as the result of a biological warfare attack.
The Participation of the Kings in the Early Norwegian Sailing to Bjarmeland (Kola Peninsula and Russian Waters) and the Development of a Royal Policy Concerning the Northern Waters in the Middle Ages
The first move of Norwegians into the polar regions was to Finmark. Archaeologists cannot say for certain how early the Fins and the Norwegians came into cultural contact with each other.