Time, space and power in later medieval Bristol
With a population of almost 10,000, Bristol was later medieval England’s second or third biggest urban place, and the realm’s second port after London. While not particularly large or wealthy in comparison with the great cities of northern Italy, Flanders or the Rhineland, it was a metropolis in the context of the British Isles.
The Cross-dressing Women of Medieval London
Women going around dressed as men, wearing men’s hats, and even having their hair cut short, was not an acceptable practice in medieval society. However, in late medieval London there were at least 13 cases of women accused of doing just that.
The Cyrurgia of Albucasis and other works, 1500
Four surgical treatises, printed in the last year of the fifteenth century, make up the oldest illustrated printed book in the Sibbald Library. The second one, the Cyrurgia of Albucasis, is the most interesting and I shall deal only briefly with the others.
Antoinette of Bourbon, Duchess of Guise
Antoinette of Bourbon was the formidable matriarch of the Guise family in sixteenth century France. She had many children who were instrumental in international politics as well as in religious life including her daughter Mary of Guise, Queen of Scotland.
BOOK REVIEWS: “The Chalice” by Nancy Bilyeau
My book review of Nancy Bilyeau’s, “The Chalice”.
Saint Patrick’s Purgatory: a fresco in Todi, Italy
This essay deals with the tradition of the revelation of Purgatory to St. Patrick on Station Island in Lough Derg, whose popularity is testified not only in literary texts in the various languages of Medieval Europe but also in a unique work of art in the convent of the Sisters of Saint Clair at Todi, Umbria
Espionage in the 16th century Mediterranean: Secret Diplomacy, Mediterranean Go-betweens and the Ottoman-Habsburg Rivalry
This dissertation compares both empires’ secret services and explains the differences between the two systems of information gathering based on these empires’ differing organizational structures.
BOOKS: The Feuding Families of Medieval and Renaissance Italy
Put down the Godfather, turn off the Sorpanos, and check out the real Italian families of Medieval and Renaissance Italy!
The Crimea on the Map of South Sarmatia by Bernard Wapowski
The purpose of the present article is publication and analysis of the content of the map of the Crimea, practically unknown in Ukraine, which is a part of the map of the South Sarmatia of 1526 by ‘the father of the Polish Cartography’ Bernard Wapowski.
BOOKS:Medieval Celebrities!
They may not have won any Oscars, but they were definitely medieval celebrities! Here are some great reads about some of the most famous faces of the Middle Ages
Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Savoy and Regent of the Netherlands
Margaret’s Motto: Fortune, Infortune, Fortune pretty much sums up her extraordinary life.
The medieval social topography of Szeged
As the name historical social topography implies it comprehends the ancient location and distribution of particular groups and layers of inhabitants in a settlement.
Legal Centralization and the Birth of the Secular State
This paper investigates the relationship between the historical process of legal centralization and increased religious toleration by the state. We develop a model in which legal centralization leads to the criminalization of the religious beliefs of a large proportion of the population.
The Most Significant Manuscript Sources of Medieval Croatian Vernacular Verse
The first part of the article gives a brief overview of the history of Croatian literacy up to the first written record of poetry in the Old Croatian language.
Comforting sentences from the warming room at Inchcolm abbey
Inchcolm abbey has the best-preserved medieval conventual buildings
in Scotland.
Plague and Persecution: The Black Death and Early Modern Witch Hunts
The century or so from approximately 1550 to 1650 is a period during which witch-hunts reached unprecedented frequency and intensity. The circumstances that fomented the witch- hunts—persistent warfare, religious conflict, and harvest failures—had occurred before, but witch-hunts had never been so ubiquitous or severe.
Women Healers and the Medical Marketplace of 16th-Century Lyon
Women Healers and the Medical Marketplace of 16th-Century Lyon Alison Klairmont-Lingo Dynamis: Vol.19 (1999) Abstract Although women’s legal and marital status make them…
Vespucci’s Triangle and the Shape of the World
Interdisciplinary interactions between sixteenth-century travellers and cosmographers produced visual models that challenged normative modes of visual thinking, even as they tried to clarify ideas about the earth’s surface.
Transformations of Print into Painting: A Case Study of the Context of Prints in an Illustrated Brigittine Psalter
This liturgical psalter raises issues of the production and consumption of religious texts in convents in the northern Netherlands.
Children and Literature in Medieval England
Deals with childrens’ literature in medieval England. Kinds of literature heard by children in England; Examples of rhymes used by medieval children; Ways of linking rhymes with children.
Leonardo’s Literary Writings: History, Genre, Philosophy
This dissertation, conceiving Leonardo as a moral philosopher, provides interpretations that lead to the conclusion that his thought pervades both his major and minor works and that these literary writings must be viewed as an extension (and result) of Leonardo’s greater notions of the world and of how all parts relate to one another.
Ivan the Terrible: Centralization in Sixteenth Century Muscovy
From 1565-1572, the Oprichnina was a land within Muscovy of Ivanís choosing where he alone held sole power. The Zemschina was the remaining portion of Muscovy that was governed by the state administration.
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.
A Postmodem Look at a Medieval Poet: The Case of William Dunbar
Recently, Umberto Eco, that well-known postmodemist critic/writer, has lamented that “‘postmodem’ is a term bon atout jaire. I have the impres- sion that it is applied today to anything the user happens to like.
And The Angel Spake unto Harunobu: A Japanese Christian miracle story of 1591
The early-modern, Portuguese-sponsored Jesuit mission to Japan left behind a body of Christian literature in Japanese whose alphabetic texts have been a treasure trove for linguists, its existence a point of pride for Christian sectarians, and its content rich material for historians.