Cut, Chop and Thrust: The Sword through Millennia
Igor and Phillip talk about the history of the European Sword, including its technology, design, rituals, traditions, symbols, social and religious meanings.
Medieval glass artefacts shed new light on Swedish history
Archaeological finds of glass material from Old Lödöse, a Swedish trade centre in the High Middle Ages, call for a revision of the country’s glass history.
Ten Medieval Inventions that Changed the World
Ten Inventions from the Middle Ages that have had lasting importance, even to the present-day.
A Good Day for a Trebuchet, Part II: The Siege of the Sandpit
The fact that you can build a trebuchet out of found materials and still have it manage to function consistently and accurately speaks to the genius of the original design.
The civil uses of gunpowder: demolishing, quarrying, and mining (15th-18th centuries). A reappraisal
The first idea of blasting appears in 1403, when a Florentine engineer pondered on how to open a breach in the walls of Pisa by exploding a charge of black powder inside an old walled-up gate.
Medieval Siege Machines: The Bellifortis by Conrad Keyser
One of the most imaginative and fascinating works to depict medieval siege warfare is the Bellifortis by Conrad Keyser.
A Good Day for a Trebuchet
You know you’re a medieval nerd when you walk into a toy store with the intention of getting toys for actual children, and walk out with a build-your-own-trebuchet kit for yourself.
An Introduction to the Mechanical Arts in the Middle Ages
A brief overview of where these “mechanical arts” fit into the scholastic world. The thesis of the “Dark Ages” often suggests that there was a discontinuity in knowledge between Antiquity and the Renaissance, and perhaps nowhere so obviously as in the mechanical arts. This is certainly false…
Time and Clocks in the Middle Ages
York, England, is a particularly convenient place to study the ways medieval people measured and thought about time.
Limitations imposed by wearing armour on Medieval soldiers’ locomotor performance
Our findings can predict age-associated decline in Medieval soldiers’ physical performance, and have potential implications in understanding the outcomes of past European military battles.
Old Light on New Media: Medieval Practices in a Digital Ages
This essay offers an insight into the way digital editions of medieval texts can be employed to replicate the medieval reading experience.
Armourers and their workshops: The tools and techniques of late medieval armour production
Armour represents one of the most recognised and enduring monuments of the Middle Ages, but its fabrication as a craft-product remain obscure.
Tempus Fugit: The Middle Ages and Time
If you needed to know the time between bells, there were several ways to find out.
Fireproofing of war machines, ships and garments
Incendiary missiles were in use in antiquity and developed rapidly in the Hellenistic period, and various forms of fire extinguishers were invented to deal with them.
Medieval Writing Surfaces: An Interview With Dr. Mary Watt
Dr. Mary Watt of the University of Florida talks about what people in the Middle Ages wrote on: parchment and vellum
Depicting the Medieval Alchemical Cosmos: George Ripley’s Wheel of Inferior Astronomy
Alchemical writing often develops the idea of a physical or analogical correspondence between heaven and earth: a relationship most fre- quently and conveniently expressed by the use of the seven planetary symbols (Sol, Luna, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn) to denote the seven metals (usually gold, silver, quicksilver, copper, iron, tin and lead respectively).
Learning by doing or expert knowledge? Technological innovations in dike-building in coastal Flanders (13th-18th centuries AD)
Dike construction apparently uses simple technology, with slow and gradual change; not the kind of technology that reshaped the material conditions of living, comparable to the spread of electricity or sanitation in the 19th century ‘networked’ city (and linked to the disciplining of society and the rise of domesticity and the modern self-reflexive individual) (often inspired by Latour and Foucault).
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.
Healthscaping a Medieval City: Lucca’s Curia viarum and the Future of Public Health History
Healthscaping a Medieval City: Lucca’s Curia viarum and the Future of Public Health History G. Geltner (Department of History, University of Amsterdam) Urban History: 40,…
How Shall a Man Be Armed? Evolution of Armor during the Hundred Years War
Special presentation at the 2013 International Congress on Medieval Studies
Spectacles through the ages and period inaccuracies
One of the most annoying errors made in historical entertainment, at least for the optical profession, is the use of spectacles which are inappropriate for the period being depicted.
Into the frontier: medieval land reclamation and the creation of new societies. Comparing Holland and the Po Valley, 800-1500
In the paper it is shown that medieval land reclamation led to the emergence of two very divergent societies, characterised by a number of different configurations; (a) power and property structure, (b) modes of exploitation, (c) economic portfolios, and (d) commodity markets.
The Serpent in the Sword: Pattern-welding in Early Medieval Swords
In the pattern-welded sword blades made from the Migration Period through the mid-Viking Age (5th through 10th centuries), swordsmiths manipulated the piled structure of the blade to create a striking decorative effect
The Engineering Beauty of the Trebuchet
Trebuchets were used to break through castle walls from about 850-1350 C.E. Dead livestock or giant rocks were the usual ammunition, but sometimes prisoners of war or especially annoying people were added to the flying debris.