Daily Life in the Spanish Reconquest: Scenes from Tenth-Century León
Built by the Romans to garrison to Seventh Legion, León may also have been the base of the legion’s military commander, who was sometimes fully empowered by the emperor to govern Asturias and Galicia.
Anglo-Saxon law and numismatics: A reassessment in the light of Patrick Wormald’s the Making of English Law
In this article, I wish to return to the references to coinage in the Anglo-Saxon laws in the light of Patrick Wormald’s important research on the laws, especially his The Making of English Law: King Alfred to the Twelfth Century, which has made this difficult evidence much more penetrable to the non-specialist.
Organa doctorum: Gerbert of Aurillac, organbuilder?
He was born a peasant. Yet, through intelligence, political skill and uncommon good luck he came to be one of the most influential people in the Europe of his time…Pope Sylvester II.
Why Grateley? Reflections on Anglo-Saxon Kingship in a Hampshire Landscape
This paper focuses on the context of the promulgation of the first ‘national’ lawcode of King Athelstan at Grateley.
The Black Foreigners of York and the White Foreigners of Dublin
In 866 the ‘Great Army’ of Danes crossed the Humber from its base in East Anglia and captured York on the feast of All Saints.
Towards a Context for Ibn Umayl, Known to Chaucer as the Alchemist ‘Senior’
his article will present what we know of the life and times of an important alchemist, Ibn Umayl.
What Do Reliquaries Do for Relics?
What is really inside the reliquary?
Money and Power in the Viking Kingdom of York, c.895 – 954
The aim of this thesis is to use numismatic evidence to help understand the political aims and achievements of the Viking kings of York, c.895-954.
New book offers translation of medieval Islamic debate
The candid nature of the debate and the instincts of the characters to speak freely and to openly question basic Islamic and religious tenets forces readers to challenge widely held views of Islam and religious freedom, especially during the Middle Ages.
Frankish Rivalries and Norse Warriors
Normandy can be said to have begun in 911 with the treaty of St.Clair-sur-Epte between Charles the Simple and the viking Rollo.
Æthelstan, “King of all Britain” : royal and imperial ideology in tenth-century England
This thesis examines how King Æthelstan legitimized and systematized his claims of power and status through a royal ideology, how that ideology emerged, what it consisted of, and how it manifested itself in his kingship and diplomacy.
Graeco-Roman Case Histories and their Influence on Medieval Islamic Clinical Accounts
Medieval Islamic medicine has until now been studied primarily through its learned treatises. According to that theoretical corpus, written in Arabic, Islamic medicine mainly constitutes an elaborate systematization and synthesis of earlier Graeco-Roman sources.
A medieval Arabic analysis of motion at an instant : the Avicennan sources to the forma fluens/fluxus formae debate
The first and foremost topic of classical and medieval physics is the concept of motion
(Grk. kine ̄sis, Arb. h ̇ araka, Lat. motio). Within the complex of issues and problems associated with motion, the question ‘in which category does motion itself belong?’ occupied a position of considerable importance in scholastic natural philosophy.
Skeletons found at mass burial site in Oxford could be ’10th-century Viking raiders’
Thirty-seven skeletons found in a mass burial site in the grounds of St John’s College in Oxford may not be who they initially seemed, according to Oxford University researchers studying the remains.
Alfred the Great’s Burnt Boethius
One can trace the reason for these curious editorial developments to two factors: (1) the inaccessibility of the tenth-century manuscript, which everyone thought was destroyed in the 1731 fire, until its burnt remains were recovered at the British Museum in the 1830s; and (2) an overpowering edition-in-progress of the twelfth-century manuscript by the great seventeenth-century scholar Francis Junius, with extensive collations from the missing tenth-century manuscript.
Ottonian Imperial Art and Portraiture: The Artistic Patronage of Otto III and Henry II
Ottonian Imperial Art and Portraiture represents the first art historical consideration of the patronage of the Ottonian Emperors Otto III (983-1002) and Henry II (1002-1024).
The Urban Structure of the Jewish Quarter of Girona
The studies that have been carried out to date on the tenth and eleventh-century Jewish community are rather few, in contrast to research done on the community in the twelfth century and thereafter, where documentary and archaeological sources abound.
‘Viking Empires’? Scandinavian Kingship and the nature and orchestration of Viking raids, c.800-c.950
To what extent were Viking raids part of a more general process of expansion by Scandinavian rulers? Were the Franks simply receiving a taste of their own medicine in the ninth and tenth centuries?
Viking Ethnicities: A Historiographic Overview
The word ‘viking’ is itself used by different scholars to mean different things. Its use in Modern English stems from the early 19th century and it was broadly used to describe people of Scandinavian cultural identity active in the 9th, 10th and 11th centuries.
Noch Einmal 918-919: Of the ritualized demise of kings and of political rituals in general
As 918 drew to a wintry close, King Conrad lay dying. His reign had been short. Perhaps, as Adalbert of Magdeburg later suggested, the Franconian ruler had been exhausted by bitter feuds against his former peers, the German ‘dukes’.
Viking mass grave linked to elite killers of the medieval world
A mass grave found in Dorset could belong to a crew of Viking mercenaries who terrorised Europe in the 11th century – according to a new documentary on National Geographic which pieces together the story behind the burial.
The Secrets of a Dark Ages King
In his own lifetime, Athelstan, the grandson of Alfred of Great, was praised as ‘the English Charlemagne.’ By defeating the combined armies of Danes, Scots and Welsh in the Battle of Brunanburh in 937 AD, Athelstan could rightly claim the title of ‘King of all Britain.’
If She Says Yes or Is Silent: A New Interpretation of Female Marital Consent in the Settlement Period in Iceland as Revealed Through the Family Sagas
Icelandic Sagas have captivated the minds of casual readers and historians alike due to their complex depiction of character and deeply resonant storylines. All of the characters are highly nuanced and developed, but many times it is the female characters that catch a reader’s attention because of their exceptional level of activity and variety.