In Search of the Secrets of Medieval Organs
On Friday and Saturday, June 9 and 10, 2012, a concert and workshop focusing on the medieval organ were held at the Basel (Switzerland) Peterskirche. They dealt with concepts, designs, rep- ertoire and the medieval organ used in ensemble.
Sagas and politics in 13th century Borgarfjörður
Why did the Icelanders write so much more than almost everybody else in the Middle Ages? This is an old problem that has still not been solved to everyone’s satisfaction.
Ibn Wāṣil: An Ayyūbid Perspective on Frankish Lordships and Crusades
Ibn Wāṣil (604/1208-697/1298) was a relatively prominent scholar and administrator who had close links with the political and military elites of Ayyūbid- and early Mamlūk-period Egypt and Syria throughout his career.
Sodomy and the Knights Templar
In this article, I will analyze testimony relevant to the charges of the Inquisition that members of the order of Knights Templar throughout Christendom practiced homosexual acts of various sorts from illicit kisses to sodomy.
Organizing the Greed for Gain. Alfonso X of Spain’s Law on Gambling Houses
The “Ordenamiento de las tafurerias” is a law code about gambling, established by a certain Maestre Roldan in 1276 or 1277 CE (1314 / 1315 era hisp.)by command of King Alfonso X of Castile. It represents the most detailed and exhaustive regulation of gambling from the Middle Ages, providing useful information about the practice of gambling, the presumed or real problems connected to it, and the measures taken by authorities.
Florence Cathedral: The Design Stage
No list of the outstanding Gothic monuments of Europe could fail to include the Cathedral of Florence, yet its place in medieval architecture remains anomalous. Anomalous above all is its unprecedented design, which integrates a rib-vaulted basilica, a domed octagon, and a triconch of fifteen extruded chapels.
Women, Gender and Lordship in France, c.1050–1250
Arguing that scholars should follow methods of analysis developed by historians of women in the early Middle Ages and must confront problems in the so-called ‘Duby thesis’, this article shows how anachronistic analytical categories and insufficient source criticism have masked our appreciation of the extensive political activities of non-royal aristocratic women in France during the eleventh to thirteenth centuries.
Arms and the Man: how the Scots who bled with Wallace fought in Braveheart and in History
What Braveheart showed was a parody of an archery barrage which, in fact, would be fairly continuous until most of the arrows available, about forty to each bowman, had been shot. Nor would there be longish pauses between single flights of arrows, in perhaps a sporting spirit in order to give the Scots time to recover their spirits and dress their ranks in time for the next hail of missiles, or, in the film, to bare their arses in vulgar mockery of their enemies.
Between Official and Private Dispute: The Case of Christian Spain and Provence in the Late Middle Ages
Literary and historical evidence of religious disputes that took place between Jews and Christians during the Middle Ages exists in a varietyof sources.
The dissemination of visions of the otherworld in England and northern France c.1150-c.1321
This thesis examines the dissemination of visions of the otherworld in the long thirteenth century (c.1150-1321) by analysing the work of one enthusiast for such visions, Helinand of Froidmont, and studying the later transmission of three, contrasting accounts: the vision of the monk of Eynsham (c.1196), the vision of St. Fursa (c.656) and the vision of Gunthelm (s.xiiex).
Ragnhild Simunsdatter and women’s social and economic position in Norse society
In this paper I will focus on Norse women’s social and economic position in the high and late Middle Ages, with Ragnhild Simonsdatter and the Papa Stour document of 1299 as a point of departure.
Looking in the Past for a Discourse of Motherhood: Birgitta of Sweden and Julia Kristeva
This essay explores two parallel trajectories of mythic retrospection: medieval “myths” of the Biblical past (like Birgitta’s prophetic visions), and modern “myths” of the medieval past (like Kristeva’s survey).
Parzival, the perfect Medieval hero?
When we now think of knights, we automatically think of knights in shining armours, saving damsels in distress while killing dragons and other mythical creatures. But is this image we have of these heroes correct? Was the Medieval hero really just a tough guy who saved beautiful ladies and killed the ´bad guys´. In this paper I will try to give a standard description of what a Medieval hero really was. After which I will try to determine if Parzival really was a medieval hero, compared to the standards that I have tried to set.
Eustace the Monk: Scourge of the seas
Eustace the Monk, one of the most colourful and remarkable naval commanders of the Middle Ages, operated in the chilly waters of the English Channel.
From Triumphant to Suffering Jesus: Visual and Literary Depictions of the Crucifixion, 300-1200
By the twelfth century in both literature and art the form of the suffering Christ was supplanting the form of the conquering Christ.
The medieval principle of motion and the modern principle of inertia
Aquinas’s First Way of arguing for the existence of God famously rests on the Aristotelian premise that “whatever is in motion is moved by another.” Let us call this the “principle of motion.” Newton’s First Law states that “every body continues in its state of rest or of uniform motion in a straight line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it.” Call this the “principle of inertia.
The First Jubilee
How did this tradition of Papal Jubilees start in the Middle Ages?
The Origins of the Wars of Independence in Scotland, 1290-1296
Very late on the 19th March 1286, in the teeth of a howling gale on a dark and stormy night, Scotland’s history was changed forever with the death of King Alexander III.
Emperor Frederick II, ‘Sultan of Lucera’, ‘Friend of the Muslims’, Promoter of Cultural Transfer: Controversies and Suggestions
Already in his own time, he aroused responses ranging from profound adoration to vehement rejection.
The Riurikid Relationship with the Orthodox Christian Church in Kievan Rus
Prior to the late tenth century, the princes of the Riurikid dynasty were rulers over the loose collection of pagan Slavic tribes and minor city states that were Kievan Rus. However, in a relatively short period, the dynasty had linked itself and its legitimacy to rule to the Orthodox Christian Church centered in Constantinople.
Would the Real William Wallace Please Stand Up
The object of this paper is to give a brief outline of the life of William Wallace, and to make references in passing to the film, Braveheart, loosely based on the life of William Wallace, starring the Australian actor Mel Gibson.
Boniface VIII and Philip IV: Conflict Between Church and State
During the middle ages there were conflicts between church and state. From 1294-1303 Boniface VIII and Philip the IV, king of France had such an issue.
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.
The Great Transition: Climate, Disease and Society in the 13th and 14th Centuries
Across the Old World the late-thirteenth and fourteenth centuries witnessed profound and sometimes abrupt changes in the trajectory of established historical trends