Routiers were indispensable to rulers yet loathed by the people; harbingers of military modernization but reminders of...
Medieval
Birth rates in the medieval world illuminate the precarious balance of life before modern medicine. Fertility was...
The fascination with hidden rosters today, whether in politics, finance, or scandal, reflects the same ancient anxiety....
Attempts to weaponize plague in the medieval world reveal both tactical desperation and cultural anxiety. They demonstrate...
Jack Cade’s rebellion fused genuine grievances with political theater, articulated systemic critiques of government, and briefly turned...
Medieval rulers confronted dissent not with a single strategy but with a spectrum of tactics that blended...
Medieval experiments with solar power were small, scattered, and limited by material constraints. Yet they were also...
The medieval church’s sanctuary reminds us that societies measure their justice not only in the punishments they...
Medieval record-keeping technology encompassed more than quills and parchment. It represented a cultural shift toward inscription as...
The barber-surgeon was at once despised and sought after, a liminal figure who embodied the blurred boundaries...
People were making a binding gesture not just with the Gospels, but also with the civic law....
Late medieval people used osculation in several rituals adapted from the pre-Christian past. Introduction In a twelfth-century...
The medieval workplace cannot be understood apart from its religious context. To work in medieval Europe was...
For the medieval observer, the moon was a constant companion whose phases ordered the most intimate aspects...
Homoerotic literature in the medieval world reveals a striking dissonance between moral prescription and artistic expression. By...
University educated physicians were only a small minority of all medical professionals and healers. Introduction Marquess of...
Blue whales weren’t just mythic protectors of medieval Icelanders, though increasing evidence suggests that they were also...
The commercial and cultural energies of London necessarily shaped some of the characteristics of its reading public....
Across these three eras, the philosophy of consciousness unfolds not as a straight line, but as a...
The study of late medieval sex trafficking makes clear that poverty and limited economic opportunities for women...
To study the demographic composition of the Holy Land in the medieval era is to reject the...
To write the history of the middle class is to write the history of modernity, not from...
In our own time, where control of information remains a central axis of power, the lessons of...
To speak of a medieval surveillance state is anachronistic, but not entirely misplaced. Though decentralized and diffuse,...
The modern gaze, filtered through lenses, algorithms, and scans, is heir to a much older logic. What...
The language that cloaks privilege is often older than we realize, echoing through cathedrals and corporate boardrooms...
The Medieval Warm Period created space for expansion, but much of that expansion was borne by peasants...
Women carved out spaces for ritual, healing, and survival — often in defiance of the systems that...
By Matthew A. McIntoshPublic HistorianBrewminate Introduction In the vast expanse of Chinese legend, few tales capture the...
Wealth and power were built on the exploitation of the lower classes. By Matthew A. McIntoshPublic HistorianBrewminate...