New facial reconstruction of a man buried in a medieval hospital graveyard discovered underneath a Cambridge college sheds light on how ordinary poor people lived in 13th century England. 03.20.2017 The audience of an event at this year’s Cambridge Science Festival found themselves face-to-face with a fellow Cambridge resident – one who had spent the last 700 years[…]
An Arab city of the early medieval period. Urban centers in the Middle East were of a size and wealth all but unknown in the Christian west during this period, encouraging the development of a large and diverse fraternity of criminals. In the medieval period, the Middle East was home to many of the world’s[…]
Frontispiece, most likely by Robert Cruikshank, to The Life and Prophecies of Mother Shipton (1823) / Internet Archive Said to be spawn of the devil himself and possessed with great powers of prophetic insight, Mother Shipton was Yorkshire’s answer to Nostradamus. Ed Simon looks into how, regardless of whether this prophetess witch actually existed or not, the[…]
The Pope, as the head of the Catholic Church, led the single most powerful institution of the Middle Ages. / British Library, Public Domain Cycles of Medieval church corruption coincided with the growth of strong secular rulers and were only tempered by the appearance of reformist popes and church orders. Introduction The level of church[…]
The inside of a jail of the Spanish Inquisition, with a priest supervising his scribe while men and women are suspended from pulleys, tortured on the rack or burnt with torches. / Wellcome Library, Wikimedia Commons Catholics and Protestants did their fair share of torturing and murdering their opposites in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.[…]
Palazzo di Medici-Riccardi / Creative Commons The state was merely a product of these guilds with institutions designed to function only in the way these guilds desired. By Milad D. Mohammadi / 08.26.2018 New York University The Renaissance, being a time of great cultural and political change, was a time of significant economic development, particularly in[…]
Brodie castle, north Scotland. Albert de Bruijn, CC BY-SA How medieval spires and snarling gargoyles went out of fashion and then made a spectacular return under – you guessed it – the Victorians. By Dr. Peter Lindfield / 10.30.2016 Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow Manchester Metropolitan University If you want foreboding old buildings that dark lords and werewolves are bound to frequent, look no[…]
Portrait by Jacopo Pontormo; the laurel branch (il Broncone) was a symbol used also by his heirs / Uffizi Gallery, Wikimedia Commons Cosimo needed to present himself as a benevolent figure because it was the only way to expiate his guilt. By Salvatore Coppola[1] / 12.12.2013 Unversidad de Costa Rica In determining whether or not Cosimo de’Medici[…]
During the medieval period the Muslim community was rather tolerating and accepting in this regard. By Muzaffar Bhatti / 02.23.2017 Graduate Student in History Royal Holloway, University of London Contrary to popular belief, Islam has not always had a strained relationship with the LGBT community. In fact, during the medieval period the Muslim community was[…]
Sephardic Diaspora map / Skillman Library, Lafayette College Were (and are) Jewish migrations predominantly the result of persecution and discrimination or were economic motives their main cause? By Dr. Tobias Brinkmann / 12.03.2010 Malvin E. and Lea P. Bank Associate Professor of Jewish Studies and History Pennsylvania State University Introduction Were (and are) Jewish migrations[…]
A 14th century CE manuscript illustration depicting Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor (r. 1220-1250 CE), and the Sultan of Egypt and Syria al-Kamil (r. 1218-1238 CE) who negotiated the handing over of Jerusalem to Christian rule during the Sixth Crusade (1227-1229 CE). (Vatican Libraries, Rome) / Wikimedia Commons The Sixth Crusade managed to achieve by peaceful means what four bloody previous Crusades had failed to do. By Mark Cartwright[…]
A painting depicting the surrender of the Latin ruler Guy de Lusignan to Saladin, the Sultan of Egypt and Syria (r. 1174-1193 CE), after the Battle of Hattin in 1187 CE. The loss and subsequent capture of Jerusalem by Saladin would spark off the Third Crusade (1189-1192 CE) / Photo by Said Tahsine, Wikimedia Commons The Second Crusade ended in complete failure – the Third was[…]
Princeton University Library, Creative Commons Two distinctive art forms came together for a brief period in Germany during the tenth and eleventh centuries, the period of Ottonian and Salian rule. By Dr. Stephen M. Wagner Professor of Art History Savannah College of Art and Design In keeping with the theme of the symposium’s title, “Silk[…]
Vincent of Beauvais (1190 – 1264?) was a French scholar, encyclopedist and Dominican Friar. / Public Domain Analyzing political education in the late Middle Ages, centring on the Latin work Tractatus de morali principis institutione, written in 1263 by the Dominican Vincent of Beauvais to provide guidance for princes on political affairs. By Dr. Francisco[…]
A miniature from en:Grandes Chroniques de France depicting the expulsion of Jews from France in 1182. / Diaspora Museum, Tel Aviv, Wikimedia Commons Medieval Christians largely held the Jewish people collectively responsible for killing Jesus, through the so-called blood curse of Pontius Pilate in the Gospels. Edited by Matthew A. McIntosh / 10.28.2018 Public Historian Brewminate Editor-in-Chief Introduction Early instances of pogroms against Jews[…]
Bronze statue of Geoffrey Chaucer The world about which Chaucer wrote was a very different world from that which produced Beowulf. Edited by Matthew A. McIntosh / 10.27.2018 Public Historian Brewminate Editor-in-Chief The world about which Chaucer wrote was a very different world from that which produced Beowulf. Developments in language, new structures in society, and changes[…]
Coronation of the Virgin Altarpiece by Guariento di Arpo, 1344, tempera and gold leaf on panel, Norton Simon Museum / Wikimedia Commons Exploring a range of ways in which holy images were ‘sensed’ by women in renaissance Tuscany. By Dr. Catherine Lawless Director, The Centre for Gender and Women’s Studies Trinity College Dublin Abstract The Florentine[…]
The Great Silk Road was a caravan road connecting East Asia to the Mediterranean from Ancient times into the Middle Ages. It was used for exporting silk from China, hence its’ name. The term was introduced by the German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen in 1877. / Wikimedia Commons Silk played a significant role in the[…]
A portrait of Charlemagne wearing the crown of the Holy Roman Empire (fifteenth century painting by Albrecht Dürer) / Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Wikimedia Commons Known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation from the late fifteenth century onwards, this was a mainly Germanic conglomeration of lands in Central Europe during the Middle Ages and the early modern period. Edited by Matthew A.[…]
The pope may have been successful in staving off a foreign takeover of his lands, but he was less able to maintain law and order there himself. By Dr. Lynn Harry Nelson Emeritus Professor of Medieval History The University of Kansas The Conflict The Great Famine was the result of the growth of Europe’s population[…]
An unhealed gash on the forehead suggests that the man died a violent death, perhaps in battle. / Photo by Mauro Rubini, Creative Commons Head and facial trauma were the most serious of injuries in early medieval society due to their very visibility. By Dr. Patricia Skinner Professor of Early and Middle Medieval Europe Swansea University[…]
Ladies of a Mandarin’s family at cards, by Thomas Allom (1843) / Wikimedia Commons The emergence of nature tourism in early medieval China can be attributed to four major factors. By Dr. Libo Yan / 06.25.2018 Associate Professor Macau University of Science and Technology Introduction The origins of tourism have been a fascinating area for[…]
Altarpiece at Tallinna Niguliste, Estonia The Reformation, imported from Germany, reached Livonia fairly quickly. The key themes in Livonian history in the first half of the 16th century are the Reformation, relations with Russia in foreign policy and the activity of the Master of the Order, Wolter von Plettenberg, in domestic affairs. At the beginning of[…]
Miracle of the Cross at the Bridge of San Lorenzo, by Gentile Bellini (1500) / Gallerie dell’Accademia, Wikimedia Commons How people imbued supernatural action into events to position themselves in their social landscape. By Dr. Kiril Petkov Professor of History University of Wisconsin River Falls Abstract This article analyzes two miracles, which a fragment of the True Cross[…]
Blanche de Castille and King Louis IX / The Morgan Library and Museum, Wikimedia Commons Upon Louis IX’s death, campaign was abandoned before it had even properly begun. By Mark Cartwright / 09.12.2018 Historian Introduction A 15th century CE painting depicting the death of French king Louis IX in 1270 CE during the Eighth Crusade at Tunis. / Wikimedia Commons[…]
Attack of the Crusaders on Constantinople, miniature in a manuscript of 9 La Conquête de Constantinople by Geoffreoy de Villehardouin, Venetian ms. / Wikimedia Commons Instead of Jerusalem as initially intended, the target ended up being Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire. By Mark Cartwright / 09.03.2018 Historian Introduction A painting by Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863 CE) depicting the entry of the Crusaders into Constantinople in[…]
‘Liber secretorum fidelium crucis’ by Marino Sanudo with maps by Pietro Vesconte. This map of the world was made by the Genoese navigator Marino Sanudo in c. 1321. / British Library, Public Domain Medieval Europeans were fascinated by the lands that lay beyond their own continent. Josephine Livingstone looks at the real and imaginary travels of[…]
A mass grave found in Dorset could belong to a crew of Viking mercenaries who terrorised Europe in the 11th century. A crew of Viking mercenaries – some of the fiercest and most feared killers in the medieval world – could be the occupants of a mysterious mass grave in the south of England. Their[…]
A 1540s depiction of a judicial combat in Augsburg in 1409, between Marshal Wilhelm von Dornsberg and Theodor Haschenacker. Dornsberg’s sword broke early in the duel, but he proceeded to kill Haschenacker with his own sword. / Bayrische Staatsbibliothek Cod. icon. 393, Wikimedia Commons Warrior aristocrats dominated medieval society. By Dr. Hans Peter Broedel Graduate[…]
Saint-Sulpice church, the romanesque portal, 12th-c., at Marignac, Charente-Maritime, France / Photo by Jebulon, Wikimedia Commons The Catholic Church from late antiquity to the early medieval era served as a seque from Graeco-Roman belief systems and influence to a new religious, economic, and sociopolitical context. By LTC Richard M. Ebeling, PhD / 10.17.2016 BB&T Distinguished Professor of[…]