Daily Medieval

The figure shown here is called Cernunnos. He is  the "horned god" of ancient Celtic culture, representing fertility, the natur...

Artist's conception on what buttresses would have looked like early on. On 15 April, 2019, a fire ravaged Notre Dame Cathedral in P...

7th c. Asturian Church of Santa Cristina de Lena, Spain This will be a brief introduction to the styles of medieval architecture that e...

One purpose of the Daily Medieval blog is to bring to light knowledge of characters and events that do not reach the mainstream culture....

Recent posts about the differences between Irish Christianity and other practices in the early medieval church are due largely to the wor...

The previous post discussed some aspects of Celtic Christianity found in the British Isles that differed from the "mainstream" ...

We have discussed the Synod of Whitby in 664, which debated whether Roman-based or Iona-based Christianity should prevail. "Celtic C...

Easter is the "floatiest" of floating holidays in the Western calendar. The 7th century saw a very serious debate over how the da...

The oath of frankpledge (mentioned here ) was a promise of mutual aid between members of a community, used throughout several centuries of ...

[Mindful of the tragedy at Notre Dame of Paris on 15 April, 2015, I re-present this post from 2012.] In the post on the  Las Huelgas Code...

Dick Whittington buying his cat A popular figure from English folk tales is Dick Whittington. He is based on Lord Mayor of London Richa...

One of the most prominent mayors of the City of London in the Middle Ages (and perhaps of all other eras) was Richard Whittington. He...

The Liber Albus or White Book was the first compilation of the laws of the City of London. It was assembled in 1419 by one John Carpente...

A modern Aleconner [ link ] We know that, in medieval London, an alderman held an assembly  called a Wardmote every other year, at whi...

A village meeting. What was the level of communication between the typical medieval citizen and the authorities? What role did the citi...

In the Middle Ages, how many people lived in how much space? An economist who writes about cotton, migration and other topics (and has wr...

After the previous post on impetus, I wanted to introduce you to Albert of Saxony, who took Avicenna's idea a step further. Albert ...

1582 woodcut demonstrating impetus with artillery Impetus is the force or energy with which a body started to move. The term itself ent...

This is a slightly different tack for DailyMedieval, but many fans of his fiction are unaware of his career as a medievalist. John Rona...

A 1537 rendition of Thule On New Year's Eve 2018, a NASA probe transmitted pictures of Ultima Thule, an object 4 billion miles fro...

From a feast at the University of Rochester Most readers of this blog will be familiar with the Boar's Head Carol. The version we...

Statue in Nottingham We have established that the first mention of Robin Hood is in the 1370s. And in the mid 1400s, someone places him...

Although most depictions of Robin Hood place him in England when Richard Lionheart was away on Crusade and King John was messing up the c...

When Robert Burns published his Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect  (1786), no one knew that it would become such a success that the ...

Rabies, from the Latin rabies  which means "madness," has been noticed for a long time. The Codex of Eshnunna (c.1930BCE), foun...

...and of mathematicians, and opticians, and metalworkers, and more. Saint Hubertus' conversion from materialism to piety was first...

Saint Hubertus (c.656 - 30 May 727), also called the Apostle of the Ardennes, was said to be the eldest son of Duke Bertrand of Aquitaine...

The Umayyad Caliphate at the time of Odo This blog has mentioned several men named Odo in the past, but never "the Great." He...

These days, we are assailed by advertising, and we possess technology that allows us to find what we need merely by asking the right qu...

With the holiday season upon us, folk are preparing to consume mincemeat pies at the conclusion of their meal. Growing up, I was told it ...

You've seen them. Lots of times. Three circles interlinked. You find them in jewelry, and in the label of Ballantine beer . They may ...