Daily Medieval

Michaelmas (Michael's Mass) honors St. Michael the Archangel. He is credited with defeating Lucifer during the war in Heaven that led to...

On his way back from the Third Crusade, King Richard I "Lionheart" of England was captured. He had made many enemies in Europe. Th...

King Henry VI of Germany who survived the Erfurt Latrine Disaster went on to become Holy Roman. Emperor. He was the second son of Holy Roma...

The Erfurt Latrine Disaster  in 1184 took place when too many German nobles gathered on a second floor of the Petersberg Church at the reque...

In central Germany is the town of Erfurt, the capital of the state of Thuringia. Its first mention is in 742 CE when St. Boniface wrote to ...

Last week, a young co-worker expressed his disbelief that there were ever things like outhouses. I told him that I had used an outhouse many...

Continuing our discussion about medieval hygeine , let's ask about soap and whence it came. The answer depends on how you define "s...

Now that we've talked about rushes on the floors in the Middle Ages and whether they were sanitary , what about attitudes to cleanlines...

The previous two posts talked about the use of rushes on floors in churches and in dwellings , but raised the question of how messy they co...

We've read about medieval dwellings having rushes on the floors, in order to provide something soft and clean to walk on instead of the ...

The churches mentioned in this blog have been well-known Anglo-Saxon, Norman, or Gothic edifices, but there were numerous small churches in ...

York was founded in 71 CE as Eboracum, a Roman fortress overseeing the north of Britain. We know that York had a Christian community by 314,...

York was an early center of Christianity in Britain, and had its own bishop from at least the 4th century. In 735, Ecgbert of York became it...

Alcuin of York (c.735 - 804, seen here receiving the Abbey of Tours from Emperor Charlemagne) was a monk, scholar, lover of puzzles , teache...

Charlemagne prized learning as much as he prized expanding his realm. He brought scholars and artists together and created a Carolingian Ren...

Charlemagne made sure all of his children had decent careers, even those who were illegitimate. By his concubine Gersuinda, he had a daughte...

Charlemagne believed strongly in education for all his children; his daughters learned to read and write as well as his sons. He was also cl...

Charlemagne's fourth son, his third by his wife Hildegarde, was Louis, called "the Pious" in later life. He was born 16 April ...

Dynasties, royal or otherwise, often re-use names of ancestors. Charlemagne's second son by his wife Hildegarde was named Carloman (777 ...

Charles the Younger (c.772 - 811) was the eldest legitimate son of Charlemagne, born to his second wife, Hildegarde. Like all Charlemagne...

Charlemagne's first known child was Pepin the Hunchback by his concubine Himiltrude. Born about 768, he was raised at his father's ...

Charlemagne outlived his third wife, Fastrada , who died in August 794. Before the year was out, the 50-year-old monarch had acquired a four...

Just because Charlemagne was married doesn't mean he didn't also have concubines. Charlemagne's biographer Einhard describes fou...

Continuing with Hildegard of Vinzgau, Charlemagne's official second wife (as opposed to a concubine like Himiltrude): with her he had ni...

Charlemagne (747 - 814), King of the Franks and Lombards, Holy Roman Emperor, and champion of Christendom, was a serial marryer. It was comm...

I mentioned  here  how Charlemagne fought and defeated Desiderius, King of the Lombards, and sent him to live out his days in a monastery. A...

Although there once existed an agreement between the papacy and the Lombards, the desire of King Aistulf to take more land on the Italian P...

Liutprand was King of the Lombards from 712 - 744. During his reign he conquered much of the Italian Peninsula, made an agreement with Pope...

In order to preserve Western Europe for Christendom and repel the Muslim invasions, Charles Martel enlisted the aid of Liutprand, King of t...

During the Battle of Toulouse in 721 and the defeat of the Muslim attempt to make inroads to Aquitaine and Gaul, the Muslim general was kil...