Daily Medieval

The 9th century  Historia Brittonum (History of the Britons) tells of three invasions of Ireland from the Iberian Peninsula. The Partholón ...

The Tuatha Dé Danann, or "the folk of the goddess Danu," are a cornerstone of early Irish literature and mythology. Arriving from ...

In early Irish literature, there are three texts that each refer to four special objects. These are the Four Treasures of Ireland, sometimes...

The Lebor Gabála Érenn or the Book of the Taking of Ireland , also known as The Book of Invasions , is a compilation of Christian and Irish...

Between 1151 and 1224 CE a manuscript was compiled, probably in what is now Terryglass in County Tipperary, by the abbot of a Terryglass mon...

The Culdees were Christian ascetics in Ireland (later spreading to Scotland, Wales, and England). The name comes from Irish Céilí Dé , ...

First, some background. In what is now eastern Belgium there was a territory called Hasbania. In French it is now referred to as Hesbaye. Th...

We are accustomed to a world of laws and regulations. Most social institutions have existed long enough that there are well-known expectatio...

Attigny is a commune  (an incorporated municipality) in northeast France. Clovis II built a palace there in 647 that was a Carolingian resid...

When Louis the Pious inherited the empire after the death of his father, Charlemagne, he took steps to organize his kingdom and ensure the s...

When speaking of the Carolingian Renaissance, the most common name mentioned is Alcuin, but there were many other scholars involved. One of ...

The  Opus Caroli regis contra synodum  ("The work of King Charles against the Synod"), also known as  Libri Carolini  ("Charl...

Thanks to Pope Nicholas V's desire to create a magnificent public library in 1451, many ancient manuscripts were saved that might other...

In 1451, Pope Nicholas V wanted to establish a library at the Vatican. A "library" existed already—since popes had gathered import...

Lorenzo Valla (c.1407 - 1457) was a scholar and Catholic priest. Like Poggio Bracciolini , he was interested in old manuscripts. His father ...

The creator of the world's first joke book was connected to many serious books as well. Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini, later just P...

At the time when Pope Eugenius was in Florence, a very clever ten-year-old boy came to visit Cardinal Angelotto and in a few words made him ...

The BBC once suggested it was "Medieval Europe's greatest treasure." The Book of Kells is a Latin Gospel (with added material...

Among the many ancient books we have now thanks to Robert Cotton's hobby of collecting and cataloging medieval manuscripts, the British...

When King Oswald of Northumbria invited St. Aidan to come from Iona in 634-5 CE and start a monastery, Aidan chose an island off the northea...

Saints' relics are significant for a couple reasons. They provide a reminder of a saintly life and inspire others to emulate saints. The...

After the conversion to Christianity of King Edwin of Northumbria in 627 CE, his people followed suit. About 634, Cuthbert was born to a wel...

The "oldest book" is a flexible term. It depends on what you mean by "book." In this case, I am referring to the oldest ...

Parchment is animal skin. The word appears around 1300 CE, derived from Old French parchemin , in turn from Latin pergamentum , meaning ...

We talked (finally) about the source  of books for the general populace, but medieval bookshops were not like modern ones: you didn't wa...

The keyword "books" has been applied 100 101 times in the almost 1200 posts of this blog, but if the term is connected with a loc...

There were two  "Johns of Garland" whose careers get conflated in the 13th century. One was the philologist and grammarian, discus...

John of Garland (c.1180 - c.[at least] 1252) was an English grammarian and poet. (He wrote a poem about a recording demon .) Despite his Eng...