Daily Medieval

The previous post ended with a riddle about a hero's name that you all know. This blog has mentioned the poem  Beowulf  before in the co...

There is a question about Ursus arctos  in England, the brown bear that was most common in that part of the world: when did it disappear? Th...

The village of Ruardean in Gloucestershire is small. It has a single school with fewer than 100 students. The Ruardyn [sic] Castle ruin is s...

Alexander de Bicknor had a distinguished career that lasted through three kings of England, Edwards I, II, and III. A person of the same nam...

Sometimes, zeal can backfire. The man who presided over the trial that created the first condemnation for witchcraft in Ireland went a littl...

See Parts one and two . The outcome of the trial was dire for Alice, her maid Petronilla, and her stepson William Outlaw. There were others...

Read the first part here . Bishop Richard Ledrede wants to try the case himself. In those days bishops had their own courts separate from ci...

When Pope John XXII became the target of an assassination attempt using poison and witchcraft, he decided that witchcraft should be labeled...

The history of witchcraft, like any historical phenomenon, is a combination of truths, falsehoods, reinterpretations, and misunderstandings....

John XXII (pope from 1316 - 1334 in Avignon) had a lot of opinions, getting involved in politics all over Christendom, opposing the Francis...

We talked here about how women and Jewish women could be physicians in the Middle Ages, but it would be a mistake to think that there was n...

Female doctors were not unknown in medieval Europe. I've written before of Trotula , for instance, and of course there were midwives . T...

Jews comprise less than 0.02% of the world population, and yet 28% of Nobel prize winners in medicine have been Jewish. This expertise has a...

Article One of King Henry III's 1253  Statute of Jewry allowed Jews to stay in England so long as they served the king in some capacity...

King Henry III's Statute of Jewry demanded (among other things) that Jews wear a badge conspicuously on their clothing. This was not a ...

St. Augustine of Hippo (354 - 430) was one of the most influential writers in Christianity in its first few centuries. He believed that Jews...

Matthew Paris (c.1200 - 1259) was a Benedictine monk at the Abbey of St. Albans, known to us for his numerous illustrated written works. We ...

Henry III's most loyal and powerful supporter was William Marshal , but William's son was not of the same mind. Richard Marshal (119...

Guillaume le Maréchal, or William Marshal, is one of the most fascinating and impressive figures in medieval English history. Born about 114...

When King John died, his son Henry (1207 - 1272) was only nine years old. It was 1216 and in the middle of the First Barons' War. Even ...

There was an actual medieval profession of lime burner, who burned calcium-rich minerals such as limestone, chalk, marble, or even sea shell...

The Roman Colosseum was begun under Emperor Vespasian in 72 CE and finished in 80 by his son, Emperor Titus. Stories of its use as a gladiat...

Others may dispute it, but I call Nicholas V the Last Medieval Pope because he saw the Fall of Constantinople to the Turks and the end of th...

(Parts one , two , and three .) There are several parables in the New Testament that are set in the context of a slave-master situation. The...

(Parts one and two ) There are plenty of historical records of Vikings raiding for plunder and slaves, from the northern coasts of the Brit...

We in the West often think of African slaves in North America when the topic of slavery comes up, as if it were a facet of the Industrial Ag...

We should probably start by pointing out the misleading nature of the illustration [MS. Ludwig XIV 6, c.1290-1310, from Aragon]. Depictions ...

The Republic of Venice lasted from its establishment in 697 until 12 May 1797 when Napoleon conquered Venice and the last doge stepped down....