Daily Medieval

When Shakespeare wrote "All the world’s a stage/And all the men and women merely players"* he probably knew that the metaphor was ...

John of Salisbury liked the idea of academic skepticism, which ultimately came from Plato's Academy. Let me explain. The head of Plato...

A 1675 letter by Isaac Newton has the line: "if I have seen further [than others], it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." ...

I mentioned yesterday that John of Salisbury was one of the medieval authors who understood  eclipses . He had a long career that I'll g...

The Annals of Clonmacnoise have an entry for 670 that reads "The Moone was turned into a sanguine collor this year." A red moon u...

Clonmacnoise Monastery was an important place in the Middle Ages. Occupying a major travel route in the center of Ireland, it grew to a comm...

Clonmcnoise was founded in 544CE by St. Ciarán where a major east-west route crossed the River Shannon. Location is important in real estate...

The scholar R.I.Best examined the penmanship of the Lebor na hUidre , the early Irish Book of the Dun Cow , and determined that there were t...

I'm not referencing the novel based on the "Nun's Priest's Tale" from The Canterbury Tales  by Geoffrey Chaucer writt...

In the legends of Guy of Warwick , he fights wild boars, dragons, giants, and the Dun Cow. Three of those four are familiar to modern reader...

The figure of Guy of Warwick (pictured here at Cliffe Hill, Warwick) has spawned as much of a "cottage industry" in literature and...

Guy de Beauchamp (c.1272 – 12 August 1315) had an impressive pedigree. His father was the first Beauchamp to become Earl of Warwick; his mot...

The relationship between Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Winchelsey and King Edward I was rocky. Edward accused Winchelsey of plotting g aga...

The controversy between King Henry II and his best friend, Thomas Becket, was far from the only clash between temporal and ecclesiastical p...

One of the Keepers of the Wardrobe for five years (1290 - 1295) under Edward I was Walter Langton (1243 - 1321). He used the surname Langt...

The Keeper of the Wardrobe in England was a very important position, and it actually did  start with a wardrobe; that is, the place where th...

Antony Bek (c.1245 - 1311) was from a family of knights. He and his brother Thomas attended Oxford University at Merton College in the late ...

Eleanor of Castile, as Queen of England, wanted advantageous marriages for her children. She and Edward I had 16 or more, but although many ...

As Edward I's queen, Eleanor of Castile had a large effect on the country, and not just because of all the property she owned. Her pat...

Queen Eleanor of England died in 1290. She had probably been ill for awhile. After her last child was born in 1284 (who became King Edward ...

Eleanor of Castile (1241 - 1290) was not always well-liked by the English. Although she was performing the expected duty of providing childr...

Ferdinand III of Castile and his queen, Joan the Countess of Ponthieu, had two children together. One, a son named Ferdinand, went on to bec...

The greatest travesty relating to coin clipping  took place during the reign of Edward I of England . Kings always spend beyond their means,...

Let me explain how you can turn a finite number of metal coins into more coins. You may have seen medieval coins that weren't entirely r...

Bread was so important to daily life, as food and even as tableware . Not every household had the time and resources to make its own bread,...

We've talked about bread before, way back here and more recently here , but now I want to discuss a very specific use for bread: the tr...

Godwin, Earl of Wessex (c.1001 - 15 April 1053) had played his cards carefully, supporting whomever was in power. Although English, he rose ...

During the time of Edward the Confessor , a Benedictine monk was so talented an artist that it brought him to the attention of the rich and ...