Daily Medieval

When the King of Leinster, Crimthann Mac Énnai (died 483) told his vassal Dubhthach to free a young girl from slavery, he knew she was spec...

We saw yesterday how Walter de Coutances did not want to give the site of Andeli to Richard I for a fortress, even though Richard was his l...

When Henry II of England crowned his son, Young King Henry , as a co-ruler, he could not have predicted that the son would attempt to overt...

King Louis VII of France had a problem. His clever and wealthy wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine , was really getting on his nerves. On the Second ...

The illustration is a 19th century portrayal of King Henry II of England in Waterford, greeting the Irish delegates whom he intended to plac...

Prince John (24 December 1166 - 19 October 1216) had been made Lord of Ireland by his father, Henry II, in the 1177 Council of Oxford. He to...

The British Library contains a unique manuscript, acquired from the Cotton Library , labeled Cotton Julius B XIII. It is the sole known cop...

Gerald of Wales (c.1146 - 1223) wrote about Henry II and his sons, giving a different facet to the most prominent figures in England at the ...

Gerald of Wales (c.1146 - c.1223) provided us with extensive information on  Ireland and Wales and England of his time. Serving several Pla...

The Topography of Ireland by Gerald of Wales seems to have been designed to paint the Irish as an ungovernable, crude people in need of co...

This title is a joke, since Gerald of Wales ' Topographia Hibernica ("Topography of Ireland") was mostly history.* It did inc...

Gerald of Wales (Giraldus Cambrensis, c.1146 - 1223) was a priest and a writer of history. That could be the introduction for many of the fo...

One piece of evidence that supported the idea of Spontaneous Generation in the Middle Ages was the case of the barnacle goose. (See the thi...

There are two titles given to kings of Ireland: King of Tara, and High King of Ireland. These are not the same thing. "High King" ...

The European Middle Ages had plenty of werewolf stories, but they were notably different from what we portray about modern werewolves. Let...

The term "Flemish" has been used since the 1300s to refer to a certain group of people. What does it mean to be Flemish? The word ...

In 1184, Glastonbury Abbey was devastated by a fire in the monastic buildings. A new Lady Chapel was consecrated in 1186, after which progre...

17th century painted icon (ironically) representing the "Not Made by Human Hands" tradition; the Greek letters in the halo ind...

Tomb of Remigius, Lincoln Cathedral [ link ] A "ship list" exists of the ships used by William of Normandy when he conquered E...

Robert Grosseteste (c.1170-1253) has been mentioned in several posts . His early life, beyond having been born into humble beginnings in Sto...