Daily Medieval

Actually, when Petrarch referred to Genoa as "la Superba" he meant "the proud one." Genoa, on the northwest coast of th...

The Roman Empire ultimately decided that fighting the Vandals was not in their best interests, and made peace treaties , hoping the Vandals ...

The sacking of Rome by the Vandals motivated the Roman Empire to prepare to deal with them like never before. It certainly made the Vandal...

When Jews were expelled from England (1290) and Sephardic Jews from Spain (1492) and other locations in Europe, many of them wound up in Nor...

The Byzantine Emperor Justinian I had many accomplishments, but establishing the Corpus Juris Civilis ("Body of Civil Law"), oft...

The rounding up and burning of the Talmud and other important Jewish works, and the Disputation of Paris, in France in the early 1240s were ...

The results of Justinian's plan for re-unifying the Empire The Byzantine Emperor Justinian was known for—among other things—establis...

Anthemius of Tralles (c.474-c.557) was mentioned as one of the builders (along with Isidore of Miletus) of the new Hagia Sophia . We know m...

The greatest church in the eastern Mediterranean was the Hagia Sop hia [Greek Ἁγία Σοφία - "Holy Wisdom"] in  Constantinople. Th...

Ignorantia juris neminem excusat. Ignorance of the law excuses no one. Many years ago, comedian Steve Martin offered up a mono...

The Eastern Emperor Justinian's (482-565 CE) attempt to conquer the Western Empire left it bruised and open to invasion. The Lombard Kin...

15th century woodcut of Nicholas In the introduction to Arian Christianity I mentioned how discussion at the Council of Nicaea in 325 b...

Silk was not a medieval invention. According to Chinese tradition , Empress Si-Ling-Chi in 2460 BCE watched silkworms spinning cocoons; she ...