Daily Medieval

Dick Whittington (c.1354 - 1423) passed into popular literature because of a story about him and his cat. It was actually about 150 years a...

Of all the livery companies in medieval London, 12 were considered the most important and influential. They were collectively referred to a...

To my surprise, I have used "law" or "laws" (should really get around to combining them) as keywords in 43 posts (out of...

The Peasant's Revolt of 1381 was the result of several factors , first enumerated and named in A Short History of the English People (J...

Dick Whittington buying his cat A popular figure from English folk tales is Dick Whittington. He is based on Lord Mayor of London Richa...

One of the most prominent mayors of the City of London in the Middle Ages (and perhaps of all other eras) was Richard Whittington. He...

The Liber Albus or White Book was the first compilation of the laws of the City of London. It was assembled in 1419 by one John Carpente...

A modern Aleconner [ link ] We know that, in medieval London, an alderman held an assembly  called a Wardmote every other year, at whi...

A village meeting. What was the level of communication between the typical medieval citizen and the authorities? What role did the citi...

In the Middle Ages, how many people lived in how much space? An economist who writes about cotton, migration and other topics (and has wr...

One of the things that "everyone knows" about the Middle Ages is that there was no clean water to be had, and so they drank bee...

Redvers Coat of Arms William de Redvers, 5th Earl of Devon, died 10 September 1217; he was born sometime before 1146, (the year his mot...

In 1135, upon the death of Henry I of England, his nephew Stephen of Blois (c.1192-1154) assumed the throne. All well and good, except tha...

One street is all that remains of the Jewry Jews had followed William the Conqueror to England* and established a significant presence i...

Current robes, Mayor of London. Henry le Waleis (?-c.1302) was a prominent citizen of London who served as alderman in two different war...

My research (or just day-to-day life) sometimes bring me details that I wish I'd known when I wrote a certain blog post, or that I thi...

The Peasants' Revolt of 1381 The statutes that attempted to restrict the peasant workforce to pre-Plague levels of wages, etc., did no...

from a sketch by Matthew Paris  In 1232, King Henry III of England established the Domus Conversorum , the "House of Converts...