Daily Medieval

There were two  "Johns of Garland" whose careers get conflated in the 13th century. One was the philologist and grammarian, discus...

St. Geneviève was born a peasant in Nanterre around 419/22 CE. One day, while St. Germanus was passing through Nanterre, she told him she wa...

The city of Orleans is in north-central France, in the Loire Valley. In the very early Middle Ages it had been the capital of the Kingdom of...

These days, we are assailed by advertising, and we possess technology that allows us to find what we need merely by asking the right qu...

A 1568 German woodcut showing a shoe shop Which guilds were the biggest? Not the most powerful, but those with the most members? Let...

A new TV show started in 2013 and has proven popular enough that it has been renewed for a couple more seasons. It is called "The Vikin...

Well, not exactly. It is the first recorded witch trial. That is, the first whose details are written down, rather than a terse "ha...

A university meeting Today is the birthday of the founder of the Sorbonne. The Collège of Sorbonne is arguably the best-known college in...

Since the last two days have been about reconciling opposing views, and since today is the anniversary of the death of Albertus Magnus, it ...

William of Champeaux (c.1070-1122) was a student of Anselm of Laon , and may have helped to compile the Glossa interlinearis . He may also h...

Anselm of Laon (d.15 July 1117) studied under one of the great names of the day, St. Anselm of Bec, whom I teased about here . He became a m...

A city without bells is like a blind man without a stick. —Rabelais Rabelais (c.1494-1553) was a little late for this blog, but his state...

Does the Earth rotate? Born in  the 1320s, Nicholas (or Nicolas) Oresme likely came from humble beginnings; we assume this because he att...