Daily Medieval

Rabbi Levi ben Gerson, also known as Gersonides, lived from 1288-c.1344. He was from a family of scholars: his father, Gerson ben Solomon of...

[Part 1 is here .] Saladin After Richard and Saladin each slaughtered their prisoners, Richard marched to Jaffa, which he hoped to mak...

The Second Crusade (1145-49) had put a great deal of the Holy Land under European rule, but Saladin (Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, 1138-1193...

Have you seen a modern surveyor using a single vertical rod with an instrument on top to measure property lines? That pole is nicknamed a ...

After Jan Hus was executed for heresy in 1415 (Jan Hus has been discussed here and here ), his followers, called Hussites, continued to pro...

When Leofric , Earl of Mercia, died in 1057, his estate of Kingsbury passed to his widow, the Countess Godgifu, better known to later genera...

Remember Edward the Confessor ? He may have had good qualities, but getting along with family was not one of them. Not only was he harsh to...

In 1085, Duke William of Normandy had been ruling England as King William for twenty years (it all started here ). He decided it was finally...

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...

Geoffrey Chaucer (c.1342-1400) and William Shakespeare (1564-1616) are both credited with increasing English vocabulary. There is no proo...

With us there was a doctor of physic; In all this world was none like him to pick For talk of medicine and surgery; For he was gro...

The history of medicine includes many brave and progressive thinkers who were not willing to follow the herd or be content with what was alr...

Far from being a complete intellectual vacuum in the years between the decline of Rome and the Renaissance, Europe experienced three distinc...

The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) existed from 950/1000 to 1200/1250 CE (estimates vary because of the difficulty in collecting accurate data a...

Machiavelli's Il Principe (c.1513) was far from innovative. Writers since classical times had produced works that explained the proper ...

The simplest form of acrostic is a poem or other writing in which the first letter of each line spells out a word (presumably on that is...

Anti-Irish sentiment has a long heritage. In the Middle Ages, Ireland was a target of Western Europe disdain for at least two reasons. 1...

So if the phrase "Dark Ages" was coined by Petrarch to describe the loss/lapse of much classical learning and advancement since th...

Once in a time known as the Dark Ages There lived a legend whose coming had been foretold by the great prophet Merlin. This is the openi...

Paul the Deacon Paulus Diaconus (c.720-c.799) wrote the hymn of St. John, and it goes like this: Ut queant laxis re sonāre fibris Mi ...

Is there anyone who hasn't heard the puzzle of the fox, the goose, and the bag of corn? A man has to transport these three things across...

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...

What then is time? If no one asks me, I know: if I wish to explain it to one that asketh, I know not: yet I say boldly that I know, that i...

[The first part to this is here .] Jan Hus (c.1369-6 July 1415) was enamored of the ideas of John Wycliffe , creating controversy for Bohe...

Jan Hus (1369-6 July, 1415) was a pious child whose manners and performance while singing and serving in church in Prague distinguished him....

Beer/ale has been brewed since the days of the Roman Empire. I suppose we should say that ale has been brewed that long, and beer came lat...

Sir Robert Bruce Cotton was born 22 January, 1570 (or 1571). Too late to be part of the Middle Ages, but still a subject for this blog; you...

In 635 CE, St. Aidan (c.?-651) was sent from the monastery on the island of Iona by King Oswald to re-Christianize England. He chose to foun...