Daily Medieval

From a feast at the University of Rochester Most readers of this blog will be familiar with the Boar's Head Carol. The version we...

Statue in Nottingham We have established that the first mention of Robin Hood is in the 1370s. And in the mid 1400s, someone places him...

Although most depictions of Robin Hood place him in England when Richard Lionheart was away on Crusade and King John was messing up the c...

When Robert Burns published his Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect  (1786), no one knew that it would become such a success that the ...

Rabies, from the Latin rabies  which means "madness," has been noticed for a long time. The Codex of Eshnunna (c.1930BCE), foun...

...and of mathematicians, and opticians, and metalworkers, and more. Saint Hubertus' conversion from materialism to piety was first...

Saint Hubertus (c.656 - 30 May 727), also called the Apostle of the Ardennes, was said to be the eldest son of Duke Bertrand of Aquitaine...

The Umayyad Caliphate at the time of Odo This blog has mentioned several men named Odo in the past, but never "the Great." He...

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...

With the holiday season upon us, folk are preparing to consume mincemeat pies at the conclusion of their meal. Growing up, I was told it ...

You've seen them. Lots of times. Three circles interlinked. You find them in jewelry, and in the label of Ballantine beer . They may ...

Back here we spoke about the manufacture of glass, but when and where did glass come to be used for enhancing and correcting vision? P...

We are now in the Christian season of Advent, from the Latin adventus,  meaning "coming." It comprises the four Sundays leading...

The previous post on the Mesta mentioned the kings of Castile giving shepherds rights-of-way that overrode those of other landowners in o...

Merino Ram, bred in Medieval Spain Consider the Iberian Peninsula in the early Middle Ages: the Moors controlled the southern part, and...

The Tower of London is the most visited tourist site in London. It was built by William the Conqueror to be the king's home when he w...

In 1307, Philip IV of France arrested several Templar Knights, accusing them of horrible sins. Some of the worst sins took place during a ...

Bérenger Fredoli was a Frenchman with a successful religious career. Little is known about his youth, except that he was born in Vérune a...

I mentioned that Cosimo de' Medici was named for Saint Cosmas, as in Cosmas and Damian. They were two Arabian physicians of the 3rd cen...

The Medici family name is known to many casual readers of history. Let's talk about the man who started it all. Born on 27 Septembe...

We have talked about the Council of Nicaea before, but always the First Council in 325. There were several ecumenical councils. The seventh...

When Catholic missionaries in the Middle Ages went to a new land, how did they deal with language barriers? They had to make their own lexi...

There were many reasons why someone would become a pirate, I suppose. It was probably rare that a monk would do so, however. Eustace Bu...

Piracy on the seven seas goes back a long way. Think of fairly small ships roughing it on the open sea with little defense, not the row...

Medieval philosophers categorized several logic puzzles as insolubilia , unsolvable things. Probably the most common of these was (and stil...

I have mentioned The Forme of Cury  [Forms of Cooking] a few times before. It's the cookbook that gathers the best recipes from the c...

Yesterday's post mentioned Cassiodorus (c.485-c.585), a contemporary of Boethius, and his description of the relationship between Ari...

Much of the medieval attitude about music and its forms came from Boethius (c.480-524 CE). In his de institution music [Latin: "On th...

When Gerard Segarelli was rejected by the Franciscans, he took matters into his own hands and formed the Apostolic Brethren in 1260. The B...

Mendicants In the later part of the 13th century, a new order was founded in northern Italy. Sort of. The founder, Gerard Segarelli...

The Roman Severan family, with Geta "erased" from lower left by orders of Caracalla [ link ] Memory is a tricky thing: it can...

rom a 14th century Welsh Book of Hours, this is thought to depict Maximus [ link ] Yesterday we introduced Magnus Maximus, a general wh...

Yesterday's post on St. Illide mentioned that he cured the daughter of Roman Emperor Magnus Maximus. Although Maximus was Emperor of We...

Yesterday's post featured a picture of the chapel of Saint Illide, belonging to the Château d'Alleuze. The chapel was built in th...