Daily Medieval

The House of Theophylact (the counts of Tusculum) ruled Rome for four generations. A grandson of the founding Theophylact I was Alberic II o...

In 946, Rome was an independent republic ruled by Alberic II of Spoleto (and we'll be taking a closer look at his whole family soon), wh...

In 931, Archbishop Rudgar of Trier died, and by the end of the year his successor, Rotbert, was in place. If we assume the usual age of 30 w...

A mistranslation of the word "Israel" in a record from the court of King Æthelstan made it sound that there was a Jew working in ...

The popularity in the Middle Ages of tafl , a type of table game, led someone to develop a version of it that could be used as a teaching to...

Yesterday's post mentioned two people playing tafl.  This was one of several versions of Northern European board games that emphasized ...

When Sigurd was three years old, two half-brothers were killed by the Swedish King Eysteinn Beli. His mother asked Sigurd's older brothe...

Son of the legendary Ragnar Lodbrok and leader of the Great Heathen Army , Halfdan Ragnarsson went on to become King of Jorvik, of Dublin, ...

There was an invasion in England in 865 by a coalition of Scandinavian warriors referred to in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as the Great Heath...

Lately the name Oda has come up as the Archbishop of Canterbury during the time of Dunstan , Æthelwold , and Oswald .  According to Oswald...

We now come to Oswald of Worcester who, along with the recently explored  Æthelwold and Dunstan , was considered one of the "Three Eng...

Unfortunately, St. Dunstan could never stop himself from speaking truth to power, even when power was more, um power ful than he. (I suppos...

Now brought back to England by Edgar the Peaceable after the demise of Eadwig , Dunstan was made Bishop of Worcester and Bishop of London....

When King Eadred died, Dunstan was ready to serve his successor, the teenaged Eadwig (pictured to the left). Eadwig, however, was not inter...

St. Dunstan's life had its ups and downs, as the Wheel of Fortune predicts. Driven from one king's court because of the jealousy of...

There were three men in the 10th century in England who were called the "Three English Holy Hierarchs" for their work in reviving ...

When Æthelwold was made Bishop of Winchester in 963, the discipline of the priests there had suffered. Records say that priests there did n...

It was a Bishop of Winchester who made a former Bishop of Winchester so prominent. Æthelwold of Winchester decided to rededicate the church...

I mentioned yesterday that the Winchester Bible was made at the Priory of St. Swithin in Winchester, and I thought it would be interesting ...

Because Henry of Blois was Bishop of Winchester, the richest cathedral in England, and because he was known to be a patron of the arts and ...

Life was good for Henry of Blois. His brother Stephen was the king of England, Henry was not only Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey and Bishop of W...

Count of Blois Stephen II and Adela of Normandy  had several children who have appeared in this blog. One of them, Stephen of Blois , became...

This is the story of Richard Whiting , a faithful steward of Glastonbury Abbey , chosen by Henry VIII's most faithful servant (Cardinal ...

Richard Whiting (1461 - 15 November 1539) was educated as a young man at Glastonbury Abbey, then furthered his education in Cambridge at the...

We started on Glastonbury yesterday . Glastonbury was popular and wealthy and a target for others' attempts at acquisition. The bishop o...

I've mentioned Glastonbury Abbey before, most notably here  and here , but it was important for more than its legend as the dubious disc...

I mentioned yesterday the earthquake of 1275 that brought down St. Michael's on Glastonbury Tor. It was a wooden structure of which we ...

I told of a specific earthquake  that was particularly destructive 11 years ago (and could happen again, eventually ), but there were many r...