Many scenes from the Bayeux Tapestry – commissioned shortly after the conquest of England by the Normans in 1066 – are familiar, but some of my favorite elements are ones that need decoding. For example, many places show left hands gesturing, seeming to indicate something awry or sinister (sinestra is Latin for left). The English […]
Without even googling, I am certain that what you see here has been the subject of a multitude of (probably very expensive but one hopes well-executed) tattoos: this is the famous Dendera zodiac of about 50 BCE, one of the most complete star-charts from the Ancient world. What you can see on it is fantastic.
Orpheus turning back to look at Eurudice, from an early 15th century manuscript known as “L’Epitre Othea” or Harley 4431 (folio 126v)
This tiny bottle contains a unique substance: a perfume called _Fougère Royale_ created by the master perfumer Paul Parquet back in 1882. The line has since been discontinued or altered, so the smell in this bottle might actually be found nowhere else on the planet. This perfume, and 400 other unique fragrances, make up only
“Haboku sansui” is a breathtaking splashed-ink painting done by the Zen Buddhist monk Sesshu Toyo in 1495.
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This is a 16th century translation of “The Emerald Tablet”, among the most famous texts on alchemy ever. Although it purports to be from Egypt (that’s where a lot of medieval alchemists thought their sources originated), the first text we know of comes from an Arabic 6th/7th century source. Isaac Newton, himself an occultist, translated
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These are Jewish pendants of protection against the demon Lilith. In “The Alphabet of Ben Sirach”, a medieval Jewish text, the legend appeared of Lilith as the first wife of Adam who refused to have sex in a submissive position – because she chose to leave Adam rather than submit, 100 of her demon children
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This is a geek-post for Medievalist nerds like me! In 735, one of the most important writers of the Early Middle Ages died in the northern hinterlands of England at a monastery called Jarrow. He had spent most of his life as a monk, coming from the aristocracy of the area and sent by his
New Discoveries of Early Medieval Author Bede’s Handwriting Read More »
The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s writeup of this 12th-c painting of a camel found on the walls of the monastery Church of San Baudelio de Berlanga in Spain somewhat charitably declares that the painter “could have been inspired by an actual camel”. After all, there is the single hump of the dromedary camel, and this
Camels in the Bible Read More »
Here’s a cool Medieval miniature of two women playing chess: one is Muslim, the other Christian. It relates to a topic of much debate about Spain in the Middle Ages, which is: “what was the relationship among Christians, Muslims, and Jews living in the Iberian Peninsula between the 8th c CE (when Muslims from the
Fibonacci was an early 13th-century Italian who made Europeans aware that the Arabic number system we use today is much better for doing math than the Roman Numeral system medieval people had been using. Plus he wrote out the Fibonacci numbers, which are shown here in his most important book, _Liber Abaci_ (Book of Calculations).
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This is a Medieval illumination of a noblewoman with her hawk from the Taymouth Hours, a sumptuous 14th-century work probably made for a royalty. It shows a number of images where women feature prominently. The picture shown here provides evidence that some of the wealhiest engaged in the highly technical art of falconry. Training birds
Medieval Falconry and Women Read More »
A Medieval character of folklore you might have heard of is Maid Marian, the paramore of Robin Hood. Unlike King Arthur, who was likely not to have been based on a real person, many historians think that there might have been a grain of truth to the character of Robin Hood. The first mentions of
The 6th century work _The Consolation of Philosophy_ was super popular for over 1000 years. I like this quote that Lady Philosophy has to say about riches: “In reality, men who possess very many things need very many things, while men who measure their abundance by the necessities of Nature and not by the excesses
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Al-Biruni’s phases of the moon. Fitting image for the lunar eclipse tonight. Biruni was one of the geniuses of astronomical investigation, active in the 11th century during a Golden Age of Islamic science.
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The Knights Templar built the magnificent Castle and Convent of Christ in Tomar, Portugal, in the 12th century. But when the military religious order was dissolved and its members routed and killed after 1319, the kings of Portugal made Tomar a refuge for the monastic knights, changing their name to the Order of Christ and
Tomar, the Castle and Convent Where the Knights Templar Survived Read More »
This Medieval cemetery from Kilwa Kisiwani, an important historical site on an island of Tanzania, dates back hundreds of years to the heyday of the Swahili Kilwa Sultanate. The Medieval city there was described by the early 14th-century traveler Ibn Battuta as one of the most beautiful in the world — and Ibn Battuta was
Medieval Swahili People Read More »
“Ah, history!” declares author and YouTuber John Green, “always resisting simplicity!” And you can definitely see these sentiments realized in this brass-and-silver-inlay Islamic wine jug. Inscribed on it are the words “To Allah belongs . . . Might. . . Victory . . . Strength”. But we all know that drinking alcohol is forbidden in
Intoxication in Medieval Islam Read More »
The 13th-century Morgan Bible has some of the best Medieval illustrations for trebuchets, the missile-launchers that shot artillery using a beam that would cast stones or other things (such as human heads during the First Crusade at Nicaea) from an attached sling. There were two sorts of trebuchets — the ones that used hand-pulling to
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Fans of Indiana Jones may remember the film about the Holy Grail, and the part where Indy needs to figure out which of the many ancient cups in front of him was the one Jesus drank from at the Last Supper. Of course, the answer was a drab and utterly innocuous vessel — to match
Nanteos Cup: Contender for the Holy Grail Read More »
