Ossuaries, or containers where the bones of the dead are placed, are not unusual for many places in Europe, where burial ground space can be at a premium. But the archaeology site recently excavated at the Cathedral of Saint Bavo, in the Belgian city of Ghent, is one-of-a-kind. Nine walls have been uncovered that are […]
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Check out this monk, sneaking extra wine . . . Well, it’s five o’clock somewhere, right? This miniature was painted in the late 13th century and suggests that not all Medieval clergy lived up to their avowed profession that emphasized denial of worldly pleasures. Similar conclusions can be drawn by examining a genre of music
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Sometimes in history, behaviors seem to repeat, but closer study shows they can be driven by wildly different impulses. Self-harming in our society today arises from a variety of causes, such as feeling unheard or feeling a sense of self-hatred. But in the Middle Ages, deliberately causing oneself physical pain had a very different origin.
Flagellants and Their Religious Devotion Read More »
Well dear readers, now that we’re all settled in for a while, we can hunker down and enjoy a strange Medieval love story that might better fit around Halloween. May I present to you the macabre tale of the life-and-afterlife relationship of Ines and Peter of Portugal.In 1339, Peter was a young Prince whose father
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Unfortunately, the history of rape has a long legacy, in Medieval Europe as well as other places. (tw) This illuminated manuscript illustrates the pillaging of a city and the mass violence against women that frequently overlapped such occasions. Then and now, to rape women meant to take control and show power.In the Late Middle Ages,
The Rapes of Southern French Dijon Read More »
This detail of Auguste Rodin’s masterpiece, _The Burghers of Calais_ (1884-89) evokes a moment of despondency and sacrifice that took place in the Hundred Year’s War between France and England in the Late Middle Ages. The story ultimately has a happy ending, but nowhere is this foreshadowed in Rodin’s work.In 1346, the French town of
Wealthy Calais Classes Sacrifice for the Less Powerful Read More »
In the Central Middle Ages, before the witch-hunt craze of the 16th century, more men than women were accused of sorcery. However, the association of women resorting to unscrupulous and un-Christian ways to fly had become well entrenched by 1500 CE.In a manuscript called the _canon Episcopi_, which might have been written in the late
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We share the same genetic code with people from the Medieval past, and the basic way our brains take in sensory information is also the same. However, the cultural lens of the Middle Ages differs so greatly from our own that Medieval people interpreted the physical world in a vastly different way. This is true
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Don’t feel too badly for Saint Catherine of Siena, shown here besieged by demons in a work from 1500. In the Late Middle Ages, a number of female saints became well-known for their mystical visions. Some of these were heavenly, but other times they were not. Frequently, the visions conveyed an idea that female sexuality
Saint Catherine of Siena and Female Saint’s Mystical Visions Read More »
Pesky flies torment this poor dog in a Medieval manuscript from the early 1300s. Then and now, we have seen these insect vermin as an annoyance. In the Middle Ages, however, flies were associated with something far more sinister — demons.So it was that in the fourteenth century, a poor woman called Ermine de Reims
Flies and Their Relation to Demons Read More »
Here lies the effigy of Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine at Fontevraud Abbey. If Queen Eleanor were a Dungeons and Dragons character, she’d be like level fifty. At an imaginary dinner table of bad-ass women in history, Eleanor would stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the likes of Cleopatra of Egypt, the Empress Irene of Byzantium, and Catherine the
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This week, I’m looking at neglected women philosophers in history. This one featured here walked around naked and wrote poetry. You know, as one does.I introduce to you one Akka Mahadevi, who lived in southern India in the 12th century and was part of a religious movement called “Lingayatism.” This sect of Hinduism focused on
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You are looking at one of the first written appearances of the f-word. (The other two contenders are a version in Scottish dialect and a Latin/English coded poem.) Written in 1528 by a monk-scribe in the margins of a book he was copying, this low-key graffiti artist was slandering his boss, the Abbot.This small scribble
The First F-Word in the World Read More »
Here’s a very old conspiracy theory for you: the spurious accusations against the Knights Templars. As you can see from this late-15th century depiction, the charges were successful and many of the leaders were burned as a result.So if you don’t know, the Knights Templar was a religious order started to help protect Christians seeking
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Hairstyles give a lot of information to others — sometimes even more than clothing, because they are both changeable but also part of the body. For Medieval men, having long hair meant high social status in many cultures. The English before the Norman Conquest of 1066 are a case in point — as you can
Medieval Men’s Hair and Their Social Status Read More »
You are looking at the tomb of one Don Sancho Said de Carillo, dating from 1300. But you are also looking at a custom that lasted from Antiquity well through the Middle Ages but has thankfully been abandoned — the practice of women mourners ripping out their hair.It was long the domain of women to
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In my final post featuring this week’s theme of hair in Medieval Europe, I’d like to conclude with . . . . magical hair! You are looking here at the Talisman of Charlemagne, which totally sounds like something out of Dungeons and Dragons, but is an actual object from 9th-century Germany. Medieval people thought that
The Virgin Mary’s Hair from the Talisman of Charlemagne Read More »
By the Early Modern period in England, many people associated witches with their accompanying animals called “familars.” At the bottom of this woodcut you can see “Boy” (also “Boye”) the dog and alleged familiar of the military leader Prince Rupert of the Rhine, who died with his master in battle in 1644.The familiars of 17th-century
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This 16th-century woodcut shows some witches happily gathering ’round a pair of devils. Crimes commonly thought to have been committed by witches included murder of children, cannibalism, and carnal acts with Satan (#Q-Anonfortheages). Many trial records go into minute detail about subjects we would consider crazy, like the accused witches’ sexual intercourse with demons, marks
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What sort of woman flies around at night, perhaps leading a pack of hunters or accommodated by an assortment of animals, and works magic in the homes of certain women? Although a witch might fit the bill, this description applied to a belief in a variety of magical females across Europe in the Late Middle
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