Women’s hair troubled Medieval men. In art and literature, they loved to show women with long unbound tresses, even though in real life, married women usually bound their hair up or wore veils to cover it when they were in public (unless they were mourning, as I wrote about in yesterday’s post).Two types of women […]
The Trouble of Medieval Women’s Hair Read More »
“There never was a greater crime against humanity,” wrote the famed Byzantine scholar Sir Steven Runciman, “than the Fourth Crusade.” And although unfortunately untold numbers of atrocities could easily compete for this claim, certainly the sack of the glorious city of Constantinople marks a horrifyingly violent chapter in the history of Christianity.The city had been
The Horrific Tale of the Fourth Crusade Read More »
I am going to do a magic trick for you — take a look at the two photos here: one is a 15th century painting of a Locust, and the other is Ernie Chambers, the longest-serving state senator of Nebraska (46 years and counting). And my hocus pocus will be to show how these two
The Similarities of a Locust and Senator Ernie Chambers Read More »
Since it’s Christmastime, I’m taking up related topics for my theme this week. The being featured here is of course not Saint Nick, but the Greco-Roman God Asclepius — whose birth, life, and death stories were extremely popular during Jesus’ lifetime. Turns out, the two deities had a lot in common.The story of the Virgin
Similarities of Greco-Roman God God Asclepius and Jesus Read More »
Tonight on December 21 we have a conflation of two celestial events: the winter solstice and the much-rarer conjunction of the planets Jupiter and Saturn. Although the fact that these events are both happening at the same time is super awesome, they are not causally related. Hundreds of years ago in the fourth century during
Relationship of Sol Invictus and the Christian Birth of Jesus Read More »
“What’s myrrh, anyway?,” declares the mother of Brian in the classic Monty Python sketch (see second image). Turns out, gold, frankincense and myrrh had a lot of meanings that modern readers might not recognize.The story of the “wise” men that visit the babe Jesus only appears in the Gospel of Matthew. The author does not
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Today’s Christmas-themed post is all about the mistletoe plant, which had special importance in pagan European times before it became attached to Christian holiday traditions.Mistletoe is a super fascinating species that evolved from sandalwood, and is a type of parasitic plant. It uses its host plant’s water and nutrients, but can also photosynthesize energy from
Christmas History – The Mistletoe Plant Read More »
Christmas traditions have a great many manifestations, and one of the most unusual is a practice from southern Wales surrounding the macabre figure of the Mari Lwyd, which is a horse skull decorated with glass eyes and bows, held up on a pole by a man under a white canvas sheet. (The first photo gives
Mari Lwyd and Traditional Christmas Customs of Southern Wales Read More »
The story of the Tower of Babel from the Hebrew Bible’s _Genesis_ is a famous myth that explains the origin of the world’s multiplicity of languages. Surprise surprise, there are a whole lot of interpretations about the meanings of this story. But the human fascination about why there are so many languages cuts across many
Multiplicity of Languages From the Tower of Babel Read More »
Killing in the name of God has been an unfortunate part of the legacy of Abrahamic religions, and we might wonder how people across the millennia have rationalized this. No need for much Biblical exegesis here, because I am hopeful that readers would all fall into the “no sh*t, Sherlock” camp at the mere suggestion
The Fourth Western European Crusade Read More »
You are looking at a detail of contemporary artist Peter Booth’s painting, “Apocolyptic Landscape” (1983) — the shapes are jagged and random; the red, black, and brown coloring evokes filth; and the black and white streaks appear flattened next to some penetrating rondels in red and yellow. It is a fitting accompaniment to discuss another
The Apocalypses by Apostle Peter and Peter Booth Read More »
The Byzantine Empire had a good run, from the move of the Roman capital from Rome to Constantinople in 330 CE to the takeover of the illustrious city in 1453. The individual emperors, however, frequently were not as lucky in their reigns. Here you see an 11th-century manuscript showing the murder of Emperor Romanos III
Mutilations of Byzantine Emperors Read More »
What does it take to change a mind? Often the transition between one set of beliefs to another doesn’t happen radically — even if it seems so. The place of Christianity in the mind of the Emperor Constantine (d. 337) is a case in point. He and his contemporary biographers might have imagined a swift
The Religious Conversion of Emperor Constantine Read More »
To me, this is a comical picture showing a bunch of men climbing up a ladder while devils try to grab them or shoot them down — kind of like a *very* old-school Donkey Kong. To the 12th-century Byzantine artist who painted this icon, known as “the Ladder of Divine Ascent,” it was a true-to-life
Byzantine Painting “The Ladder of Divine Ascent” Read More »
You’re looking at a 700+ year-old heart, recovered from a Medieval autopsy of Saint Clare of Montefalco, and considered a miraculous relic demonstrating Clare’s special relationship to God. Also did I mention that this is an actual heart?When super holy people — I mean “athletes for God” holy– died, Ancient and Medieval Christians thought they
Saint Clare’s Medieval Heart Read More »
In the Eastern Roman Empire of Byzantium, disputes over proper religious beliefs polarized the state for centuries, giving fodder to the fourth-century pagan chronicler Ammianus Marcellinus’ claim that “no wild beasts are as ferocious as Christians are to each other”.To us the disputes seem ridiculous: should holy images/icons be allowed? Does Jesus have one or
Byzantine Empire Battles Over Religious Beliefs Read More »
Folks, step right up and cast your eyes on the oldest known monastic site to be excavated. Located in the Bahariya Oasis in Egypt West of the Nile (see second image), the most recent dig happened in 2020 as the COVID pandemic wore on.It is simply incredible that such rich discoveries are still being made.
Egypt’s Oldest Excavated Monastic Site Read More »
*SOME* folks think the Italian Renaissance was the *only* Renaissance. But we Medievalists realize that there were several times when the culture of the Ancient Greek and Roman civilizations was self-consciously re-created, to form phenomenal artistic movements.And if you’re not a Medieval historian who knew this already, no worries — I am here to fix
The Macedonian Renaissance’s “The Paris Psalter” Artwork Read More »
And from whence does this Ancient Roman-style barrel vaulted ceiling appear, you might be asking? Not from Italy, but rather from the imagination of the talented and bizarre brain of the American aristocrat Henry Champman Mercer, who had it built in 1914 to house his vast collection of tools and artifacts from before the Industrial
Henry Mercer Museum and Artifacts Read More »
Here is a picture of the Flemish artist Hans Memling’s _Allegory of Chastity_, and although it was done in the 15th century, it testifies to the long-term effects of Christianity’s radical sexual revolution that had begun a millennium and a half before.Here you see Chastity, besieged by the lions of sexual behavior that would threaten
Hans Memling’s “Allegory of Chastity” Read More »
