Poor little toads of the Medieval period, getting stuck with horrid associations of despicable things — putrefaction, death, and lust. And did you notice how all three of those adjectives were lumped together? That’s because the Christian Church at the time intentionally set about trying to make carnality associated with disgusting things, because church doctrine […]
The way cutting-edge technology lets us see into the distant past is so cool. Recently, a technique called “photometric stereo workflow” enabled Medieval historian Jessica Hodgkinson take a fresh appraisal of the pages of a manuscript written in south-east England in the first half of the 700s. The historian discovered that the name of a
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Cthulhu was orange in the Middle Ages, evidently. (Jk this is Hildegard of Bingen – a famous mystic – being inspired by the Holy Spirit. Totally different primordial mind-influencing force.)
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In the mood for a Medieval ghost story? In 12th century Europe, tales dealing with a procession of the dead (often aristocratic soldiers), who are doomed to wander the earth to atone for their sins and often appeared to be suffering,, became popular. One of these sorts of tails was recorded by an Englishman named
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This is a medieval rendition of Porphyry of Tyre, a philosopher who lived in the late Roman Empire (c 234-305 CE), and one of the most articulate advocates of vegetarianism from Ancient world. Porphyry was renowned for many philosophical contributions, including writing the standard textbook on logic that lasted for over a thousand years, as
A page from the _Etymologiae_ by the 6th-century scholar Isidore of Seville. In the Middle Ages, this was considered one of the most important books written. Isidore tried to cram in every bit of knowledge he thought was important. Although this book preserved a lot of Ancient Roman and Greek knowledge, the book’s popularity ironically
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Bald’s Leechbook is an Anglo-Saxon medical text from the 9th century. In 2015 one of the recipes (it used garlic, a bronze pot, and bile from a cow, among other things) was found to be successful in treating MRSA.
Shippensburg University was very lucky to have Dr. Francesco Lodá speak this evening about dueling in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Focusing especially on the Italian Marcelli familial school-of-arms, Professor Lodà demonstrated that the most advanced Masters of Arms achieved very high status, despite the fact that they had not originated from the aristocracy
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Presenting research today (February 25, 2023) at the Wilson College Humanities Conference, which was focusing on non-human animals! Here I am with my fellow presenters Catherine Clay (who talked about the role of bees in Russia), Christina Luo (speaking about chickens in Ancient Europe). I talked about horses in the Middle Ages. The papers today
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And what, pray tell, is going on here? This macabre device is a 1694 illustration of the weighing chair of Sanctorius Sanctorius (1561-1636), an Italian scientist who was the first (that we know of) to mesh quantitative experiments with the study of how the human body works. For thirty years, Santorio measured people’s sweat. Influenced
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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
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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
“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
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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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This enormous (20 meter/65 feet tall) replica of a Medieval trebuchet is as close as we might get to imagining the largest one ever made: the “Warwolf” or “Ludgar/Loup de Guerre”. It was created as a juggernaut of a weapon by King Edward I (aka “the Hammer of the Scots”) to eviscerate the Scottish in
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Automata are machines that operate on their own, and have been around since Ancient Egyptian times. Often they are automated animals or people designed to impress an audience. This one might give you nightmares. Tragically, the “Automaton of a Friar” that you see here is currently not on display at the National Museum of American
