This article calls attention to documents relating to the early academic life of G. J. P. J. Bolland (1854–1922). During the late 1870s and early 1880s, Bolland was enthralled by the study of Old Germanic languages and Old English in particular. His endeavours soon caught the eye of Pieter Jacob Cosijn (1854–1922), Professor of Germanic Phi…[Read more]

A critical historiographical overview of art historical approaches to early medieval material culture, with a focus on the British Museum collections and their connections to religion.

In the winter of 476 A.D. the Ostrogoths, hungry and exhausted from wandering for months along the barren confines of the Byzantine Empire, wrote to Emperor Zeno in Constantinople requesting permission to enter the walled city of Epidaurum and just kinda crash and charge their phones. Closer to home, Orpheus walks Eurydice through a suburban…[Read more]

This article analyzes the famous tenth-century Greek alchemical codex Marcianus graecus 299, and in particular its first quire, considering the structure and significance of the manuscript as a whole.

This paper examines the nature and basis of the competition between the dynasty based in Moray, to which the famous MacBeth belonged, and the mainline of Scottish kings.

This article examines the evidence for Pictish kingship being transmitted through the female line.

This paper discussed the micro demography of households in later prehistoric and early medieval northern Europe.

An examination of the career of the quondam king of Dublin and Northumbria Óláfr Kvaran.

The title is a terrible editorial imposition. This article argues that the term ‘Scotland’ though not attested before the late ninth-century (for Ireland) and the early tenth (for Alba) was probably already in use as the Northumbrian English term for Dál Riata in the time of Bede and certainly by the beginning of the Viking Age.

This paper attempts to correlate Bede’s account of the British king Caedualla, to whom he attributed Edwin’s death, with the information provided by Historia Brittonum and the Harleian pedigrees. It is suggested, inter alia, that his identification with Cadwallon ap Cadfan may be in error.

This paper examines the career and reputation of perhaps the longest reigning Pictish king, Onuist son of Urguist, who was a contemporary of Offa of Mercia.

This brief note reconsiders the standard translation of a brief passage in the Annals of Ulster and considers the implications of this alternate view.

In the nineteenth century the Pictish kingdom of Fortriu and the site of
the Battle of Nechtansmere were located by scholars in Menteith and
Strathearn and at Dunnichen in Forfarshire respectively. These identifications
have largely gone unchallenged. The purpose of this article is to
review the evidence for these locations and to suggest that…[Read more]

A chapter on the Late Antique and Byzantine history of Philadelphia in Asia Minor and its monuments.

It is often claimed that the mortuary traditions that appeared in lowland Britain in the fifth century AD are an expression of new forms of ethnic identity, based on the putative memorialisation of a ‘Germanic’ heritage. This article considers the empirical basis for this assertion and evaluates it in the light of previously proposed ethnic con…[Read more]

Focusing on the use and abuse in the study of Byzantine archaeology and Urbanism of the idea of the “Invisible Cities” as introduced in literature by Italo Calvino, this article attempts to set a framework for understanding Byzantine cities within clear and scientifically defined analytical categories as part of a modernist agenda. At the same tim…[Read more]

Focusing on the use and abuse in the study of Byzantine archaeology and Urbanism of the idea of the “Invisible Cities” as introduced in literature by Italo Calvino, this article attempts to set a framework for understanding Byzantine cities within clear and scientifically defined analytical categories as part of a modernist agenda. At the same tim…[Read more]

Early medieval England is well-known for its assortment of royal saints; figures who, though drawn from nearly five centuries of pre-Conquest Christianity, are often best known from eleventh-century hagiography. Common among these narratives is the figure of the “wicked queen”–a woman whose exercise of political power provides the impetus for t…[Read more]

Das vandalische Afrika gilt als Musterbeispiel des „Kirchenkampfs“ zwischen
homöischen Barbaren und katholischen Römern. Kronzeugen sind Victor von Vita,
Fulgentius von Ruspe und Quodvultdeus von Karthago. Etwa 50 Jahre nach dem Ende
der Vandalenkönige inAfrika 533 kam es dagegen in Spanien zum Ausgleich zwischen
Katholiken und Homöer…[Read more]

Throughout the ninth and early tenth centuries, the maritime and riverine landscapes of northwestern Francia had been subject to recurrent acts of viking aggression. Resonating in the minds of many consecutive Netherlandish authors, these agents continued to feature in an extensive regional corpus of late medieval historiography. Whilst many…[Read more]