The use of the term “community” in historical studies continues to present problems for many medievalists. Myriad studies have emphasized the inadequacy of the term when describing medieval society. Microstudies of manors and villages, especially in the English context, by historians Barbara A. Hanawalt, J. Ambrose Raftis, and Sherri Olson (am…[Read more]

Art historian Barbara Kellum’s 1973 article on child murder in medieval England paints a picture of a world replete with ruthless and murderous single mothers who escaped the legal consequences of their actions due to an indifferent court system that chose to turn a blind eye to the deaths of young children. Despite the overstated tone of her w…[Read more]

The history of homicidal insanity in the courts of law of medieval England.

Given the hurdles one faced in trying to stay healthy in later medieval England, it should come as no surprise that the medieval English placed a premium on competent medicine. As Carole Rawcliffe has argued, “medieval life was beset by constant threats to health arising from poor diet (at both ends of the social spectrum), low levels of h…[Read more]

Conflicts between parish clergy and parishioners in late medieval England have been described as acts of both anticlericalism and proclericalism (that is, an attempt to compel clergy into living up to the parishioners’ increasingly high expectations of them). This paper hopes to expand our knowledge of parish conflict by turning to an o…[Read more]

Review of Medieval Dublin XVI: Proceedings of Clontarf 1014-2014

The adoption of institutional diversity, equity and inclusion policies and programs in recent decades highlights an ongoing need for structural and cultural change within higher education institutions. It also raises questions around gender, race and disability politics, the decolonisation of diversity and neoliberal management of higher…[Read more]

A description and edition of a fragment of the early rabbinic work Sifre Numbers, miscatalogued as a different work, found in the university library, Wrocław.

Can the Indian manuscript and manuscript library be art? In what follows, I reflect on this question by examining a set of photographs I created for an art project called Manuscriptistan. I explain what it has meant for me to aestheticise Indian manuscript libraries and manuscripts, and I offer some insights about why it is important for scholars…[Read more]

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]

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]

This article offers ten reasons, why historians should blog.

In this article, we argue that scholarly blogs are appropriate modern platforms for open access publishing and a dynamic alternative to online journals. We use the blog ‘Mittelalter. Interdisziplinäre Forschung und Rezeptionsgeschichte’ that has become a major player in the field of medieval studies as an example for a successful scholarly blog,…[Read more]

Synopsis of those monasteries that were dissoluted during secularization, from which manuscripts came into possession of the former Court Library of the landgraves of Hessen-Darmstadt (now: University and State Library Darmstadt).

The Vercelli Map, one of the largest maps to survive from the Middle Ages, has not received the attention it merits (Plate IV). This is likely the result of its very poor state of preservation, which has been a constant theme in what little has been published on it.’ There are several studies that make brief mention of the map, and a few studies…[Read more]

In Order to understand what a “global Middle Ages” might be, we need to define “global” in and in relation to the “Middle Ages.” To do so, I turn to medieval (Christian) maps. Their construction of the world-the most, maybe all, others-was founded on inclusion and exclusion. In seeking to construct a global Middle Ages, the authors in this volume…[Read more]

Manuscript culture in Icelandic immigrant communities in North America is examined through the case study of an immigrant-scribe, Albert Jóhannesson (1847–1921), who left Iceland as an adult in 1884 and eventually settled in the community of Hecla Island, Manitoba, Canada. Albert Jóhannesson is one of the last known individuals in the Ice…[Read more]

Important information needs to be shared with all those who can benefit. Only then can a discovery fulfill its potential for good. Yet researchers often communicate in silos. This means they commune with people in the same role (like researcher to researcher), field (such as economist to economist), or at the same site (like working at the same…[Read more]

Review of Ivan Marcus, Sefer Hasidim and the Ashkenazic Book in Medieval Europe

Review article on five recent books relating to late Latin poetry