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

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]

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]

“Selling Science in the 20th Century” was a public talk delivered as part of the Chemical Heritage Foundation’s Saturday Speakers series. The presentation focused on Beckman Instruments, science advertising, the Beckman Historical Collection, and the digitization component of CHF’s Beckman Legacy Project. Audience members also had the opportunity…[Read more]

When we think we know Fernando Pessoa, a new surprise arises: this time, one related to the genesis of Mensagem, the most established and celebrated book of the Pessoan canon. That book, published in 1934 with a title only finalized at the time of the typographical proofs, was initially called Portugal—an inscription dating from 1910, when P…[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).

PDF copy of the syllabus for “Mapping Violence,” an undergraduate course co-taught by Profs. Monica Muñoz Martinez and Jim McGrath with Teaching Assistant Edwin Rodriguez. The course draws on and contributes to work from Mapping Violence, a digital restorative justice initiative focused on acts of state-sanctioned racial violence in Texas and…[Read more]

Over the course of the last year the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library (HMML) and the Roshan Institute for Persian Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park (Roshan Institute-UMD) have begun collaborating with the Raja of Mahmudabad family on the preservation of their important manuscript collection. The project will help protect the…[Read more]

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]

Illustration as part of art works has often been considered a form of low art, but as it has progressively become more developed, it has established a decent place in the art community. This paper focuses on how Indonesian punk artist succeed expanding the art of illustration in Indonesia as well as building local and global networking through…[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]