Sunday, January 23, 1390 was a day that Ralph Peioun of Wotton (Lincs.) and his wife most likely never forgot. On this day, their one-year-old son, Richard, presumably curious and headstrong like most young toddlers his age, made an unfortunate choice of playthings when he picked up a pair of shears and wounded himself in the throat, a fatal…[Read more]

When confronted with cases of self-killing, medieval jurors had to contend with a vast array of often conflicting concerns, from religious and folkloric condemnations of the act of suicide, to fears for the welfare of the family of the dead, and to coping with royal confiscations of a felon’s goods. All of these factors had a profound impact on t…[Read more]

Scholars of the medieval family would generally agree that the lot of the medieval wife was not an easy one. Medieval husbands held the upper hand in the power relationship, both legally and socially. Although Lawrence Stone’s view of niarried life in the Middle Ages as “brutal and often hostile, with little communication, [and] much wife-beating”…[Read more]

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]

With regard to English common law, medieval women were able to participate in the curial process in only a limited way. This is not true of women as defendants: women could be sued for almost any civil or criminal plaint, but their privileges as plaintiffs were broadly curtailed by marital status and cultural expectation. The legal fiction of…[Read more]

In the year 1304, Matilda Bonamy of Guernsey, a young woman from one of the Anglo-Norman island’smost established and affluent families, found herself in a predicament familiar to many of today’s youth. A liaison with Jordan Clouet, also from a family of long provenance in Guernsey if not as comfortable, had left her pregnant. To Matilda the sol…[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]

This paper analyzes the reception and influence of the Alliance for Progress in Venezuela during the 1960s (1961-1969). The US assistance program financed various social projects in Latin American countries, with the aim of promoting local development, and at the same time counteracting the impact of the Cuban Revolution (1959). Methodologically,…[Read more]

Three years before the end of the Spanish presence in the Northern Hemisphere of America the territory of New Spain included the following modern States: Arizona, Belize, California, Colorado, Costa Rica, Cuba, El Salvador, Florida, Guatemala, Honduras, Louisiana, Mexico, Nevada, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Texas and Utah. This…[Read more]

Three years before the end of the Spanish presence in the Northern Hemisphere of America the territory of New Spain included the following modern States: Arizona, Belize, California, Colorado, Costa Rica, Cuba, El Salvador, Florida, Guatemala, Honduras, Louisiana, Mexico, Nevada, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Texas and Utah. This…[Read more]

Three years before the end of Spanish presence, the territory of New Spain included the following modern States: Arizona, Belize, California, Colorado, Costa Rica, Cuba, El Salvador, Florida, Guatemala, Honduras, Louisiana, Mexico, Nevada, Nicaragua, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Texas and Utah. This book provides comments on the…[Read more]

Three years before the end of Spanish presence, the territory of New Spain included the following modern States: Arizona, Belize, California, Colorado, Costa Rica, Cuba, El Salvador, Florida, Guatemala, Honduras, Louisiana, Mexico, Nevada, Nicaragua, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Texas and Utah. This book provides comments on the…[Read more]

V. 1, N. 3 (March 15, 2020) is titled “Wallpaper Values” and compares and contrasts the values of wallpaper as decorative art, as avatar of social values, and as material culture.

V. 1, N. 4 (April 15, 2020) is titled “Bernard Jacqué, His Thesis, and His Methods.” It shows how Jacqué’s work relates to that of Jules David Prown, an art historian credited with formulating an influential approach to material culture in the pages of the Winterthur Portfolio in the early 1980s.