medieval history

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• SOURCE: TIME
  4/21/2021
  

  The 'America First Caucus' Is Backtracking, But Its Mistaken Ideas About 'Anglo-Saxon' History Still Have Scholars Concerned

  "They’re just picking up on these words and terms and phrases that have been used and misused for so long—but I do appreciate that people were really pushing back."

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• SOURCE: Smithsonian
  3/25/2021
  

  Did the Black Death Rampage Across the World a Century Earlier Than Previously Thought?

  The application of DNA testing technology to the bodies of people from the medieval era suggests that the Black Death was present much earlier than believed. 

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• 3/7/2021
  

  Four Things You (Probably) Don't Know about the Werewolves of the Ancient World

  by Daniel Ogden

  Movie werewolves come mostly from the pulp fiction of the early 1900s. But werewolf stories date back to the literature of the 12th century, which most likely drew from even older stories preserved in folklore since the times of ancient Greece and Rome. 

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• 3/7/2021
  

  The History Behind Demands for "Trial by Combat"

  by Eric Jager

  A call for "trial by combat" may seem desperate or insane, but may also hint at a desire for a clear, definitive verdict when truth proves elusive. A medievalist reconstructs the world that allowed the last legal, judicial duel. 

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• 1/31/2021
  

  Poverty, Politics and Pandemic: The Plague and the English Peasant's Revolt of 1381

  by Alfred Thomas and Peter Rutland

  Seen in a historical context of pandemic-induced paranoia, antisemitic conspiracy, and broad-based resentment, the English rebels start to look less like the innocent victims of tyranny and more like the Trump supporters who invaded the Capitol.

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• SOURCE: The Conversation
  1/25/2021
  

  Trump Impeachment After Leaving Office is Nothing – in 9th-Century Rome they Put a Pope’s Corpse on Trial

  by Frederik Pedersen

  A church synod in Rome in 897 AD tried Pope Formosus for transgressing the customs of the papacy. This required exhuming his corpse as he had been dead for seven months, and resulted in cutting off three fingers from the right hand and throwing the rest into the Tiber. 

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• SOURCE: Perspectives on History
  1/12/2021
  

  Vikings, Crusaders, Confederates

  by Matthew Gabriele

  The far-right has combined a selective and outdated version of medieval history from popular culture to express values of racial superiority, aggressive masculinity and violence in defense of threatened values.

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• 12/6/2020
  

  How Venetians Invented Health Care

  by Meredith F. Small

  It's been widely discussed during this pandemic year that Venetians invented the quarantine. But the author of a new book on Venice's history of innovation argues that it was just one of the public health measures for which we can thank them.

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• SOURCE: The Nation
  11/16/2020
  

  The Impresarios of Trent: The Long and Frightening History of the Blood Libel (review)

  Magda Teter's new book examines the history of the pernicious antisemitic myth, its cultivation by Christian authorities, and its amplification by the growth of print and literacy in renaissance Europe.

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• 11/15/2020
  

  A Medieval Perspective on the Public Acceptance of Women as Leaders

  by Erika Graham-Goering

  Whether in medieval France or in modern democracies, women's exercise of leadership has been constrained by gendered ideas of who can lead. 

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• SOURCE: Politico
  10/29/2020
  

  The Secret Power of White Supremacy — and How Anti-Racists Can Take It Back

  by Cord J. Whitaker

  The far right has long used chivalric language to advocate for white supremacy and the forcible defense of social hierarchy. A medievalist explains why their perception of history is wrong and how to respond. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  10/15/2020
  

  Medieval Europeans Didn’t Understand how the Plague Spread. Their Response Wasn’t so Different from Ours Now

  "As we spoke with historians and searched for the plague’s lasting marks, what stood out most were the similarities, 672 years apart."

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• SOURCE: TIME
  10/6/2020
  

  The Overlooked Queer History of Medieval Christianity

  by Roland Betancourt

  An attentive reading of the record shows that same-sex intimacy, gender fluidity, and diverse sexual identities were prevalent among early Christians, contrary to the claims made by some fundamentalists today that these represent deviations from historical norms. 

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• SOURCE: Texarkana Gazette
  9/19/2020
  

  History Professor Describes His Experience With COVID-19, Teaching In Historic Times

  A local professor specializing in medieval history likely never thought he'd experience unprecedented times that somehow resemble living through a plague.

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• SOURCE: BBC
  5/14/2020
  

  Battle of Lewes: England's First Fight for Democracy?

  King Henry's defeat led to a brief experiment in governing where the king's powers were delegated to a parliament while he remained head of state.

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• SOURCE: Contingent
  4/25/2020
  

  Queen of Heaven, Empress of Hell

  by Vanessa R. Corcoran

  Contemporary depictions of Mary tend to be gentle in their holiness, but Christians centuries ago envisioned her as a powerful agent who fought for their salvation.

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• SOURCE: The Guardian
  4/29/2020
  

  How Humans Have Reacted To Pandemics Through History – A Visual Guide

  From arguments about masks to riots outside hospitals, history shows some common threads in the human response to pandemics.

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• SOURCE: The Conversation
  2/6/20
  

  How two women pulled off a medieval manuscript heist in post-war Germany

  by Jennifer Bain

  After the Dresden bombings, the Soviet Army seized and inspected the surviving vault. The first bank official to enter the vault afterwards found it pillaged, with only one manuscript remaining. The bank could never confirm if the vault was emptied in an official capacity or if it was plundered.

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• Sacred Objects: Medieval History and Star Wars

  by Stephenie McGucken

  For European believers, relics allowed worshipers to encounter some aspect of an object of devotion—a holy person or place—when the object itself was physically unavailable or geographically inaccessible.

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• SOURCE: Cornell Chronicle
  12/5/19
  

  Historian and medievalist Brian Tierney dies at 97

  Tierney was a past president of the American Catholic Historical Association, a member of the American Philosophical Society, a corresponding fellow of the British Academy, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the Medieval Academy of America.