Founded in 1660, the Royal Society is one of the world’s most prestigious scientific institutions, dedicated to advancing knowledge in the sciences and humanities. Its journals, including Philosophical Transactions—the world’s oldest continuously published scientific journal—have featured groundbreaking research for centuries. While the Middle Ages may seem distant from the Society’s usual focus, its publications have explored medieval topics, including one piece that was written in the 18th century. Here are ten fascinating articles from the Royal Society’s journals that shed light on the Middle Ages.
An inquiry to show, what was the ancient English weight and measure according to the laws or statutes, prior to the reign of Henry the Seventh
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 65, Issue 65 (1775)
William the Conqueror, by his character, confirmed to the English all their ancient laws, with such additions or alterations as he made therein, to their advantage. The 57th clause of that charter is, “De mensuris et ponderibus. Et quod babeant per universum regnum, mensuras fidelissimas et signatas, et pondera fidelissima et signata sicut boni prædecessores statuerunt.” From this clause it seems clear, that King William ordained, sealed standards both of weights and measures, to be made, such as his predecessor King Edward had ordained. Neither weights or measures are here described particularly; but the subsequent statutes define them more plainly.
Limitations imposed by wearing armour on Medieval soldiers’ locomotor performance
By Graham N. Askew, Federico Formenti and Alberto E. Minetti
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, Volume 279, Issue 1729 (2012)
In Medieval Europe, soldiers wore steel plate armour for protection during warfare. Armour design reflected a trade-off between protection and mobility it offered the wearer. By the fifteenth century, a typical suit of field armour weighed between 30 and 50 kg and was distributed over the entire body. How much wearing armour affected Medieval soldiers’ locomotor energetics and biomechanics is unknown. We investigated the mechanics and the energetic cost of locomotion in armour, and determined the effects on physical performance.
A medieval multiverse?: Mathematical modelling of the thirteenth century universe of Robert Grosseteste
By Richard G. Bower, Tom C. B. McLeish, Brian K. Tanner, Hannah E. Smithson, Cecilia Panti, Neil Lewis and Giles E. M. Gasper
Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Volume 470, Issue 2167 (2014)
In his treatise on light, written about 1225, Robert Grosseteste describes a cosmological model in which the universe is created in a big-bang-like explosion and subsequent condensation. He postulates that the fundamental coupling of light and matter gives rises to the material body of the entire cosmos. Expansion is arrested when matter reaches a minimum density and subsequent emission of light from the outer region leads to compression and rarefaction of the inner bodily mass so as to create nine celestial spheres, with an imperfect residual core. In this paper, we reformulate the Latin description in terms of a modern mathematical model, teasing out consequences implicit in the text, but which the author would not have had the tools to explore. The equations which describe the coupling of light and matter are solved numerically, subjected to initial conditions and critical criteria consistent with the text. Formation of a universe with a non-infinite number of perfected spheres is extremely sensitive to the initial conditions, the intensity of the light and the transparency of these spheres. In this ‘medieval multiverse’, only a small range of opacity and initial density profiles leads to a stable universe with nine perfected spheres. As in current cosmological thinking, the existence of Grosseteste’s universe relies on a very special combination of fundamental parameters.
Girding the loins? Direct evidence of the use of a medieval English parchment birthing girdle from biomolecular analysis
By Sarah Fiddyment, Natalie J. Goodison, Elma Brenner, Stefania Signorello, Kierri Price and Matthew J. Collins
Royal Society Open Science, Volume 8, Issue 3 (2021)
In this paper, we describe palaeoproteomic evidence obtained from a stained medieval birth girdle using a previously developed dry non-invasive sampling technique. The parchment birth girdle studied (Wellcome Collection Western MS. 632) was made in England in the late fifteenth century and was thought to be used by pregnant women while giving birth. We were able to extract both human and non-human peptides from the manuscript, including evidence for the use of honey, cereals, ovicaprine milk and legumes. In addition, a large number of human peptides were detected on the birth roll, many of which are found in cervico-vaginal fluid. This suggests that the birth roll was actively used during childbirth. This study is, to our knowledge, the first to extract and analyse non-collagenous peptides from a birth girdle using this sampling method and demonstrates the potential of this type of analysis for stained manuscripts, providing direct biomolecular evidence for active use.
A biocodicological analysis of the medieval library and archive from Orval Abbey, Belgium
By Nicolas Ruffini-Ronzani, Jean-François Nieus, Silvia Soncin, Simon Hickinbotham, Marc Dieu, Julie Bouhy, Catherine Charles, Chiara Ruzzier, Thomas Falmagne, Xavier Hermand, Matthew J. Collins and Olivier Deparis
Royal Society Open Science, Volume 8, Issue 6 (2021)
Biocodicological analysis of parchments from manuscript books and archives offers unprecedented insight into the materiality of medieval literacy. Using ZooMS for animal species identification, we explored almost the entire library and all the preserved single leaf charters of a single medieval Cistercian monastery (Orval Abbey, Belgium). Systematic non-invasive sampling of parchment collagen was performed on every charter and on the first bifolium from every quire of the 118 codicological units composing the books (1490 samples in total). Within the genuine production of the Orval scriptorium (26 units), a balanced use of calfskin (47.1%) and sheepskin (48.5%) was observed, whereas calfskin was less frequent (24.3%) in externally produced units acquired by the monastery (92 units). Calfskin was preferably used for higher quality manuscripts while sheepskin tends to be the standard choice for ‘ordinary’ manuscript book production. This finding is consistent with thirteenth-century parchment accounts from Beaulieu Abbey (England) where calfskin supply was more limited and its price higher. Our study reveals that the making of archival documents does not follow the same pattern as the production of library books. Although the five earliest preserved charters are made of calfskin, from the 1230s onwards, all charters from Orval are written on sheepskin.
Secondary ion mass spectrometry, a powerful tool for revealing ink formulations and animal skins in medieval manuscripts
By David Gravis, Nicolas Roy, Nicolas Ruffini-Ronzani, Laurent Houssiau, Alexandre Felten, Nikolay Tumanov and Olivier Deparis
Royal Society Open Science, Volume 10, Issue 6 (2023)
Book production by medieval scriptoria have gained growing interest in recent studies. In this context, identifying ink compositions and parchment animal species from illuminated manuscripts is of great importance. Here, we introduce time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) as a non-invasive tool to identify both inks and animal skins in manuscripts, at the same time. For this purpose, both positive and negative ion spectra in inked and non-inked areas were recorded. Chemical compositions of pigments (decoration) or black inks (text) were determined by searching for characteristic ion mass peaks. Animal skins were identified by data processing of raw ToF-SIMS spectra using principal component analysis (PCA). In illuminated manuscripts from the fifteenth to sixteenth century, malachite (green), azurite (blue), cinnabar (red) inorganic pigments, as well as iron-gall black ink, were identified. Carbon black and indigo (blue) organic pigments were also identified. Animal skins were identified in modern parchments of known animal species by a two-step PCA procedure. We believe the proposed method will find extensive application in material studies of medieval manuscripts, as it is non-invasive, highly sensitive and able to identify both inks and animal skins at the same time, even from traces of pigments and tiny scanned areas.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences, Volume 276, Issue 1257 (1974)
Chinese astronomy differed from that of the Western world in two important respects: (a) it was polar and equatorial rather than planetary and ecliptic, (b) it was an activity of the bureaucratic state rather than of priests or independent scholars. Both features had advantages and disadvantages; the first led to the mechanization of celestial models long before the West, but deferred recognition of equinoctial precession till later. The second ensured remarkable sets of celestial observations antedating most of those recorded elsewhere, but discouraged causal speculation, especially in the absence of Euclidean deductive geometry. In cosmology, China developed three doctrines: (a) the Kai Thien universe, a domical geocentrism not unlike early Babylonian ideas, (b) the Hun Thien universe, essentially the recognition of the primary celestial spherical coordinates, and (c) the Hsiian Yeh system, which accepted the Hun Thien as methodologically necessary but viewed the heavenly bodies as lights of unknown nature floating in infinite empty space. Instrumentation developed early, armillary rings being in use by the end of the — 2nd century and the complete armillary sphere by the end of the + 1st.
Historicising stress: anguish and insomnia in the middle ages
By William MacLehose
Interface Focus, Volume 10, Issue 3 (2020)
While the concept of ‘stress’ in the modern sense is a twentieth-century innovation, many of the symptoms we associate with the modern condition appear in historical materials going back many centuries. But how did premodern people understand and experience these symptoms and their relation to sleep? This study focuses on the rich materials from the central middle ages in Western Europe, a period during which understandings of the body, mind, emotions and sleep were radically different from the present. It analyses two examples, nightmares and insomnia, disease categories which illustrate medieval views of the impact of worries and anguish on sleep. Medical and other sources identified a number of ways in which the mind and body interacted with one another in complex ways which disrupted the humoral and mental balance of the individual.
Success of sky-polarimetric Viking navigation: revealing the chance Viking sailors could reach Greenland from Norway
By Dénes Száz and Gábor Horváth
Royal Society Open Science, Volume 5, Issue 4 (2018)
According to a famous hypothesis, Viking sailors could navigate along the latitude between Norway and Greenland by means of sky polarization in cloudy weather using a sun compass and sunstone crystals. Using data measured in earlier atmospheric optical and psychophysical experiments, here we determine the success rate of this sky-polarimetric Viking navigation. Simulating 1000 voyages between Norway and Greenland with varying cloudiness at summer solstice and spring equinox, we revealed the chance with which Viking sailors could reach Greenland under the varying weather conditions of a 3-week-long journey as a function of the navigation periodicity Δt if they analysed sky polarization with calcite, cordierite or tourmaline sunstones. Examples of voyage routes are also presented. Our results show that the sky-polarimetric navigation is surprisingly successful on both days of the spring equinox and summer solstice even under cloudy conditions if the navigator determined the north direction periodically at least once in every 3 h, independently of the type of sunstone used for the analysis of sky polarization. This explains why the Vikings could rule the Atlantic Ocean for 300 years and could reach North America without a magnetic compass. Our findings suggest that it is not only the navigation periodicity in itself that is important for higher navigation success rates, but also the distribution of times when the navigation procedure carried out is as symmetrical as possible with respect to the time point of real noon.
Founded in 1660, the Royal Society is one of the world’s most prestigious scientific institutions, dedicated to advancing knowledge in the sciences and humanities. Its journals, including Philosophical Transactions—the world’s oldest continuously published scientific journal—have featured groundbreaking research for centuries. While the Middle Ages may seem distant from the Society’s usual focus, its publications have explored medieval topics, including one piece that was written in the 18th century. Here are ten fascinating articles from the Royal Society’s journals that shed light on the Middle Ages.
An inquiry to show, what was the ancient English weight and measure according to the laws or statutes, prior to the reign of Henry the Seventh
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 65, Issue 65 (1775)
William the Conqueror, by his character, confirmed to the English all their ancient laws, with such additions or alterations as he made therein, to their advantage. The 57th clause of that charter is, “De mensuris et ponderibus. Et quod babeant per universum regnum, mensuras fidelissimas et signatas, et pondera fidelissima et signata sicut boni prædecessores statuerunt.” From this clause it seems clear, that King William ordained, sealed standards both of weights and measures, to be made, such as his predecessor King Edward had ordained. Neither weights or measures are here described particularly; but the subsequent statutes define them more plainly.
Click here to read this article
Limitations imposed by wearing armour on Medieval soldiers’ locomotor performance
By Graham N. Askew, Federico Formenti and Alberto E. Minetti
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, Volume 279, Issue 1729 (2012)
In Medieval Europe, soldiers wore steel plate armour for protection during warfare. Armour design reflected a trade-off between protection and mobility it offered the wearer. By the fifteenth century, a typical suit of field armour weighed between 30 and 50 kg and was distributed over the entire body. How much wearing armour affected Medieval soldiers’ locomotor energetics and biomechanics is unknown. We investigated the mechanics and the energetic cost of locomotion in armour, and determined the effects on physical performance.
Click here to read this article
A medieval multiverse?: Mathematical modelling of the thirteenth century universe of Robert Grosseteste
By Richard G. Bower, Tom C. B. McLeish, Brian K. Tanner, Hannah E. Smithson, Cecilia Panti, Neil Lewis and Giles E. M. Gasper
Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Volume 470, Issue 2167 (2014)
In his treatise on light, written about 1225, Robert Grosseteste describes a cosmological model in which the universe is created in a big-bang-like explosion and subsequent condensation. He postulates that the fundamental coupling of light and matter gives rises to the material body of the entire cosmos. Expansion is arrested when matter reaches a minimum density and subsequent emission of light from the outer region leads to compression and rarefaction of the inner bodily mass so as to create nine celestial spheres, with an imperfect residual core. In this paper, we reformulate the Latin description in terms of a modern mathematical model, teasing out consequences implicit in the text, but which the author would not have had the tools to explore. The equations which describe the coupling of light and matter are solved numerically, subjected to initial conditions and critical criteria consistent with the text. Formation of a universe with a non-infinite number of perfected spheres is extremely sensitive to the initial conditions, the intensity of the light and the transparency of these spheres. In this ‘medieval multiverse’, only a small range of opacity and initial density profiles leads to a stable universe with nine perfected spheres. As in current cosmological thinking, the existence of Grosseteste’s universe relies on a very special combination of fundamental parameters.
Click here to read this article
Girding the loins? Direct evidence of the use of a medieval English parchment birthing girdle from biomolecular analysis
By Sarah Fiddyment, Natalie J. Goodison, Elma Brenner, Stefania Signorello, Kierri Price and Matthew J. Collins
Royal Society Open Science, Volume 8, Issue 3 (2021)
In this paper, we describe palaeoproteomic evidence obtained from a stained medieval birth girdle using a previously developed dry non-invasive sampling technique. The parchment birth girdle studied (Wellcome Collection Western MS. 632) was made in England in the late fifteenth century and was thought to be used by pregnant women while giving birth. We were able to extract both human and non-human peptides from the manuscript, including evidence for the use of honey, cereals, ovicaprine milk and legumes. In addition, a large number of human peptides were detected on the birth roll, many of which are found in cervico-vaginal fluid. This suggests that the birth roll was actively used during childbirth. This study is, to our knowledge, the first to extract and analyse non-collagenous peptides from a birth girdle using this sampling method and demonstrates the potential of this type of analysis for stained manuscripts, providing direct biomolecular evidence for active use.
Click here to read this article
A biocodicological analysis of the medieval library and archive from Orval Abbey, Belgium
By Nicolas Ruffini-Ronzani, Jean-François Nieus, Silvia Soncin, Simon Hickinbotham, Marc Dieu, Julie Bouhy, Catherine Charles, Chiara Ruzzier, Thomas Falmagne, Xavier Hermand, Matthew J. Collins and Olivier Deparis
Royal Society Open Science, Volume 8, Issue 6 (2021)
Biocodicological analysis of parchments from manuscript books and archives offers unprecedented insight into the materiality of medieval literacy. Using ZooMS for animal species identification, we explored almost the entire library and all the preserved single leaf charters of a single medieval Cistercian monastery (Orval Abbey, Belgium). Systematic non-invasive sampling of parchment collagen was performed on every charter and on the first bifolium from every quire of the 118 codicological units composing the books (1490 samples in total). Within the genuine production of the Orval scriptorium (26 units), a balanced use of calfskin (47.1%) and sheepskin (48.5%) was observed, whereas calfskin was less frequent (24.3%) in externally produced units acquired by the monastery (92 units). Calfskin was preferably used for higher quality manuscripts while sheepskin tends to be the standard choice for ‘ordinary’ manuscript book production. This finding is consistent with thirteenth-century parchment accounts from Beaulieu Abbey (England) where calfskin supply was more limited and its price higher. Our study reveals that the making of archival documents does not follow the same pattern as the production of library books. Although the five earliest preserved charters are made of calfskin, from the 1230s onwards, all charters from Orval are written on sheepskin.
Click here to read this article
Secondary ion mass spectrometry, a powerful tool for revealing ink formulations and animal skins in medieval manuscripts
By David Gravis, Nicolas Roy, Nicolas Ruffini-Ronzani, Laurent Houssiau, Alexandre Felten, Nikolay Tumanov and Olivier Deparis
Royal Society Open Science, Volume 10, Issue 6 (2023)
Book production by medieval scriptoria have gained growing interest in recent studies. In this context, identifying ink compositions and parchment animal species from illuminated manuscripts is of great importance. Here, we introduce time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) as a non-invasive tool to identify both inks and animal skins in manuscripts, at the same time. For this purpose, both positive and negative ion spectra in inked and non-inked areas were recorded. Chemical compositions of pigments (decoration) or black inks (text) were determined by searching for characteristic ion mass peaks. Animal skins were identified by data processing of raw ToF-SIMS spectra using principal component analysis (PCA). In illuminated manuscripts from the fifteenth to sixteenth century, malachite (green), azurite (blue), cinnabar (red) inorganic pigments, as well as iron-gall black ink, were identified. Carbon black and indigo (blue) organic pigments were also identified. Animal skins were identified in modern parchments of known animal species by a two-step PCA procedure. We believe the proposed method will find extensive application in material studies of medieval manuscripts, as it is non-invasive, highly sensitive and able to identify both inks and animal skins at the same time, even from traces of pigments and tiny scanned areas.
Click here to read this article
Astronomy in ancient and medieval China
By Joseph Needham
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences, Volume 276, Issue 1257 (1974)
Chinese astronomy differed from that of the Western world in two important respects: (a) it was polar and equatorial rather than planetary and ecliptic, (b) it was an activity of the bureaucratic state rather than of priests or independent scholars. Both features had advantages and disadvantages; the first led to the mechanization of celestial models long before the West, but deferred recognition of equinoctial precession till later. The second ensured remarkable sets of celestial observations antedating most of those recorded elsewhere, but discouraged causal speculation, especially in the absence of Euclidean deductive geometry. In cosmology, China developed three doctrines: (a) the Kai Thien universe, a domical geocentrism not unlike early Babylonian ideas, (b) the Hun Thien universe, essentially the recognition of the primary celestial spherical coordinates, and (c) the Hsiian Yeh system, which accepted the Hun Thien as methodologically necessary but viewed the heavenly bodies as lights of unknown nature floating in infinite empty space. Instrumentation developed early, armillary rings being in use by the end of the — 2nd century and the complete armillary sphere by the end of the + 1st.
Click here to read this article
Historicising stress: anguish and insomnia in the middle ages
By William MacLehose
Interface Focus, Volume 10, Issue 3 (2020)
While the concept of ‘stress’ in the modern sense is a twentieth-century innovation, many of the symptoms we associate with the modern condition appear in historical materials going back many centuries. But how did premodern people understand and experience these symptoms and their relation to sleep? This study focuses on the rich materials from the central middle ages in Western Europe, a period during which understandings of the body, mind, emotions and sleep were radically different from the present. It analyses two examples, nightmares and insomnia, disease categories which illustrate medieval views of the impact of worries and anguish on sleep. Medical and other sources identified a number of ways in which the mind and body interacted with one another in complex ways which disrupted the humoral and mental balance of the individual.
Click here to read this article
Success of sky-polarimetric Viking navigation: revealing the chance Viking sailors could reach Greenland from Norway
By Dénes Száz and Gábor Horváth
Royal Society Open Science, Volume 5, Issue 4 (2018)
According to a famous hypothesis, Viking sailors could navigate along the latitude between Norway and Greenland by means of sky polarization in cloudy weather using a sun compass and sunstone crystals. Using data measured in earlier atmospheric optical and psychophysical experiments, here we determine the success rate of this sky-polarimetric Viking navigation. Simulating 1000 voyages between Norway and Greenland with varying cloudiness at summer solstice and spring equinox, we revealed the chance with which Viking sailors could reach Greenland under the varying weather conditions of a 3-week-long journey as a function of the navigation periodicity Δt if they analysed sky polarization with calcite, cordierite or tourmaline sunstones. Examples of voyage routes are also presented. Our results show that the sky-polarimetric navigation is surprisingly successful on both days of the spring equinox and summer solstice even under cloudy conditions if the navigator determined the north direction periodically at least once in every 3 h, independently of the type of sunstone used for the analysis of sky polarization. This explains why the Vikings could rule the Atlantic Ocean for 300 years and could reach North America without a magnetic compass. Our findings suggest that it is not only the navigation periodicity in itself that is important for higher navigation success rates, but also the distribution of times when the navigation procedure carried out is as symmetrical as possible with respect to the time point of real noon.
Click here to read this article
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