Why Writing Women Back into History Matters
Rediscovering remarkable historical figures such as the Birka Warrior Woman, Hildegard of Bingen, and King Jadwiga offers a fresh perspective to understand an era often dismissed as ‘nasty, brutish, and short’.
Bede, the Scribe of Scripture: His impact upon Northumbrian publishing
The study of Bede’s manuscripts reveals his impact on biblical scholarship, linking the ancient and medieval worlds.
Scribbles in Hats or the Afterlives of Mediaeval Arabic Documents
In this lecture, el-Leithy will present a set of paper fragments found in an unlikely place: the inside of medieval hats.
Urban Gardening in Early Medieval Italy
This paper charts changing attitudes to urban agriculture between the late Roman and early medieval periods, with attention to how Christianity changed people’s views on flowers, how new regional economies affected what people ate, and how people in medieval Italy viewed gardens and gardening.
Life at Home in Ireland’s Viking-Age Towns
Using the huge amount of archaeological evidence we have excavated over the past 60 years, we can use this to reconstruct life at home in Ireland’s Viking-Age towns.
Christianity before Conversion
How did people convert to Christianity in early medieval England? What happens if we prioritise archaeological and art historical sources?
Describe the jaw of a crocodile’: Leonardo da Vinci’s Animal Anatomies
Leonardo also studied and dissected animals at many points of his career. His subjects included horses, bears, monkeys, frogs, dogs and oxen – as surrogates for human material, as independent subjects of study, and on occasion to compare explicitly human and animal anatomy.
A Date with the Two Cerne Giants: Results of the National Trust’s Excavation in 2020
The research has provided an accurate, scientifically verified date for the Cerne Giant. These unexpected results, together with the land-use history and ominous ‘disappearance’ of the Giant for six centuries, provide the platform for reconsideration and new discussion and debate … including some stunning discoveries.
Animating Albrecht Dürer’s Cloaks
Analyzes the artwork of Albrecht Dürer to uncover insights into clothing styles, particularly focusing on coats and cloaks, and what they reveal about fashion and societal influences of his time.
Translatio Scientiae: Chaucer, the Astrolabe, and Making English Scientific
I examine how Chaucer’s vocabularies—whether translated or adopted—offer new possibilities for using English as a language for scientific knowledge and for articulating and even creating new communities of scientific readers and practitioners.
The Challenges and Pitfalls of an ‘Authentic’ Medieval Wargame
The medieval period is a perennial favourite amongst the tabletop wargamer. Figure ranges in all scales, from the ubiquitous 28mm down to 6mm, are extensive, and new rulesets come out on a regular basis.
Obligation and Opportunity: Urban Military Service in Medieval England
This talk examines the development and use of urban soldiers in warfare in medieval England with a focus on military efficacy and strategy value.
Medieval Foundations of Limited Government
Medieval Foundations of Limited Government Paper by Andrew Willard Jones Given at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s Annual Student Honors Conference, held between August…
How Did Danish Vikings Become Christian European?
The lecture presents some of the most significant archaeological finds in Denmark from the transition from the pre-Christian period into the Early Middle Ages.
The Medieval Roots of Warhammer 40,000’s Endless Crusade
This paper will examine the historical roots of Warhammer 40,000’s Endless Crusades, how they reflect the Pluralist School of crusade historiography’s expansive definition of crusading, and how the paranoia and fervour shaping these fictional wars is not so different from that of the real-world crusade movement.
Careers for Medievalists?
Sponsored by the British Archaeological Association, this event aims to demonstrate the range of career options available to medievalists, especially those studying in Art History and adjacent disciplines such as History, Archaeology and Heritage Studies.
Life and Government in Royal Castles in the Long Thirteenth Century
This is a two-part lecture with Lindy Grant speaking on ‘Power and domesticity: Castles and Capetian rulership in the the thirteenth century’ and Jeremy Ashbee speaking on ‘The Royal Castles of Edward I and English Control of North Wales’
Women and the Mount Athos in the Byzantine Period
My topic this evening is women and Mount Athos in the Byzantine period and I emphasize the conjunction and women and Mount Athos, not women on Mount Athos.
Medieval Contributions to Patriotism
The lecture will survey medieval variations of military patriotism (pro patria mori) and civil patriotism (the exercise of civic virtues for the common good) before turning to an examination of endemic patriotism in the late Middle Ages, which eulogised the native land and naturalised the love of country.
Constitutionalism and Consent: The Roles of Quod omnes tangit in the Political Thought of William of Ockham
Translated into English as “what touches all must be approved by all,” it has ordinarily been understood by scholars to express a nascent justification of constitutionalism, democracy or popular sovereignty, or at any rate a principle underlying some system of representative government that limited the power of rulers.
The Rise and Expansion of Islam in Somalia
Mohamed Haji Mukhtar of Savannah State University takes visitors on a journey into a lesser-known chapter in the spread of Islam — its diffusion through the nomadic Somali-speaking clans of the Horn of Africa.
Silver Linings: Money, Plague and Economic Change in 7th and 8th century England
There is less confidence about how and why this transformation came about especially in its early stages around the time of Bede and what this talk was consider is how and why these changes began when they did.
From Generation to Generation: Jewish Inheritance Practices and Christian Notarial Culture in the Crown of Aragon, 1250-1391
This paper argues that the vast majority of Jews who drew up notarial wills, donatio inter vivos contracts, and other Latinate documents related to inheritance did not seek to circumvent Jewish law. Instead, they valued a combination of Latin and Hebrew-Aramaic contracts as a means of making their inheritance choices intelligible both within and beyond the Jewish community.
“A Wonderful Country Inhabited by Blacks”: Ahmad al-Mansur and “His” Conquest of the Bilad al-Sudan
Today we are going to deal with a very famous actually episode in the history of African history that is the so-called Moroccan conquest of this late medieval, early modern polity of West Africa that is the so-called Songhay Empire.