The question of how to create life does not just go back to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, when the eponymous character used forbidden science to create life. Medieval scientists tried for centuries to...
A dig to find the location of a 600-year-old medieval friary in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, has resulted in the macabre discovery of countless human remains. So far, nearly 100 skeletons have been...
Divorce is a subject that has provided endless material for drama and comedy writers through the ages, from Euripides to Shakespeare to today’s New York Times bestseller list. When Kenneth Hodges, a...
Many medieval manuscripts are works of art with devotional passages written in careful calligraphy, accompanied by vivid illustrations and ornate, decorative borders. But equally captivating is the...
Comfort in the afterlife was apparently a medieval concern. Gravesites can reveal aspects of past cultures and values, and are therefore a rich source for archaeologists and historians. An iron...
Ashkenazi Jews, who migrated into Holy Roman Empire territories around the 1st millennium AD, also settled in parts of England but how they were treated is less understood. Now, genome analysis of...
At a site in East Yorkshire, an archaeological dig has been in progress for three weeks to uncover the secrets of a medieval village. Now, archaeologists believe they have discovered a centuries-old...
The examination of urine (‘uroscopy’) as a method of medical diagnosis can be traced back to ancient Greece and Rome, but during the Middle Ages the examination of urine samples by physicians became...
The Cambridge University Library has just launched an ambitious new initiative that will result in the public release of an extensive collection of manuscripts from medieval times. The Curious Cures...
Archaeologists in England have found medieval holy men were “riddled with worms.” What did they expect to find in a group of people who consumed their own feces? Every once in a while, a group of...
Archaeologists in the Czech Republic recently made an unusual and exciting discovery that dates back many centuries. While digging up a medieval house in the historic center of Nový Jičín in the...
An amateur explorer has released a video of himself exploring a hitherto lost underground “souterrain” chamber. But the journey he filmed inside this strange place is not for the claustrophobic among...
A 1,000-year-old “Boleslaw sword” (i.e., from the glorious reign of Boleslaw the Brave; lived 967-1025 AD) dated to the beginning of the 11th century and believed to have belonged to a knight working...
A crowd of almost 88000 filled the stands to watch the finals of the Women’s Euro 22 soccer championship on Sunday, July 31 at Wembley stadium, most cheering madly for the English team. The...
Throughout history, two things have remained constant. First, the intermingling of cultures has produced countless local variations of original ideas, be it cuisine, or language, or fashion. Second,...
The next time you’re looking through an illuminated manuscript, keep an eye out for images of medieval knights fighting off snails. Of all the villains in the world, these may not have been the first...
A burial practice among elite medieval Europeans was to be interred on their beds, a rite which archaeologists call “a bed burial.” An English researcher has now completed an analysis of 72 bed...
The daily life of a medieval peasant in England and elsewhere was extremely difficult, long, and busy. They faced endless days of manual labor working on farmland starting as early as three in the...
The Middle Ages had its fair share of terrible jobs, from cesspit cleaners to rat catchers and even royal bottom-wipers , but few were as soul-destroying as the job of a sin-eater, who carried the...
An English couple in Australia are selling a home. But this is not your typical suburban semi-detached house, it’s a full-blown English-style medieval castle , complete with a moat… the last thing...
The jus primae noctis , droit du seigneur , or “right of the first night,” is an alleged medieval custom which permitted lords to engage in sexual intercourse with the brides of their male subjects...
One surprising quirk about life in medieval times is that people could, and did, take animals and insects to court and try them as if they were humans. While there is scant verifiable evidence on the...
The medieval jester has become an iconoclastic figure in society, regularly appearing in the TV shows, films, and video-games of the modern era. The classic jester, replete with flamboyant colorful...
The use of private duels as a way of settling questions of honor spread through Europe from Italy in the end of the 15th century, though the institutional practice was much older. These encounters...
