Forbidden Fruit: Male-Female Relations in the Medieval Cloister
Medieval monks and nuns lived by rules that demanded three vows: chastity, obedience and poverty. Problems arose with all three at times, and oft...
Women and Romances: Medieval Women and their Books
With its intertwined episodes and challenging hurdles, romance literature of the Middle Ages gave birth to modern romance novels, but it was not exactly...
Making a Women’s Manuscript: Medieval Women and their Books II
Although many manuscripts survive from the Middle Ages, there are comparatively few that reveal certain signs of female participation in their production. One of...
Coping with the Pen: Women Writers of the Middle Ages
The lives of most medieval women were not easy, particularly in the tumultuous the first few centuries of the medieval period. Such women enjoyed...
Medieval English Books for Children: Reading to Succeed
Many parents in medieval England were as concerned about teaching their children to read and write as parents are today. Literacy was not as...
Northumbria 600-768
Æthelfrith (†616) was the king of Bernicia (from 592/593) and Deira, which merged into Northumbria. Æthelfrith was the son of Æthelric and the...
Universities and Students in the High Middle Ages
In the early 14th-Century, Alvarius Pelagius, a Franciscan, described some of the university students of that age. Pelagius commented that, “They attend classes but...
Medieval Manuscripts
Strictly speaking, any handwritten document is a manuscript – the Latin manuscriptus literally means "written" (scriptus) "by hand" (manu). So charters and scrolls, fragments...
Byzantine Empire (IV-XV century) – historical facts
The history of the Byzantine Empire starts with the adoption of Christianity and foundation of Constantinople by Constantine I the Great. The final division...
Short history of Italy (526-700)
The medieval period was one in which Italy was exposed to a variety of foreign influences, mainly in the form of conquests and migratory...
Vikings in Early European Medieval History
The reign of Charles the Great or Charlemagne is often referred to as a renaissance, a time when Western Europe sought recovery from the...
Communication in Medieval Times: How Messages Were Sent
Prior to medieval times, there were several sophisticated methods of message dissemination, including the messenger systems of the Persian Empire, and the relay-runner system...
