Posts belonging to Category Medieval History

A new research paper, Diaspora and identity in the Viking Age, published in the Early Medieval Europe journal by Lesley Abrams looks into the terminology and evidence for a ‘diaspora’ amongst the Vikings in the early medieval period. There are a number of issues involved: Is diaspora an appropriate term – is it friendlier than colonialism [...]

Big dig begins at Leigh medieval siteThe Bolton NewsAn 1825 advert for sale of the land described the site as containing a farmhouse and outbuilding, and that year marked a new chapter in its history. A local cotton broker bought the land and built an …

Medieval HistoryGeorgetown University NewsThe Georgetown Department of History faculty and classes seeks to have a global reach. The department is strong in US and European history, and in the rest of the world – with notable depth in Russia and East…

In 1281 Kulbai Khan (he of the pleasure dome), tried to invade Japan and failed miserably, his fleet being destroyed by the divine wind (kamikaze). The attempted invasion by 100,000 Mongols and its defeat is a legend in Japanese history, so I’m sure the news of the discovery of a Mongol shipwreck from this era [...]

Part of my story Hell has its Demons is set in the fictional Abbey of St. Brett’s. Therefore I’ve had to research monastic life a fair bit. I have just added a page to this site on Abbey officials. I hope you medieval history fans find it useful!  

Elizabeth of York (Queenship and Power) by Arlene Naylor Okerlund In my recent posts about the best and worst Medieval people I have been remiss in not mentioning any women. So to balance that out only slightly, here’s some information about an upcoming biography of a powerful Medieval lady: Elizabeth of York, mother of Henry [...]

Who gives the Middle Ages a bad name? They were bad, but without them history wouldn’t have been so interesting. Again like my article on the Top 5 Medieval People, this list is completely arbitrary. The villains of the medieval age are in my opinion: Innocent IV - the implacable enemy of Frederick II. Innocent’s political [...]

Some of the top stories and most interesting blog posts on Medieval History and Medieval Historical Fiction in the past week or so: Medieval Bookworm reviews Bernard Cornwell’s Death of Kings Medievalists.net discusses evidence for Scottish Medieval Football – although is this any real surprise? Football was around for a long time in the Middle [...]

Random post of the week – who are my top 5 people from the Middle Ages – real historical medieval people, not characters from any of my stories that is! Frederick II Hohenstaufen – not quite the Renaissance prince that earlier historians such as Kantowicz would like to think, but even so still quite amazing [...]

I just added another page to this site’s section on England in 1376 – this time looking at the Key Officials of King Edward III’s household. At present I don’t have much information on these individuals – indeed I suspect that for some of them there won’t be much information available, but they may well [...]