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 [...]

If you read my blog on a regular basis you might have noticed a number of posts about Frederick II appearing. What does it mean? Well a while ago I was working on a project about Frederick II called Stupor Mundi. I recently decided that I would have another go at this novel, but not [...]

It seems that some people are still fighting the propaganda battle that once raged between Innocent IV and Frederick II, for instance this article about Saint Rose of Viterbo. Little twelve year old Rose preached against the Imperial occupation of the Papal city of Viterbo. She even apparently predicted the death of Frederick II and [...]

I came across this very good biographical video of Frederick II on Youtube. It features lots of good images, many of which I hadn’t seen before. The sound is music, so you can watch it without the music on and read the captions to get the story of Frederick II’s life.

I came across an illustration of pfennigs minted at Ravensburg sometime between 1215 and 1250 bearing the image of Frederick II at Money Museum – it looks like a fascinating site for the medievalist.

In this section I have compiled information about medieval history and literature, in particular the areas I am most interested in. The Court in English Alliterative Poetry, 1350-1450 – my M.Phil. Thesis   The Style of Middle English Alliterative Verse Frederick II   Everyday Life in Medieval England   England in 1376       [...]

Been awhile since I have posted unfortunately due to illness over the last week or so. Progress on the writing has therefore been very slow. However, I did manage to read through Dante’s De Vulgari Eloquentia. Quite useful on his opinion of Frederick’s court and also all the differences in dialects in Italy, plus an [...]

I’m considering turning my translation of Huillard-Breholles into a pdf e-book that can be downloaded from the Stupor Mundi website. The idea is that I would be able to share the work I have done, but also protect my copyright and not have the work passed off on other people’s sites and possibly financially exploited [...]

Not bad going, 40 pages since 23 December, means I am doing pretty well I think. That’s over 2.5 pages a day, and this was slowed quite a bit by Christmas. The Biog part of the book ends at about page 124, which is another 40 pages away, so I should be there in a [...]

Translating Huillard-Breholles is definitely paying off. Although some of it so far is simply a list of what Piero did – i.e. he participated in such and such a negotiation, which could be gleaned from other history books, there is also detail from the Registrum that lists Piero’s admin responsibilities. It seems he was closely [...]