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 [...]

I have been experimenting with some video capture software recently and recorded this brief video of the Battle of Agincourt from Medieval 2 Total War. The game version of the battle is actually pretty accurate. This is the moment when the French cavalry wings charge the English and are defeated quite easily by the English [...]

Along with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which I mentioned yesterday, I have now also added the Breton lais of Marie de France to the website. Here’s a quick run-down of the full contents that are online – you can also get it all of Marie de France’s lais as an eBook for easier [...]

Here I’m going to be writing about great writers outside the Medieval period. First off is – Leo Tolstoy        

From this page you will be able to access free online texts of Medieval literature texts. French Medieaval Romances from the lais of Marie de France Sir Gawain and the Green Knight – a modern English prose translation     

I have started a new series of articles about Medieval warfare off in the Medieval (Middle Ages) History and Literature section of the site. It’s a subject which has always fascinated me, and which I think is often misunderstood – we tend to either think of glorious knightly cavalry charges or heroic yeoman archers and [...]

When a bishop dies the bells ring in heaven according to Matthew Paris. Presumably this was only becayse Robert, Bishop Lincoln was a fairly holy rather than venal example. Indeed this was actually Robert Grosseteste the famous scholastic philosopher and theologian, who criticized the greed of the papacy. I think it’s interesting that only the [...]

Of course there is another sea above the one we know of – didn’t you realise! One credulous medieval writer certainly seemed to think so. I came across this extract from Gervase of Tilbury’s Otia Imperialia in C. G. Coulton’s Social Life in Britain from the Conquest to the Reformation, which is a great repository of [...]

Thank you to Steven Till for blogging about this. The Digital Atlas of Medieval and Roman Civilisations is an interactive map created by Harvard to create a Google style historical map. I must say this is an exciting project, and although they have released it as a beta, I did feel slightly disappointed that there [...]

From Canto I of Dante’s Inferno: Midway along the journey of our life I woke to find myself in a dark wood, for I had wandered off from the straight path. These are the opening lines to Dante’s great poem, and probably the most famous poem of the Middle Ages. What better way to start [...]