Travellers have always faced health hazards when far from home. Here’s what medieval people believed would keep them healthy.
Articles on Medieval history
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Margaret Paston’s reference to playing cards in her letter to her husband on Christmas Eve 1459 is the earliest recorded reference to the activity in England.
By anatomically dissecting each stage of this medieval punishment, we can understand the profound agony the gunpowder plot co-conspirators endured.
Demons were considered very real and very threatening throughout the medieval and early-modern periods.
Even Louis XIV of France, the epitome of absolute monarchy, did not stand above the law. Kings have always been defined and constrained by legal precedent.
Gunpowder warfare kicked off a new era of invasive surgery and prosthetic technology in Western medicine.
Warrior-monks crusaded for Christianity throughout medieval Europe. Adding to the ongoing mystery surrounding the military order is their enigmatic seal.
Indigenous and critical race approaches to narratives of the Middle Ages help reveal more accurate histories, and combat the misuses of ‘the medieval’ for hate.
This late-medieval document is written in encoded text that has yet to be cracked. But its numerous illustrations provide clues about its content.
Medieval Europeans thought about politics in terms of leadership and often criticized rulers for ‘tyranny’ − both in government and in the church.
Medieval scholars connected celestial events to changes that happened on the ground, such as the overthrow of the king.
The Distaff Gospels is a collection of advice around pregnancy, childbirth and health. It was shared between French women while spinning flax.
Early modern societies in Latin America and Spain saw a convergence of traditional medical knowledge and the professionalization of medicine. The resulting differences in access to care endure today.
While the wider literature tells us that medieval women were silent and passive, their letters and embroideries tell a different story.
Your doctor’s MD emerged from the Dark Ages, where practicing rational “human medicine” was seen as an expression of faith and maintaining one’s health a religious duty.
Court leet records provide a vivid picture of the disagreements and disputes which pre-occupied medieval townspeople.
The medieval is part of the mosaic of modern Australia. Our nation’s heritage on this island continent is full of it: in aesthetics, institutions, laws, languages, identities, moralities.
The gaping maws and great belch of the Norse ‘hafgufa’ may well have been a humpback whale simply engaging in trap-feeding.
Much of what we know about the life of the sixth century monk, St David, comes from medieval texts written several centuries later.
The Newport medieval ship is the most complete section of a 15th-century European vessel discovered to date.
Top contributors
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Professor in High Medieval History, Durham University
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Teaching Fellow in Medieval Studies, University of Leeds
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Senior Lecturer in History, University of Aberdeen
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Lecturer in Medieval History, The University of Queensland
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Professor Emerita of Medieval History, University of Rhode Island
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Director of the Centre for History Heritage and Memory Studies; Associate Professor in History, Nottingham Trent University
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Emeritus Professor of Physics at Durham University, Durham University
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Professor of Natural Philosophy in the Department of Physics, University of York
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Professor of Medieval and Early Modern History, Queen Mary University of London
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Visiting Professor of Social Inequities and Injustice, Loughborough University
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Professor and Tutorial Fellow in English, University of Oxford
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Associate Professor of History, Auburn University
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Professor in the History of People, Place and Community, School of Advanced Study, University of London
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Postdoctoral Research Fellow, ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, The University of Western Australia
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Lecturer in History, University of Leicester