Medieval News

Ambitious Norwich Castle plans unveiled by museum officials

2012-01-27T10:01:00.000-05:00

Ambitious plans to plough millions of pounds into a major reamp of Norwich Castle Museum have been revealed.

Smart phone technology, wall projections and giant display cases to showcase treasures from Norfolk and British Museum are among the latest ideas being explored for the iconic building’s keep.

Staff from the Norfolk Museums and Archaeology Service say they are planning to submit “big funding bids” in the next 18 months, which if successful will change the keep’s appearance to visitors.

The Evening News understands the funding bids will aim to attract a cash sum in the millions. Potential sources include lottery cash.

Project officials say there is no target figure, although a total will become clearer in time. They hope to complete a project by 2014/15 that creates a wow factor, makes the castle an attraction the region can be proud of and encourages people to revisit.

Click here to read this article from EDP24

BROOCH TREASURE ‘OWNED BY ARISTOCRATIC CHILD’

2012-01-25T12:36:00.000-05:00

A medieval silver brooch declared as treasure this week is likely to have belonged to a young Cumbrian aristocrat.

The 13th century silver gilt ring unearthed at Bridekirk near Cockermouth may have been used by a child to pin on a light cloak or mantle, according to experts.

Stuart Noon, a Portable Antiquities Scheme finds liaison officer for Lancashire and Cumbria, said: “It’s made of silver which suggests it’s a high status piece from the medieval period.

“In the medieval period commoners were not allowed to wear precious metals which is why we find a lot of gilded copper alloys. You had to be of a certain status to able to wear things like this.”

Click here to read this article from the News & Star

Medieval flashmob to rouse York residents

2012-01-25T11:31:00.000-05:00

Shoppers in York city centre will find themselves in the middle of a flashmob with a difference this weekend, as performing arts students stage impromptu medieval dance mobs.

The event, planned for Parliament Street and St Helen’s Square, is being planned by the York College students as part of the Residents Festival, but also as a prelim to the summer’s Mystery Plays spectacular.

Organisers of the Plays have also revealed tickets to the outdoor performances in the Museum Gardens in August will be sold at a special discount to local residents during the weekend.

A spokesman said up to 500 residents would be able to get ten per cent off when buying two tickets. All they needed to do was visit York Theatre Royal Box Office in person between 10am and 8pm on Saturday and between noon and 4pm on Sunday with a valid York Card.

Click here to read this article from the York Press

Viking mass grave linked to elite killers of the medieval world

2012-01-25T10:18:00.000-05:00

A crew of Viking mercenaries – some of the fiercest and most feared killers in the medieval world – could be the occupants of a mysterious mass grave in the south of England, according to a new theory.

The intriguing hypothesis is being put forward in a documentary, Viking Apocalypse, which will premiere on National Geographic UK on Wednesday, 25 January, and attempts to piece together the identities of a group of men who were apparently the victims of a horrific mass execution around the turn of the 11th century.

Their burial pit, at Ridgeway Hill, Dorset, was found in 2009 while archaeologists were working in the area ahead of the construction of a new road. In it, researchers made the gruesome discovery of the decapitated bodies of 54 young men. All had been dumped in the shallow grave, and their heads had been piled up on the far side.

Click here to read this article from Medievalists.net

Hidden dimension of Stonehenge revealed

2012-01-24T10:56:00.000-05:00

A project directed by academics at the University of Sheffield has made the archaeology of the world-famous Stonehenge site more accessible than ever before.

Google Under-the-Earth: Seeing Beneath Stonehenge is the first application of its kind to transport users around a virtual prehistoric landscape, exploring the magnificent and internationally important monument, Stonehenge.

The application used data gathered from the University of Sheffield´s Stonehenge Riverside Project in conjunction with colleagues from the universities of Manchester, Bristol, Southampton and London. The application was developed by Bournemouth University archaeologists, adding layers of archaeological information to Google Earth to create Google Under-the-Earth.

The unique visual experience lets users interact with the past like never before. Highlights include taking a visit to the Neolithic village of Durrington Walls and a trip inside a prehistoric house. Users also have the opportunity to see reconstructions of Bluestonehenge at the end of the Stonehenge Avenue and the great timber monument called the Southern Circle, as they would have looked more than 4,000 years ago.

Click here to read this article from History of the Ancient World

New book examines Vikings in the Outer Hebrides

2012-01-24T10:37:00.002-05:00

A new book on the island of South Uist in the Outer Hebrides has revealed some interesting about the Viking presence in Scotland. From Machair to Mountains shows how experts uncovered a series of virtual “time capsules” on South Uist in the form of ancient settlements preserved under sand dunes dating from the Bronze Age to the modern era. The archaeological project was undertaken with grant aid from Historic Scotland.

The research challenges the existing belief that the Norse period marked a cataclysmic change in the Hebridean way of life. Instead of supporting the view that the Scandinavian invaders killed men and enslaved their women and children, the archaeological evidence suggests a greater degree of intermixing and continuity than has previously been accepted.

Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs, Fiona Hyslop, said: “This project is a remarkable achievement and describes a hugely significant part of Scottish history. The findings show that these remote locations were attractive to human inhabitants from the earliest times and that communities have successfully survived here for thousands of years. The project has added substantially to our understanding of the history of the Outer Hebrides and western Scotland.”

Click here to read this article from Medievalists.net

Book Review: 1494: How a Family Feud in Medieval Spain Divided the World in Half

2012-01-23T21:09:00.000-05:00

In one of cinema’s most beloved scenes, Charlie Chaplin’s Great Dictator plays in his office with a beachball-sized balloon representing the globe – and his own insane pretension. The game and the sentiment were not, alas, unprecedented.

In 1493, the voluptuary Pope Alexander VI (fans of Bravo’s The Borgias know how wholly unholy His Holiness was), sat down at his desk and traced a line on a map of the Atlantic Ocean. He was carving up the world, unilaterally.

The following year, intent on tweaking the papal cartography, envoys of Spain and Portugal met in the dusty Castilian town of Tordesillas and agreed on a division of the world between them – and them alone. Thus was born the far-reaching Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494, a Renaissance beachball bounced about by the squabbling ruling families of Iberia.

And when the “known” world had expanded in the generation following the treaty’s signing, the usual suspects met up again, in the Spanish border town of Badajoz, this time to divvy up the Pacific Ocean. A young boy, of a temperament worthy of Chaplin’s, is said to have greeted the haughty Portuguese delegation on a bridge by mooning them and saying, “Draw your line right through this!”

Click here to read this book review from The Globe and Mail

Schedule for Forty-Seventh International Congress on Medieval Studies released

2012-01-23T16:11:00.002-05:00

The schedule for the Forty-Seventh International Congress on Medieval Studies was released today, giving scholars a first look at what will be happening at the world’s largest gathering of medievalists. The Congress, which is held at Western Michigan University, will be held from May 10-13, 2012.

The annual International Congress on Medieval Studies brings together about five thousand scholars, writers and history-lovers, to listen to papers given on a wide variety of medieval topics. Dozens of scholarly groups also meet during the congress, and most major publishers also attend, where they sell their books and meet up with potential authors.

This years plenary speakers are David Wallace of the University of Pennsylvania, who will speak about “Conceptualizing Literary History: Europe, 1348–1418″, and Paul Binski of the University of Cambridge, whose paper is entitled, “The Heroic Age of Gothic: Invention and Its Contexts 1200–1400″.

Click here to read this article from Medievalists.net

Mysterious 'Winged' Structure from Ancient Rome Discovered

2012-01-23T11:46:00.000-05:00

A recently discovered mysterious "winged" structure in England, which in the Roman period may have been used as a temple, presents a puzzle for archaeologists, who say the building has no known parallels.

Built around 1,800 years ago, the structure was discovered in Norfolk, in eastern England, just to the south of the ancient town of Venta Icenorum. The structure has two wings radiating out from a rectangular room that in turn leads to a central room.

"Generally speaking, [during] the Roman Empire people built within a fixed repertoire of architectural forms," said William Bowden, a professor at the University of Nottingham, who reported the find in the most recent edition of the Journal of Roman Archaeology. The investigation was carried out in conjunction with the Norfolk Archaeological and Historical Research Group.

Click here to read this article by Owen Jarus from LiveScience

Researchers collect DNA from men with possible links to York’s Viking past

2012-01-23T11:17:00.000-05:00

Men with Viking surnames filled the meeting room of New Earswick Folk Hall and queued to help research into the ethnic origins of the British people.

Academics were collecting DNA from men with Viking names to see if they are directly descended from the Scandanavian traders and seaman who once ruled York and Yorkshire.

It was the first of four gatherings across northern England and followed a public appeal for people with Viking surnames to come forward.

The project will feature in a future BBC eight-part documentary series on the history of ordinary British people – the Great British Story – and BBC photographers were at the event.

The head of project, geneticist Turi King, of the University of Leicester, said of the York meeting at the weekend: “It has been great. They are quite rare surnames and we have had 200 responses.”

Click here to read this article from the York Press

Medieval Treasures To Go On Show At Wrexham Museum

2012-01-23T10:39:00.000-05:00

A hoard of medieval treasures is set to go on show at Wrexham County Borough Museum & Archives this weekend.

Most people have a hazy idea of what life was like in the Middle Ages, but apart from castles, what else remains of Wales’s medieval past? If you have ever asked yourself this question, you will find some of the answers in this exhibition.

Amongst the artefacts on show at the Medieval Minds exhibition in gallery 2 will be the Wrexham Hoard, a collection of silver pennies from the reigns of Richard the Lionheart, John (the king who signed the Magna Carta) and Henry III.

Click here to read this article from Wrexham.com

Ozark Medieval Fortress closed this year

2012-01-20T10:05:00.000-05:00

Remember the Ozark Medieval Fortress?

It drew huge attention, from the New York Times on down, after French investors purchased property in Boone County, between Lead Hill and Omaha, to recreate a medieval fortress using authentic construction methods, from stone masonry to forging of metal fittings. It opened in May 2010. The idea, based on a similar attraction in France, was to attract paying visitors ($18 for adults in the last season) to watch and learn about the construction, which was said to take 20 years to complete. It was named one of the state's top 10 tourist attractions.

Things apparently haven't run exactly according to plan. Though a call to the phone says the fortress will reopen for the tourist season in April, the website says it won't reopen in 2012 and no reservations are being taken. I've been unable to reach any of the French leaders of the project, but Arkansas Tourism Director Joe David Rice said he'd learned the attraction wouldn't be opening this year. Agencies that have advertised the attraction in the past are making plans not to include it in advertising brochures this year.

Click here to read this article from the Arkansas Times

Roman villa 'rare and important for Peterborough' says archaeologist

2012-01-19T17:53:00.000-05:00

A "substantial, high-status" Roman villa discovered in Peterborough has shed new light on the city's occupants 2,000 years ago, archaeologists say.

Although the city - known as Durobrivae - was well-documented as a strategic area for the movement of Roman troops, there was little evidence of occupation - and no evidence of wealthy occupants in the east of the city.

Now Oxford Archaeology East and archaeologists from Peterborough City Council have discovered a 2nd Century villa and farm complex on the site of former allotments at Walton.

Dr Rebecca Casa Hatton said the two-storey villa, built in local limestone with "fine mosaic floors" and wall plaster painted red and green, was "a statement of the owner's wealth".

Click here to read this article from the BBC

What Medieval Times Teach Us About Respecting the Dead

2012-01-19T17:26:00.000-05:00

The viral video of a group of U.S. Marines urinating on dead bodies in Afghanistan is getting called a lot of names: "horrifying," "barbaric," "medieval."

People who study the Middle Ages tend to get a little bristly when what we study is used as a synonym for everything horrible and backwards. In this case, though, what the Marines are allegedly doing in the video does remind me of the strange events of 1428 when church officials dug up the body of English reformer John Wycliff, who, among other things, suggested that the Bible should be translated from Latin into languages that ordinary people could read. Forty-four years after his death, his beliefs were at the center of England's home-grown heresy, Lollardy, and the folks in power responded by disinterring Wycliff and burning his body. His ashes, like Joan of Arc's would be a few years later, were thrown in a river so that no one would be able to give the remains a proper burial.

2011 was a banner year for those of us who make a living studying the dead. The Apple Store in downtown Palo Alto became an impromptu shrine after Steve Jobs' death, covered with notes and personal messages to the tech giant. His funeral was a grand affair that shut down large parts of Stanford's campus.

I study rituals of death and dying, so I avidly followed descriptions of the funeral and Jobs' quotes on death that were making the rounds. I also made sure to not schedule a library visit on the days that campus was in lockdown in honor of Jobs and the dignitaries who paid their respects at Memorial Church.

Click here to read this article from the Huffington Post

Ireland: ‘Medieval Mile’ plans to be unveiled

2012-01-19T17:16:00.000-05:00

Plans for a ‘Medieval Mile’ in Kilkenny are due to be announced in the next few weeks, and the project will help to promote the South East as a “necklace of must-see destinations,” a Fáilte Ireland conference held in Hotel Kilkenny heard on Monday afternoon.

The Medieval Mile will be one of two “game-changing developments,” the other being a Viking Triangle in Waterford, said Fáilte Ireland’s head of operations for the South East, Gary Breen.

Of the Medieval Mile, he said: “We hope within the next two weeks to have blueprints developed that will outline how this project will evolve.”

It will include the Craft Yard; St Mary’s Cathedral, which will become an exhibition space; the new Butler Gallery for contemporary art being developed at Evans Home; and the upgrade of High Street.

“When that project is in place, we will have the finest built heritage experience in Ireland,” Mr Breen said.

Click here to read this article from the Kilkenny People

Ancient Greek sites could soon be available for rent

2012-01-18T12:41:00.000-05:00

Available for rent: The Acropolis.

In a move bound to leave many Greeks and scholars aghast, Greece's culture ministry said Tuesday it will open up some of the debt-stricken country's most-cherished archaeological sites to advertising firms and other ventures.

The ministry says the move is a common-sense way of helping "facilitate" access to the country's ancient Greek ruins, and money generated would fund the upkeep and monitoring of sites. The first site to be opened would be the Acropolis.

Archaeologists, however, have for decades slammed such an initiative as sacrilege.
The culture ministry said any renting of ancient Greek sites would be subject to strict conditions.

According to a ministerial briefing dating from the end of December, a commercial firm could rent the Acropolis for a professional photographic shoot for as little as 1,600 euros a day ($2,046). Demonstrators could also rent the ancient landmark.

Click here to read this article from AFP

Medieval history is uncovered in Crawley

2012-01-18T10:43:00.000-05:00

Developers have discovered items dating back to medieval times during an archaeological dig in the town centre. Trenches have been dug at the Sussex House site in the first stage of its regeneration.

And contractors have found evidence that the site was being lived or worked on between the 11th and 16th centuries.

On January 9 work began on digging two trenches inside the car park and another two on the outskirts of the site, which is between High Street and Peglar Way.

In two of the trenches, which have been dug to a depth of about half a metre, six square post holes, a drainage ditch and a layer of iron work waste have been found.

Click here to read this article from the Crawley News

Archaeologists dig deep to ex-Hulme a Medieval past

2012-01-18T10:36:00.002-05:00

Hulme's history is often associated with the notorious Crescents or its vital role in the Manchester music scene.

But an archaeological dig is trying to unearth the inner-city district’s forgotten Medieval past.

Archaeologists will carry out a three-week excavation at Birley Fields in Hulme before a new university campus is built on the land.

One aim of the project is to find remains of a farm that could date back to the late Medieval period – thought to be the first time people lived in the area.

A team of archaeologists from Manchester Metropolitan University believe the foundations of hundreds of terrace houses built at the start of the industrial revolution also lie below Birley Fields.

Click here to read this article from the Manchester Evening News

At MIT, dine like a 14th-century nobleman

2012-01-18T10:29:00.000-05:00

MIT doesn’t seem like a place where you can dine on food from the Middle Ages. But this month, you could prepare, cook, and eat like a 14th-century nobleman.

For over a decade, during the Independent Activities Period between semesters, Massachusetts Institute of Technology has offered a noncredit class on “old food’’ from the region around the Mediterranean Sea. The idea came from conversations History Department chair Anne McCants, who teaches the class, had with a colleague about how little students know about daily life in the past, she says. “Both of us liked to cook and I was especially interested in nutrition and health of past populations, as well as the productive capacity of agricultural societies. So all of that came together to suggest a fun but informative IAP class using ancient and medieval recipes.’’

This year’s participants were a diverse dozen from the university’s various academic departments, including budding engineers, staff, and at least one bona fide student of history. The hands-on, half-day class took place in the modern kitchen of Next House, a student dormitory. Electric ovens stood in for wood fires.

Click here to read this article from the Boston Globe

How the Bible Became a Book

2012-01-17T10:18:00.000-05:00

Enter any North American hotel room, pull open the drawer next to the bed, and you will encounter a remnant of late-medieval culture: a single-volume Bible. Mass-produced as a small book with tissue-thin pages, this form of Bible was actually a medieval invention, intended to make Scripture relatively uniform and more widely available. Before the 13th century, however, the Bible as a physical object was very different from its modern counterpart. Bibles could be assembled in any order, incorporate only some of the books thought necessary to a Bible today, and even include added "non-biblical" texts completely unfamiliar to the modern reader. In fact, the texts that were thought to comprise the Bible were flexible for centuries, as the composition of the biblical "canon" (from the Greek word for "rule") was debated in both Judaism and Christianity and some writings were eventually rejected as apocryphal.

Early in the history of Christianity, the most important units of Scripture were the individual books of the Bible, such as the books of Moses, the Prophets or the Gospels, which could be grouped together in various combinations and sometimes in differing orders depending on how they were read aloud in the liturgy. Most people did not own a Bible. It would have been difficult for ordinary Christians (who were probably illiterate and thus knew biblical texts only from hearing them read aloud) to discern which of the stories and explanations they heard were canonical parts of the Bible, and which were interpretations or additions.

Click here to read this article from the Huffington Post

Becoming the People of the Talmud: Oral Torah as Written Tradition in Medieval Jewish Cultures wins 2011 National Jewish Book Award

2012-01-17T10:03:00.000-05:00

A University of Pennsylvania professor has been recognized by the Jewish Book Council for her work this past year.

Last Monday, Talya Fishman was awarded a 2011 National Jewish Book Award for her book Becoming the People of the Talmud: Oral Torah as Written Tradition in Medieval Jewish Cultures.

“I feel numbed with honor,” Fishman said when she found out about the award. “I am enormously gratified and mostly feel very lucky.”

For her work, Fishman received the Nahum M. Sarna Memorial Award, which is part of the annual award program’s scholarship category. This award had special significance for Fishman, who knew Sarna personally.

“Nahum Sarna was a really fine Bible scholar known for the breadth and accuracy of his scholarship,” Fishman said. “It is a high bar to be a scholar of his caliber and that makes this award especially meaningful.”

Fishman’s book attempts to solve the riddle of how the Talmud — a body of writing that preserves Jewish tradition and establishes guidelines on how to live life in Jewish society — shifted in meaning when it changed from oral transmission to written presentation. Researching and writing the book took Fishman 11 years.

Click here to read this article from the Daily Pennsylvanian

Click here to visit the Jewish Book Council website

Test post

2012-01-16T22:17:00.001-05:00

Test post

Medieval

Welsh author digs deep to find medieval origins of Thirty Days Hath verse

2012-01-16T21:00:00.000-05:00

It is one of the most popular and oft-repeated rhymes in the English language, serving to remind countless generations how many days there are in each month.

Now a Welsh author claims he has unearthed the medieval origins of the verse Thirty Days Hath September.

The rhyme has been passed down in oral tradition but Ceredigion writer and journalist Roger Bryan says he may have traced it as far back as 1425.

Two transcripts of the rhyme – one in the National Library in Wales in Aberystwyth and the other in the British Library in London – could hold the key to the rhyme’s ancient origins.

They were discovered by Mr Bryan while he was working on the second edition of his book on mnemonics, It’ll Come In Handy One Day.

The poem, revealed to the public for the first time in around 600 years, is in a handwritten volumecodex from the early 15th century, dating the written reference to 20 years either side of 1425.

Click here to red this article from this WalesOnline

Good Heavens! Oldest-Known Astrologer's Board Discovered

2012-01-16T20:52:00.000-05:00

A research team has discovered what may be the oldest astrologer's board, engraved with zodiac signs and used to determine a person's horoscope.

Dating back more than 2,000 years, the board was discovered in Croatia, in a cave overlooking the Adriatic Sea. The surviving portion of the board consists of 30 ivory fragments engraved with signs of the zodiac. Researchers spent years digging them up and putting them back together. Inscribed in a Greco-Roman style, they include images of Cancer, Gemini and Pisces.

The board fragments were discovered next to a phallic-shaped stalagmite amid thousands of pieces of ancient Hellenistic (Greek style) drinking vessels.

An ancient astrologer, trying to determine a person's horoscope, could have used the board to show the position of the planets, sun and moon at the time the person was born.

Click here to read this article by Owen Jarus from LiveScience

Medieval Jewish manuscripts discovered in Afghanistan include an unknown work by Saadia Gaon

2012-01-16T20:46:00.000-05:00

This much is known: rare, medieval Jewish manuscripts have been discovered along the fabled Silk Road in Afghanistan and are for sale.

Are they authentic? Scholars who have examined them say they are.

The rest — who found them, where they came from, whether there are more to unearth — remains a mystery.

But the discovery of the 200 or more documents, some in good condition and others crumpled or in fragments, has excited academic interest around the world.

“For the first time we have concrete evidence of Jewish existence (in Afghanistan), not only in the material sense of tombstones or household artifacts, but documents that (tell us) about the spiritual world of the people who lived there 1,000 years ago,” says Haggai Ben-Shammai, academic director of the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem.

Click here to read this article from the Toronto Star

Click here to read Medieval Jewish manuscripts discovered in Afghanistan from Medievalists.net