Medieval Studies

Middle East & Islamic Studies Collection

www.library.cornell.edu

Medieval Songs

Medieval Songs

http://www.medieval.net/songs.htm

Medieval Sources

Medieval Sources

http://www.library.uiuc.edu/mdx/medstud/french.htm
http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~comitatu/teaching.html

Medieval Feasts

Medieval Feasts

Following the traditional standards of the middle ages, we will begin the feast with soup that satisfied 14th century families. Wholesome and good, heated in our spectacular fireplace and served piping hot right out of the kettle. Bread will be served to soak up the broth. www.gasthausonthelake.com/Gasthaus-MedievalFeast.html

Medieval fight

Medieval fight

http://fightmedieval.com/

St. George

The Martyrdom of St. George in the South English Legendary (c. 1270-80)
Edited by E. Gordon Whatley, with Anne B. Thompson and Robert K. Upchurch
Originally Published in Saints' Lives in Middle English Collections
Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 2004
http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/whgeointro.htm

Medieval Jerusalem

Medieval Jerusalem

The year was 1095 CE, William the Conqueror had united England under one crown 30 years earlier.* The French had been dividing properties amongst their sons for generations, causing bloodshed between brothers over small pieces of real estate. In reaction, Pope Urban II expanded "The Truce of God", which outlawed fighting from Sunday to Wednesday, and banned fighting involving priests, monks, women, laborers and merchants on any day of the week. Italy was a collection of city-states, constantly being overrun by invading hordes, the latest of which were the Normans, who had just started to become "civilized".
There was also the Byzantine empire, ruling from Constantinople, whose emperor at this time was Alexius Comnenus. To his East, the Turks were rapidly encroaching on his empire, and had begun attacking pilgrims on their way to - and in - Jerusalem, causing him great distress. He wrote to his friend Robert, the Count of Flanders, in 1093, telling him about supposed atrocities committed by the Turks on the Christian pilgrims, and Robert passed this letter on to Pope Urban II. Urban, an opportunist, saw this as a perfect way to solve some of his local problems. He personally promoted a Holy Crusade to reclaim the Holy Lands from the barbarian Turks. Thus, the First Crusade was launched in 1096 CE
.http://www.medievalcrusades.com/

Medieval writings

Medieval Writings

Welcome to new users of this site, and welcome back to those returning for another look. This constantly growing project revolves around the culture of the written word in the middle ages. There is information on what people wrote about, as well as what they didn't write about but evidently knew anyway, some discussions on the working methods and materials of writing and concepts of literacy, and a steadily growing set of examples of historic scripts from around the 5th to around the 16th century. That is a broad chronology for medieval, but is there to demonstrate certain continuities in the culture and practice of writing. There are interactive paleography exercises derived from writing samples either in my possession or that of others or in archival institutions. Some examples have been published in very ancient paleography books that represent the finest of scholarship but which unfortunately nobody seems to read any more. The others have been nutted out by the partnership we call Tillotson's Medieval Enterprises, which means the interpretations may not be so authoritative, but you may not find them anywhere else. The project continues to grow, so bookmark the site so that you can return at leisure to explore around it.
http://medievalwriting.50megs.com/writing.htm

St. Francis bibliography

St. Francis bibliography

http://moses.creighton.edu/harmless/bibliographies_for_theology/Medieval_5.htm

Strange Bayeux

Strange Bayeux

http://medievalwonka.ytmnd.com/
http://medievaljumparound.ytmnd.com/
http://yeoldebookstorecrash.ytmnd.com/

Medieval Cyberspaces

Medieval Cyberspaces

Teachers are always looking for places for their students to explore. Here are a few places found in Medieval Cyberspace. If you find something interesting at one of the sights let us know and we will included it our upcomming medieval treasure hunt.
http://members.aol.com/tmatrust/places.html

Medieval Village

Welcome to the web site of The Crossroads Project, an initiative to build an ecologically sustainable community, with excellent facilities for medieval activities.
Our goal is to build a medieval village on our property at Yass, New South Wales, Australia. We wish to foster traditional crafts and skills, establish partnerships with a variety of national organisations for pre-industrial crafts, for instance in blacksmithing and embroidery.
Crossroads will provide craft workshops and camping facilities for community groups, artisans and the public.
http://www.crossroads.org.au/

Medieval Christ

Medieval clothing

Medieval clothing

The few roads that still existed were in a bad state, bridges were scarce, and brigands were common. For this reason during the Dark Ages, which lasted until about 1000 A.D., populations were tightly bound to the land surrounding the feudal lord's castle. People moved about only when there were festivals in other cities. These were the only occasions on which people could buy or look at different goods and have a chance to sell their own food or objects and fabrics made for sale. Fear controlled people�s lives and induced them to ask for protection from powerful warriors who had constructed well-defended castles, or from monasteries, which did not have soldiers but did have thick walls to hide behind. Life was hard, and , people thought little of clothing. Clothes were often made at home and were often rough and shapeless. Trousers, tunics and shawls were used to keep away the cold. The shawls were made of wool or fur and put over the shoulder. Most Europeans were dressed like today�s Benedictine monks, except for men�s trousers. Shoes were leather wrapped around the foot. Colors were plain; they were shades of gray, brown, dark blue and red. Conical hats were commonly worn.
This was a pyramidal society because the classes of people were in a shape of a pyramid.. with the kings and queens at the top of the pyramid (and were few in number) down to the peasants (who were many in number). In the middle were feudal lords, clerics, and others, such as vassals.

http://www.kyrene.org/schools/brisas/sunda/ma/1adele.htm

Chansons medievaux

Chansons medievaux

Recherches:
The following is an html version of my PhD dissertation, submitted as part of the requirements for the doctorate in systematic musicology from the Faculty of Music at the University of Western Ontario. Apart from minor corrections and changes in formatting it is unchanged and unrevised, so the research and bibliography are current only to 1994. The music examples were originally drawn by hand, and in order to make them available I scanned the printed sheets and converted them to gif images, which are viewable by clicking the appropriate links, either through the table of contents below, or from the main text.

The aim of this study is to lay the groundwork for an eventual codification of musical form and style in the troubadour songs. To that end, it concentrates on two of the broadest musical parameters, form and tonal structure. A new catalogue of all attributed songs is provided with the study, which is intended to remedy the deficiencies of Gennrich's, the only complete one available until now. It is based on descriptive and logical, rather than historical, principles, and the graphing procedure employed is designed to provide more information than the standard ones, by showing connections at the sub-phrase level. The songs are grouped into five large categories, based on the kind of phrase repetition found in their musical forms, and these categories then serve as a tool in the detailed examination of the nature and role of musical form in the repertoire. It is found that the troubadours' acknowledged fascination with structure for its own sake, as evidenced in their versification, can also be seen in their musical forms. Indeed, there is an intimate and dynamic interaction between the two kinds of form, which can serve as a paradigm for the understanding of music/text relations in the canso. The analysis of selected examples demonstrates some of the many ways in which the troubadours created subtle and finely articulated formal designs in their music; this contradicts the view that they were unskilled as composers and relied only on simple standard formulas for their music.v
http://www.troubadours.vaninpiano.com/bibliography.htm

Alcoholic Drinks of the Middle Ages

Alcoholic Drinks of the Middle Ages

The intent of this writing is not to provide the reader with a recipe list, although recipes will be included in the text. What I hope to achieve is to provide a single, comprehensive source of documentation for all phases of the production of alcohol and its use in various drinks which can be used for competitions in the Arts and Sciences, or simply for personal knowledge. This type of information is often more difficult to find in our craft than it might be in many others and I hope that this will become a useful reference for all brewers and vinters.

To this end I have located what period sources that I could find (The Closet of Sir Kenelme Digbie Kt. Opened and Delightes for Ladies being excellent sources, as were others), as well as many others which are authoritative on the subject. The reader will find, herein, liberal doses of direct quotations from these writings, with the original sources credited, either directly in the text, or in associated footnotes. The footnotes will usually state only the author's name, the article or book referenced and the pages referenced. This will then refer to the complete bibliography. I have included a number of actual recipes throughout this writing, all of which are period recipes with the only exception being Mistrss Priscilka's recipe for Sake. Modifications can be made in these recipes as long as the materials used are correct for the type of drink which is being prepared the results should imitate the actual period beverage to within reasonable limits. Please note that modern tastes are generally quite different than those held in period and some modifications may be made simply so that oneself and one's friends will be willing to drink the finished product. Substitutions and modifications, however, have to be carefully chosen, so as not to change too much the overall character of the finished drink.

Procedures, however, are another matter entirely. I most heartily agree with Mistress Prisilka od Cervany Kamen (aka Priscilla Kucik), who recommends the use of period recipes along with modern preparation techniques¹. These techniques include cleanliness to the point of sterility and the use of non-porous airtight containers. Another point on the recipes, in the case of actual period recipes which have come down as they were originally written, I will repeat them in the same manner so that techniques, style and materials can be learned.

http://mysite.verizon.net/mshapiro_42/calcohol.html

A Guide to Medieval History Resources

A Guide to Medieval History Resources This guide focuses on the print and electronic resources on medieval history in the University of Auckland Library system. These resources will help you locate material you need to supplement your course reading, and to write assignments, research essays, dissertations and theses.

The guide is organised primarily into reference tools and primary and secondary source material such as bibliographies, guides, catalogues and indexes. The function of each type of resource is explained briefly, followed by a selection of items with the location and call number.
These lists are selective. Relevant Voyager searches are suggested to enable you to find additional resources of the same type.
http://www.library.auckland.ac.nz/subjects/hist/medievalresourcesguide.htm

Medieval Information

Medieval Information

In Medieval-Castles.org, we are proud to have launched our new site, The Medieval Times which contains more up-to-date information about the Middle Ages. It contains information about the Crusades, medieval warfare, medieval life, the most important castles and much more. http://medieval-castles.org/index.php

Medieval Christians and Muslims

Medieval Christians and Muslims
By: Gail Hinchion Mancini

A new chapter in the history of relations between Christians and Muslims is being revealed with the English translation of a 12th century manuscript by a Christian archbishop living in Baghdad.

The document, by the medieval Syrian bishop Dionysius Bar Salibi titled “A Response to Muslims,” has been translated from its original Syriac and Arabic and interpreted by Rev. Joseph Amar, professor of Classics at the University of Notre Dame.

Considered the longest and most comprehensive Syriac text to jointly examine the fundamental points of Muslim and Christian doctrine, it is unique among historic Syriac texts “for the amount of information it contains on the origins, history and doctrinal development of Islam,” says Father Amar.

The manuscript was written during a period when politics and religious relations in the Western world were defined by conflicts between the Byzantine empire and Arab invaders. A sample of that ongoing bitterness and its resonance today — was recalled recently when Pope Benedict XVI quoted statements by 14th century Emperor Manuel II Paleologus about violence and the Muslim religion.
www.nd.edu/~lumen/2007_02/MedievalChristiansandMuslims.shtml

Medieval Islamic Cultures

Medieval Islamic Cultures

• Animals
• Architecture
• Art
• Calligraphy
• Clothing
• Education
• Festivals and Entertainment
• Food and Farming
• Literature and Poetry
• Medicine, Health and Hygiene
• Music and Dance
• Science and Mathematics
• Sports and Recreation
• Travelers
• War, Warfare and Weapons
• Women, Marriage and Family

http://www.sfusd.k12.ca.us/schwww/sch618/Islam_New_Main.html

Jardins Medievaux

Jardins Medievaux

Créé en 1990, le Jardin Médiéval de Rodemack évoque «l’hortus conclusus » des châteaux forts. C’est un espace clos dont les zones cultivées forment des dessins géométriques. Chaque espace mis en culture est surélevé par rapport aux allées qui l’entourent. Il est délimité par un muret constitué de pavés. On y trouve quatre espèces :
- les plantes médicinales avec la bourrache, la pimprenelle, la camomille, la mélisse, la sauge,...
- les plantes condimentaires et aromatiques comme la patience des moines, l’estragon, la ciboule, la lavande, l’angélique, la sarriette, …
- les légumes et cultures vivrières ou utilitaires
- les fleurs avec les bleuets, les myosotis, les lupins, la reine marguerite… et la rose, fleur médiévale par excellence. Des arbres ou arbustes taillés sont plantés à certains endroits du jardin comme le cassissier, le néflier, le cerisier, …
www.avp-rodemack.com/monsite/jardin.html

Moyen Age en lumière

Moyen Age en lumière

Partez à la découverte des images inédites du Moyen Âge!
En puisant parmi les 120 000 images des 25000 manuscrits numérisés dans les bibliothèques de France depuis 10 ans, une équipe de médiévistes renommés a composé pour vous 10 parcours thématiques pour découvrir autrement la vie des hommes au Moyen Âge. La sélection d'images présentée ici est renouvelée chaque jour.
Le Moyen Âge en lumière est le résultat d'une conjonction de partenaires et de moyens sans précédent : un éditeur multisupport (nouveau monde éditions) qui a conçu, outre ce site Web, un DVD-ROM grand public et un CD-ROM scolaire, un éditeur papier qui publie un beau livre illustré (Fayard), une équipe scientifique qui s'attache à photographier les miniatures(CNRS-IRHT), un mécène (Fondation des Banques CIC) et la Direction du Livre du Ministère de la Culture qui soutient ce programme depuis l'origine
www.moyenageenlumiere.com/index.cfm?fa=intro

medieval jewish

Medieval jewish center

Sources and history

www.dinur.org/resources/resourceCategoryDisplay.aspx?categoryID=439&rsid=478

Medieval Horse Guild

Medieval Horse Guild

The Medieval Horse Guild is a group of horsemen and horsewomen who occasionally cast off the trappings of modern life and cloak themselves in the pageantry of the Medieval Period. As a group they engage in a variety of activities ranging from the study of the techniques of horsemanship in the Middle Ages to participating in parades and battle recreations.In parades, the Horse Guild attempts to provide a colorful spectacle which will delight the parade onlookers. Members are encouraged to make their own medieval costumes and armor as well as tack for their mounts that is appropriate to the period being portrayed.The Horse Guild is affiliated with other, unmounted, medievalist groups, notably the Markland Medieval Mercenary Militia. Together, they participate in recreations of famous historical battles.Equestrian games are a popular activity of the Horse Guild. These are modern adaptations of the medieval equestrian games used to instill in the young knights the skills they would need to carry into battle. The modern versions of the games are carefully designed for the safety of both horse and rider but still serve the same purpose that they served for the knights; riding skill and confidence and a feeling of cooperation between man and horse that is essential for the enjoyment of horseback riding.

go to the site.
www.horseguild.com/

medieval trees

Medieval trees

Medieval trees of virtues and vices depicted a spectrum of human qualities, from the basest earthliness (capital vices) to heavenly righteousness (cardinal virtues). They provided a structure in which monks could interpret and contemplate the associations between each abstraction. In the trees of Beinecke MS 416, chief virtues and vices are linked to subordinate traits, which make explicit the connections between various good and evil qualities. In this framework, monks learned to associate minor sins with greater vices and good qualities with principal virtues.
The seven clusters of fruit on the tree of virtues and tree of vices have a biblical origin: the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit found in Galatians 5.22. In our diagrams the fruits and branches of the tree of virtues point to toward Heaven, while the withering branches of the tree of vices droop toward Hell.
go to the site:
http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/speculum/3v-4r-virtues-and-vices.html

Medieval Hawk

Medieval Hawk

The hawk has great courage in a small body; its determination arms it better than its claws do. It is called a robber bird because it greedily snatches food from other birds. The hawk is known as a harsh parent, refusing to feed its young when they are able to fly, but rather beating them with its wings to drive them out of the nest. This is done to teach them to catch prey while they are still young, so that they will not become lazy when they are adults. There are two kinds of hawks: wild hawks, which catch and eat domestic birds; and tame hawks, which return the wild birds they catch to their master. When its feathers become old, the hawk heats its wings in a warm wind to loosen the feathers and make them fall out; if there is no warm wind, the hawk beats its wings to heat them.
http://bestiary.ca/beasts/beast249.htm

Recreational Medievalism

Recreational Medievalism

Medieval cookery recipes:

http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Medieval.html

Medieval Women

Medieval Women: sources

Dr. Vess's Medieval Monasticism Web site contains quite a bit of information on women in the medieval world. See especially the pages on Benedictine Monasticism, Anglo-Saxon Monasticism, Merovingian Monasticism, Medieval monastic women, and Irish monasticism for materials related to women in the Middle Ages.
The Beguines
Feminae Medieval Women and Gender Index great place to do a bibliographic search. indexes articles relating to several geographic regions.
Medieval women page from Georgetown Labyrinth. several dead links. no longer actively maintained.
Monastic Matrix set of resources for the study of medieval monastic women.
Interactive Exploration of Medieval and Renaissance Women
Several primary sources relating to women in medieval Europe from the Internet Women's History Sourcebook
Monographs, articles and other resources on medieval women from Questia.
Dominion and Domination of the Gentle Sex: The Lives of Medieval Women a thinkquest site.

go to the site:
www.faculty.de.gcsu.edu/~dvess/ids/women/medwom.html

Medieval Christmas

Medieval Christmas: a tale
Our word Christmas is derived from the Middle English usage "Christ's Mass," and central to the celebration of the Nativity was the liturgical activity which had been established by the year 600, and did not change in the Middle Ages. In Medieval England there were, in fact, three Masses celebrated on Christmas Day. The first and most characteristic was at midnight (the Angel's Mass), catching up the notion that the light of salvation appeared at the darkest moment of the darkest date in the very depth of winter. The second Christmas Mass came at dawn (the Shepherd's Mass), and the third during the day (the Mass of the Divine Word). The season of Advent, the forty days of leading up to Christmas, was being observed in the Western Church by the year 500. St. Nicholas was a very popular Medieval saint, and his feast day came in Advent (6 December), but he did not play his part in Christmas as Santa Claus until after the Reformation.Also important in the celebration of Christmas was the banquet, which necessarily varied in sumptuosness with the resources of the celebrants. The menu varied with soups and stews, birds and fish, breads and puddings, but a common element was the Yule boar, an animal for those who could afford it or a pie shaped like a boar for more humble tables. Churches and houses were decorated with ivy, mistletoe, holly, or anything green, which remained up until the eve of Candlemass. The gift-giving of the season was represented by the New Year Gift, which continued a tradition of Roman origin. The later Christmas present was not part of a Medieval Christmas. The sorts of things that people might have done to entertain themselves at Christmas apart from eating is succintly summarized in a letter written by Margaret Paston on Christmas Eve 1459 after she had inquired how her Norfolk neighbour, Lady Morley, had conducted her household in mourning the previous Christmas, just after Lady Morley had been widowed:

"...there were no disguisings [acting], nor harping, luting or singing, nor any lewd sports, but just playing at the tables [backgammon] and chess and cards. Such sports she gave her folk leave to play and no other."
go to the site:
www.godecookery.com/mtales/mtales09.htm

Medieval Medecine

Medieval Medecine

The history of medicine, perhaps more than that of any other discipline or skilled occupation, illuminates broad social and cultural patterns of the period.To a medieval mind, the distinction between natural and supernatural was not always very clear. This shows in the perception of the causes of ailments, and the obscure treatments thought to help sick patients. The Catholic Church played a large role in development as well as management of medieval medicine. It contained it within bounds of one religion, disallowing most pagan healing practices.The underlying principle of medieval medicine were four humors - black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood. The balance of these four allowed for the well-being of a person.Medicine in itself developed. Based on some Greek and Near Eastern principles and embellished with the discoveries of the Middle Ages, it set the foundation for contemporary medicine.Medieval medicine, for most part, was very forgiving about who practiced and who healed. Clergy and laymen, men and women, were allowed to practice medicine. The extent of this practice was not limited all throughout the Middle Ages. The final unification came with the Black Death, when the need for doctors to heal the sick was stronger than any prejudice against their origin.The education system has developed in order to teach law and medicine to the willing. Guilds were created to allow crafts to prosper. The middle class of the society was in the making.

go to the site:
www.intermaggie.com/med/index.php

Medieval Houses

Medieval Houses of God, or Ancient Fortresses?

Investigations in Lalibela, Ethiopia, are revealing that Africa's most important historical Christian site is much older than previously thought. Up until now, scholars have regarded the spectacular complex of 11 rock-cut churches as dating from around A.D. 1200, but new survey work carried out by a British archaeologist suggests that three of the churches may have originally been "built" half a millennium earlier as fortifications or other structures in the waning days of the Axumite Empire.

"The discovery will completely change the way historians perceive the origins of Africa's most famous indigenous Christian site," says David Phillipson, professor of African archaeology at Cambridge University. His research, to be fully published next year, suggests that two of the churches, those of Merkurios (a local Ethiopian saint) and the archangel Gabriel, were initially carved out of the rock as some sort of elite palace or fortress complex. A third structure created in that same early period later became the church of Danagel (the Virgin Martyrs). The Merkurios and Gabriel structures were built in highly defensible positions and may well have been the core of a fortified complex created during the politically unstable period that saw the disintegration of the Axumite Empire in the mid-seventh century A.D. At its peak in the third to sixth centuries A.D., that empire controlled much of northern Ethiopia and Eritrea, and at times Yemen and even part of the Nile Valley.go to the site:
www.archaeology.org/0411/newsbriefs/ethiopia.html

Medievaraldic Pendants

Medieval Heraldic Pendants

Click on the thumbnails for a much larger image! Below are both hanging pendants ,leather stud type, and rivetted types. As requested I have left a link on the bottom of the page to the previously sold pendants.
go to the site:
www.theinterestingshop.com/pages/heraldicpendants.html