Tag: medieval
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The Early Medieval Nicknames Bot
To help keep me sane during this heat, and as part of my Very Serious Research™ (read: pissing about with a dictionary and writing down the occasionally funny name), I have constructed a new Twitter bot (@botmedieval), which you can follow here. The bot feeds off my database of nicknames that I am currently in…
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‘Anglo-Saxon’ England – An Introduction
The ‘Anglo-Saxons’ inhabited what would become England following the fall of Rome, from c.410 up until the invasion of the Normans in 1066. Their lives covered some momentous social changes – the widescale (re?)adoption of Christianity, the emergence of an idea of ‘England’, invasion and occupation by the ‘Vikings’ and finally the introduction of feudalism.…
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The Anglo-Saxon Timelines Game
I’ve just found a fun little web game revolving around Anglo-Saxon history – a great excuse to take a break! You can access it here: https://timelines-ruby.vercel.app/. Simply enter ‘Anglo-Saxons’ into the search bar and continue – there’s a whole wealth of options to explore, from Hinduism to the Battle of Waterloo, but I’m even worse…
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Herman ‘the Crippled’ – Early Medieval Disability
This week, I want to take a quick look at Herman Contractus (elsewhere Hermann of Reichenau). An eleventh-century German Benedictine monk, Herman is the subject of Berthold of Reichenau’s Chronicle, the author of his own chronicle, and an impressive portfolio of music. Despite his contributions, Herman is most remarkable for his Medieval Latin nickname contractus.…
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England’s Immigrants Database (1330-1550)
England has always been a country built on immigration, from the Romans to the ‘Anglo-Saxons’ and the Vikings. The England’s Immigrants 1330-1550 database provides an amazing way to visualise and explore the practical bottom-up evidence for this in later medieval period, and is available here: https://www.englandsimmigrants.com/ This resource has painstakingly combed through a wide range…
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The Dig: A Review
★★★★☆ Beautifully shot and movingly emotional, The Dig is an impressive example of how the process of history and archaeology can be adopted for drama, even if the film has a tendency to run away with that drama. Making a drama about archaeology is an almost knife-edge impossibility, for the simple reason that real day-to-day…
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St Anskar, ‘Apostle of the North’
This week we look at the Vita Ansgarii, the Life of Anskar – a hagiographical account of the Frankish mission to convert the ‘Vikings’ in Scandinavia to Christianity during the 9th century and St Anskar, nicknamed ‘The Apostle of the North’.#ComissionsEarned this post includes Amazon Affiliate links – as an Amazon Associate I earn from…
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River Kings by Cat Jarman: A Review
Cat Jarman’s new book River Kings is a huge triumph, not only for the study of the Vikings in England more broadly, but for the accessibility of the archaeological method, and the outstanding uses it can be put to. #ComissionsEarned (This post includes Amazon Affiliate links) – As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying…
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Deconstructing the Echo Chamber – why arguing with the ridiculous is important
In my line of study, you end up coming across a broad range of very unpalatable opinions. The ‘Anglo-Saxons’ and ‘Vikings’ are tied up within a toxic popular imagination of Nationalism and White Supremacy, built partially on deliberate misinterpretation of history and mythology. Archaeology has been misused for political aims for centuries, and I have…
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The Prittlewell Prince
Introduction Archaeology is about much more than treasure-hunting but, inevitably, popular attention tends to be drawn towards rich and magnificent finds. Within an early medieval context, the ‘Princely’ burials of the Mid Saxon period are particularly notable in this context. The Sutton Hoo Mound 1 ship-burial is deservedly famous and the most impressive example, but…