Though my ability to feed my family depends entirely on humankind’s affinity for written communication, I’m often surprised by the power of words. Case in point: the developing brouhaha between Hungary and Romania over a plaque tacked onto a statue of King Matthias (right). The monument is located in the Romanian town of Cluj, where […]
Tags:diplomacy·Hungary·King Matthias·Medieval history·politics·Romania
Modern slang is full of gastronomical synonyms for money: dough, bread, cabbage, cake. Notably absent from the long list, however, is a foodstuff that once actually functioned as a form of currency: the humble eel, a traditional English delicacy often served in jellied form. Nine centuries ago or thereabouts, eels were more than just a […]
Tags:currency·economics·eels·England·fish·food·Medieval history
Putting the finishing touches on a long-gestating major project this a.m., so just a quickie before I get back to ironing out some word-choice matters. The graph above comes from the much buzzed-about paper estimating that per-capita GDP in late Medieval England was around $1,000 in 1990 dollars—an estimate that, if accurate, would mean that […]
Tags:agriculture·animals·England·horses·Medieval history·oxen
We’ve been lassoed into some emergency parenting today, and Microkhan Jr. is tugging on the hem of our deel as we type these very words. So let us just quickly share with you two things that bring much gladness to our collective heart: the above Donny Hathaway gem, an Afro-Cuban spin on “The Ghetto,” and […]
Tags:Donny Hathaway·Genghis Khan·Jamukha·Medieval history·Mongolia·music·R&B
Living in Europe during the Middle Ages was certainly no picnic, given the abundance of horrid diseases, the precariousness of the food supply, and the constant threat of having one’s arms lopped off by a passing knight. Yet how much agony and anxiety did the denizens of Medieval fiefdoms really experience? Not bloody much, given […]
In the midst of our annual Thanksgiving pigout, we’ve often justified our gluttony on the grounds that the ensuing expansion of our girth really shouldn’t be frowned upon by society. After all, isn’t the disapproval of fatness of a modern phenomenon, egged along by the Fitness Industrial Complex? In Medieval times, we tell ourselves, our […]
A pal of ours recently quipped that he’s always had a yen to visit Mozambique, albeit because he’s always dreamed of traversing the sandy beaches of the Bazaruto Archipelago. No, our friend is attracted to the nation for a single, simple reason: he digs flags that feature weapons, and Mozambique’s official banner certainly qualifies. Given […]
Tags:animals·bears·flags·Medieval history·Russia·Yaroslav the Wise·Yaroslavl Oblast
A pal of ours is on jury duty this week, and reminded us of one of the great pleasures of the process (at least in New York): getting to view Enter the Jury Room on your first morning. Narrated by the late Ed Bradley, the short film is surprisingly witty and informative, especially for those […]
Tags:Burma·crime·Ed Bradley·Enter the Jury Room·law·Medieval history·movies·trial by ordeal
We can’t say we’re utterly convinced as to the verisimilitude of the Children’s Crusade. But there is, at the very least, a primary source. And it doesn’t mince words: About the time of Easter and Pentecost,without anyone having preached or called for it and prompted by I know not what spirit, many thousands of boys, […]
Following up on last week’s divorce theme, we thought we’d take a look back at pre-modern marital splits. While divorce may not have been common in the West until the advent of women’s lib, it was apparently a staple of several Asian and Middle Eastern societies for centuries: The outpouring of scholarly and popular works […]
Tags:divorce·Indonesia·Japan·Malaysia·marriage·Medieval history·Ottoman Empire
So you think Medieval knights were condemned to lug around unwieldy swords, while their Renaissance counterparts bounced around with mere wisps of metal weaponry? Dr. Timothy Dawson believes you’ve been grossly misinformed—a fact he expounds upon at length in one of Microkhan’s all-time favorite publications, the Journal of Western Martial Art: These results show that […]
Tags:history·Journal of Western Martial Arts·Medieval history·Renaissance history·weapons
Microkhan has a longstanding fascination with non-human primates, and so was intrigued to stumble upon the homepage of Kenneth Gouwens, a history professor at UConn. One of Gouwen’s specialties seems tailor-made for us: “Distinctions drawn between humans and simians in the Renaissance and in our own era.” Alas, Microkhan wasn’t able to locate any of […]
Tags:Aberdeen Bestiary·lions·Medieval history·monkeys·primates·tigers
Have plague-infected rats (as well as their attendant fleas) gotten a bad rap in the history books? A pair of Georgia-based geographers think so. Their rather unconventional theory is that an unknown viral condition, rather than bubonic plauge, was responsible for Europe’s Black Death: “The Black Death went so fast, but we knew bubonic plague […]
Tags:Black Death·bubonic plague·Hong Kong·medicine·Medieval history
