The good, the bad and the downright ugly of Medieval History
Before we get into the nitty gritty of this particular topic, I would like to apologise for my somewhat extended absence! I've been busy doing nothing as they say. So while I do my best to get back into writing more bits for this blog, please accept this as something of an apology as we … Continue reading Theobald of Bec: Morality and Divided Loyalties
As much as I wish that I could claim the title as wholly original, credit must be given to Simon Jenkins piece in The Guardian in 2008 that called Kempley 'England's Sistine Chapel'. However it is a title that is more than deserved. After having been dragged out of bed by my family and carted around Gloucestershire, … Continue reading St Mary’s Church, Kempley; ‘England’s Sistine Chapel’
Worcester Manuscript (D) 924: "Here King Edward died at Farndon in mercia; and very soon, 16 days after, his son Ælfweard died at Oxford; and their bodies lie at Winchester. And Æthelstan was chosen as king by the Mercians and consecrated at Kingston [Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey]; and he gave his sister across the sea to the … Continue reading Æthelstan, King of the English
The Third Crusade captured the imaginations of its contemporaries and has continued to be perhaps the most famous of all the crusades in the public mind. When you think of crusaders, to most people the image of Richard the Lionheart immediately spring to mind, perhaps Philip Augustus and Frederick I as well. So why did … Continue reading National/Personal Rivalries in the Third Crusade: Richard I goes tête-à-tête with Philip II Augustus
The twenty-two-year period that this post looks at were, I think it safe to say, not only years of extreme difficulty and hardship for William and Normandy, but perhaps years that while we cannot say for certain they shaped him completely, they must have helped forge him into the Conqueror of popular imagination: a hard … Continue reading The Survival of Duke William II in Normandy: 1035-57
‘This Hrolf was so big that no horse could carry him, which is why he was given the name Göngu-Hrolf. The earls of Rouen and the kings of England are descended from him.’ Orkneyinga Saga So in my last post (How do you solve a problem like Rollo?) I wrote a few very brief introductions to … Continue reading Rollo, first Count of Rouen: A saga of sorts
For this post I thought I would do something a little different: examine just a few of the issues surrounding three of the sources you will come across if you do any amount of digging into the Norman past, and why despite the prolific amount written about him, we can say nearly nothing about Rollo … Continue reading How do you solve a problem like Rollo?
"Here died Alfred, Æthelwulf's offspring, six days before the Feast of All Hallows. He was king over all the English race except that part of which was under Danish control, and he held that kingdom twenty-eight-and-a-half years. And then Edward, his son, succeeded to the kingdom." Such is the entry for 899 in the A … Continue reading Edward the Elder, King of the Anglo-Saxons
"Then his brother Alfred, Æthelwulf's offspring, succeeded to the kingdom of Wessex. And one month later King Alfred with a small troop fought at Wilton against the whole raiding-army, and for long time in the day put them to flight, and the Danish had possession of the place of slaughter." It's part 7 of the … Continue reading Ælfrǣd the Great, King of Wessex
From August 1189 until the 12th July 1191, the port city of Acre, located on its peninsula in the Gulf of Haifa, had been besieged. First by a somewhat ragtag band of approximately 3000 men led by the technically still king of Jerusalem Guy de Lusignan, then from April and June, Philip II Augustus of … Continue reading “A Vicious Man”: Understanding the Massacre at Acre
Josue Wigornensis 