No matter how many novels and films have dealt with his figure, some in a fantastic tone, others more realistic, it is very difficult to establish King Arthur’s degree of historicity. Some historians consider him to be more myth than anything else, while others believe they see a series of authentic characters that could have […]
Middle Ages
Posted inArt, Middle Ages
The Chartres Cathedral’s great labyrinth
About 80 kilometers southwest of Paris stands the city of Chartres, one of whose main cultural attractions is its Gothic cathedral built between 1194 and 1220. It was built in the same place where other churches and cathedrals had been before, the first one around 360 A.D., all of them destroyed by fires: the first […]
Posted inMiddle Ages, Modern Era
The High Court of Chivalry, a medieval institution still active in the United Kingdom
Heraldry is the science of the coat of arms, the “art of explaining and describing the coats of arms of each lineage, city or person” (apart from making ostentation and self-praise). It is a science that dates back to the Middle Ages, since it was then that this type of identity representations were born, and […]
Posted inMiddle Ages
The Great Taboo, the 240 square kilometer area sealed for eight centuries where the tomb of Genghis Khan is believed to be
The national literary work par excellence of Mongolia is the Secret History of the Mongols, of which the author is unknown, but it is known to have been composed between 1227 and 1228, shortly after the death of Genghis Khan. The original document is not preserved, but a copy a century later and written in […]
Posted inMiddle Ages
Battle on the Ice, the medieval battle fought on a frozen lake
If you haven’t already watched Sergei Eisenstein’s movie, Alexander Nevsky, I recommend that you look for it and watch it, regardless of whether it’s a 1938 black and white film or not. Not only because this director’s titles are still visually fascinating three quarters of a century later, but also because, after reading this article, […]
Posted inMiddle Ages
How two Byzantine princesses scandalized Europe by using a fork
A few years ago I was invited to dinner by some Bengali friends and when we sat down what was my surprise to see that there was a knife but no fork, even though the menu was based on rice and chicken. They used their hands to eat it and, wherever you go, do what […]
Posted inMiddle Ages
The plan of Saint Gall, the largest known architectural drawing of the High Middle Ages that was never built
The abbey of Saint Gall ( Sankt Gallen in German) was founded in the year 613 in the town that today bears his name in Switzerland by an Irish monk, Gallus of Hibernia. It would be one of the main Benedictine monasteries in Europe for many centuries. It flourished under the patronage of Pepin the […]
Posted inMiddle Ages
Gutisko Razda, the language spoken by the Visigoths
Visigoths were a branch of the Goths, who in turn belonged to the East Germanic tribes that between 600 and 300 BC migrated from Scandinavia to the region between the Oder and Vistula rivers. Some researchers believe that the Visigoths are the same people as the Thervingi, as the sixth century AD historian Jordanes says […]
Posted inCulture, Middle Ages
The Missal of Silos, the oldest European book made of paper
Egyptians wrote on papyrus, a material made from the plant of the same name (Cyperus papyrus) that grows on the banks of the Nile, before the 30th century BC. Later, during the Greco-Roman antiquity, the use of parchment became popular, made from sheep or goat skins tanned and polished to allow the fixing of the […]
Posted inMiddle Ages
Christine de Pizan, the first professional female writer in the Late Middle Ages and a forerunner of feminism
The honor of being a pioneer, of paving the way to something, is usually much disputed. Today we are going to see a female case, that of the considered first female professional writer in the western world, an honour that tradition bestows on the Venetian Christine de Pizan. Her legacy would have a considerable influence […]
