Life in the Middle Ages

 Much of what we know about medieval building techniques is due to the so-called sketchbook of Villard de Honnecourt.  We know very little a...

 We have now only a tiny fraction of the documents that existed during the Middle Ages.  Many of those losses took place during the medieval...

 When authors decide to write historical fiction about a strong woman of the pre-modern period, they tend to go for the old favorites.  How ...

 Many of western Europe's languages are derived from Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, plus the regional variations like Sici...

 We think of medieval churches as made of stone, as indeed most of them were.  But stone churches always needed wood as well.  The scaffoldi...

 As I discussed in an earlier post , Ethiopia was predominantly Christian during the Middle Ages, with its own stories, for example, of mira...

 There were many ways for women to show their religiosity in the Middle Ages. The most obvious of course was by becoming a nun, entering a m...