Life in the Middle Ages

 We are now in the season of Lent, the 40 days leading up to Easter .  Forty days is always a significant period in the Bible; Noah after al...

 As a historian, I study real medieval people, but my medieval-themed fantasy is mostly populated by people who, I hope, will immediately en...

 We take paper for granted.  It's all around us, piling up on the desk or table (or chairs or floor...) in the form of memos, magazines,...

 It's easy to think of countries as self-evident units.  After all, England was a country in the Middle Ages, with its borders pretty mu...

 Russia is not usually considered part of medieval Europe, but its history is closely tied to the countries to the west.  For that matter, i...

 Three years ago this spring, the cathedral of Notre Dame burned .  This was a heartbreaking loss of a cathedral that had stood in the middl...

 Iceland is a parliamentary democracy, established on an island with a lot of volcanoes (a source of geothermal heat and electricity), one o...