The Amateur Medievalist

mediumaevum:

Saint Olga (of Kiev)

It is a strange historical twist that the first “Russian” woman to be canonized in the Orthodox Church was a Viking warrior princess who spent much of her life as a pagan.

Olga earned her sainthood by becoming the first member of the house of Riurik, the dynasty that ruled European Russia and parts of Ukraine and Belorus for more than seven centuries (860s – 1598), to convert to Christianity. But the role of this battle maid in the spread of Christendom to the eastern Slavs is only part of her remarkable contribution to the history of Eastern Europe.

You can read the rest of the story about her here.

image: Baptism of Princess Olga by Sergei Kirillov. HQ

(via guthbrand)

nationalpost:

‘Nerdy’ teen finds over 365 Viking artifacts including 60 historic coins while exploring with metal detector
Danish museum officials say that an archaeological dig last year has revealed 365 items from the Viking era, including 60 rare coins.

Danish National Museum spokesman Jens Christian Moesgaard says the coins have a distinctive cross motif attributed to Norse King Harald Bluetooth, who is believed to have brought Christianity to Norway and Denmark.

Sixteen-year-old Michael Stokbro Larsen found the coins and other items with a metal detector in a field in northern Denmark. Stokbro Larsen, who often explores with his detector, said friends find him “a bit nerdy.” (AP Photo/Polfoto/Stokke Brothers)

(via fuckyeahvikingsandcelts)

demonagerie:

Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Latin 16169, details of f. 134. Albertus Magnus, De animalibus. 14th century

caravaggista:

My paper about Aachen, the Dome of the Rock, and Theodulf’s Oratory is turning into a theological paper.

And around the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind: the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like an eagle in flight. And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say,

“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty,
who was and is and is to come!”

And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying,

“Worthy are you, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they existed and were created.”

historical-nonfiction:

On Jan. 28, 1393, during a riotous wedding at the royal palace of Saint-Pol, Charles VI and five French nobles dressed up as wild men using linen costumes covered with pitch and hair and ranged among the guests, howling like wolves and daring them to guess their identities. One guest approached too closely with his torch and set them ablaze. The Duchess of Berry had the presence of mind to throw a cloak over the king, and one of the nobles managed to dive into a barrel of water. “The other four were burned alive their flaming genitals dropping to the floor, [the Monk of St. Denis] remarks with a sharp but on this occasion rather unsavoury eye for detail, releasing a stream of blood,” notes Jan R. Veenstra in Magic and Divination at the Courts of Burgundy and France. “Three of them, the count of Joigny, the bastard of Foix and Aymeri de Poitiers were deeply mourned; a fourth victim, Huguet de Guisay, was left wailing in agony for three days before he too expired, but he was not mourned, the Monk of St. Denis explains, since he was a vicious man and people were glad to see him perish.”

I’ll always reblog stuff about Charles VI.

(via somniumdantis)

mediumaevum:

Oooh, I like this:

Almost all medieval feast foods were conveyed to the mouth by elaborate, and often elegant, finger choreography…However, both pinky fingers were extended, never touching food or gravy or sauce, reserved as spice fingers. Dipped into the salt, sweet basil, cinnamoned sugar, or ground mustard seed, then raised to the tongue, the spice fingers displayed a feaster’s digital finesse while adding another sensual pleasure: touch of food’s texture.

Some modern polite extensions of pinky fingers, serving no physical pur­pose, are cultural remembrances of medieval spice fingers. In fact, a medieval clerical encouragement for use of the fork was to eliminate the pleasure of touch. The fork was generally ignored until the late 16th century as a super­fluous and foppish metallic intrusion between sensual food and willing mouth. 

-Historian Madeleine Pelner Cosman

image: The Marriage Feast At Cana, traditionally attributed to Hieronymus Bosch

Typically I leave 19th century US history alone, but yesterday as I was outside around 5 p.m., I heard the first ear-splitting screech of the tornado sirens in my little mid-Missouri town.

Around 4:30 p.m. on this day in 1880, Missouri was ravaged by a series of stateside tornadoes. One hundred and fifty one people were killed. One in ten residents of Marshfield, Mo. were killed, and the entire town was razed.

Up until the late 19th century, tornado warnings weren’t issued because authorities feared public panic.

I feel like the Poles don’t get a lot of love in the medieval niche. So here’s a contribution.

Today in history, Bolesław Chrobry (967 - 1025) was crowned in Gniezno, becoming the first King of Poland. He’s regarded as one of the most successful monarchs of the Piast dynasty, which began with a semi-legendary figure c. 800 (as most early medieval dynasties seem to do) and ended with Casimir the Great in 1370.

Some of King Boleslaw “the Brave“‘s achievements include expanding and consolidating the Polish realm’s territories and military, establishing the “Prince’s law” that formed a national economy to fund Poland’s infrastructure, organizing villages to specialize in producing 30 different goods and originating an independent Polish church structure with a see operating out of Gniezno, with papal and imperial sanction.

King Boleslaw died in 1025 and was most likely interred at Poznań in a double tomb with his father. His son was immediately crowned afterward.