Sep 23De Re MilitariDon’t Wage War without It Before Sun Tzu’s ‘The Art of War’ reached the West, the leading book on how to wage war was a book called ‘Concerning Military Affairs’ by Flavius Vegetius Renatus. This was also known by its Latin name ‘De Re Militari.’ History of the Book Renatus wrote this book to…History3 min readHistory3 min read
Sep 11Another Monk Gone WildAn Abbot, No Less In the early 1300’s, the abbot of Malmesbury Abbey was a man named John of Tintern. By 1343, he was going on the run from King Edward’s men. How did he get there? The Financial Crimes Prior to 1330, Tintern had been accused of stealing 10,000 pounds (adjusted for…History1 min readHistory1 min read
Sep 7Opus Teutonicum: The Mirror Image of Opus AnglicanumHow To Save Money and Have a Cool Looking Altar Opus Teutonicum was a type of embroidery that was popular in Germany, especially in Lower Saxony. (Germany had a weird history of coming apart and joining again, so let’s just call it the German-speaking part of the Holy Roman Empire…History1 min readHistory1 min read
Aug 27Painting with Needles: Opus AnglicanumAs you may recall, St. Walpurga was supposed to have learned a particular type of embroidery, called Opus Anglicanum, or ‘English Work.’ This is some truly beautiful and elaborate stuff that has to be seen to be believed. There is an exhibit of them at the V & A museum…History Of Culture3 min readHistory Of Culture3 min read
Aug 20What Your Protagonist’s Child Played With In Your Historical NovelChildren have been playing since before there were people, and the moment our species evolved enough ingenuity to craft (which may, again, predate our current form) we started making toys for children to play with. And, honestly? Those toys have changed only slightly over the millennia. …History Of Culture3 min readHistory Of Culture3 min read
Aug 9More Kobolds!Don’t you just hate it when you write a post and then discover more good stuff on the subject of your post? It keeps happening to me. In this instance, I got a book called ‘Hausgeister!’ It is beautifully illustrated, but what really stuck out was the information about the…History3 min readHistory3 min read
Aug 6Bombeck Vs. Rodabaugh on MendingOr How the Grass is Always Greener over the Septic Tank Erma Bombeck hated mending clothes. She wrote a whole article about how she went to great lengths to avoid it. Most tellingly, when she wrote an article about women losing themselves and thinking they had no talent, she ended…Sewing5 min readSewing5 min read
Jul 23Did We Think Insane People Were All Possessed?Hippocrates Disagreed. Early Thoughts He and his fellow Hippocratic physicians wrote that people who promised that their temple ritual would cure you of your illness were quacks. Of course, what that means is that for all we venerate Hippocrates, many of his contemporaries ignored him. Though Celsus gave Hippocrates some credence, at…History3 min readHistory3 min read
Jul 13Middle Ages: The Golden Age of FraudThe Middle Ages were indisputably violent. Something like 10% of deaths were due to murder in London alone, and we get plenty of wild court cases of murders and kidnappings. But that isn’t the only type of crime action available. It was stunningly easy for some folks to skim the…History4 min readHistory4 min read
Jul 12Researching Medieval FraudIt was an era rife with fraud, but I can’t seem to find the sources. I was looking for a podcast that I vaguely remember because I remembered it was about the Constantine Donation and how monks constantly faked deeds. Was it The Constant? Or am I conflating The Constant’s forensic series with something from Gone Medieval? Or History Hit… Finding sources is work. I will have to scour Academia.edu and poke around Medieval.net for where to start. There will be links to translations and translators, one hopes. The original studies have to be around here somewhere.History1 min readHistory1 min read
