Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 7 - 2023 i Medieval World Culture & Conflict Magazine

The Middle Ages are full of mystery! This issue brings attention to some of the most strange and captivating texts, images, and objects that have fascinated medievalists and broader audiences for generations. One of the theme articles, authored by a leading expert, features the so-called Voynich Manuscript – one of the most bizarre and inexplicable illustrated medieval books, written in a script that is yet to be deciphered. Another article looks at the famous Shroud of Turin – one of Christianity's most famous and contested relics – which received intense attention and ritual celebration in the late Middle Ages. Other contributions explore the intriguing origin and context of the small ivory chess pieces known as the Lewis chessman, and the enigmatic murder of Conrad of Jerusalem. The latter reveals how…

THE CRADLE OF GOTHIC ART The Basilica of Saint-Denis is dedicated to Saint Dionysius (Denis in French), first bishop of Lutetia Parisiorum (the Latin name of the Roman city where Paris later developed). He was martyred in the third century on the hill of Montmartre, the Mons Martyrum, which took that name with reference to Dionysius and the martyrs Rusticus and Eleutherius, his companions. Hagiographic tradition has it that Dionysius, beheaded at Lutetia, carried his own head, separated from his body, preaching along the way and finding death only once he arrived at the place where he wanted to be buried. This place was the Gallo-Roman village of Catulliacum (present-day Saint-Denis), where, around 475, a martyrial shrine was built at the behest of Saint Geneviève and with the help of…

BEINECKE MS 408 If you Google “Voynich Manuscript,” you will find yourself in a corner of the internet full of alien abductions, seances, conspiracy theories, and secrets. You will stumble into heated debates between fellow obsessives who have devoted their lives to this codex. You will also find complex linguistic studies, mathematically sophisticated cryptology, relatively conclusive material analyses, and a surprisingly interesting bit of botany. With so much information available online, then, what's so mysterious about the Voynich Manuscript? As it turns out, quite a lot. The writing The text uses around 25 distinct and wildly unusual letterforms. Some resemble humanistic versions of Latin letters and numbers like [o], [a], [i], and [8]. Others are unique and utterly unfamiliar. Linguistics and computational analyses have identified patterns and a series of…

KILLING THE KING OF JERUSALEM The First Crusade in 1099 had been a brilliant success, culminating as it had with the capture of Jerusalem. By 1124, the County of Tripoli, the Principality of Antioch, the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and the County of Edessa had captured many important cities in the Holy Land, namely Beirut, Acre, Sidon, Tripoli, Homs, and Tyre. By the time of the Third Crusade, however, the Holy Land and the Crusader States looked very different. By 1187, Saladin, the sultan of Egypt, had captured Jerusalem and arrested Guy of Lusignan, the king of Jerusalem (though Guy would be released in 1189). It was this – the fall of Jerusalem and the arrest of Guy – that convinced Richard I of England take the cross and commit himself…

MILITARY INNOVATION, ART, AND ENGINEERING Whereas Italy was the epicentre of technological and cultural developments during the late medieval and early modern periods, Central Europe also experienced innovations. The spread of the paper mill north of the Alps, and the proliferation of scriptoria from Flanders down the Rhineland and into Swabia, led to the movable type printing press of Johannes Gutenberg in the mid-fifteenth century. The development of the Stromer paper mill just outside of Nuremberg in 1396 also coincided with a regional boom in the production of art. Innovators such as Albrecht Dürer, Martin Schongauer, and the mysterious “Master of the Housebook” exploited new techniques like drypoint and copper plate engraving, as well as simpler woodcut printing, to liberate themselves from the patronage of capricious princes and prelates. This…

The contest between the longbow and the crossbow was a key feature of Edward's campaign in 1346 and was to have a major impact in the decades afterwards. The longbow had originated in Wales and the English had likely first encountered it in many campaigns in the Welsh mountains and valleys. It was made principally from the wood of the Yew tree which gave the relatively light bow strength and a high degree of flexibility to allow a powerful draw and extensive range. These longbowmen in Wales and in England were professionals not serfs. A modern re-enactor has confirmed to me that he can fire 13 arrows in a minute at a maximum range of 350 yards. At 100 yards he said that an experienced bowman could hit a specific…

REVIVING THE KHWAREZMIAN EMPIRE The new sultan, Jalal al-Din Mangburni, withdrew south into Khorasan with the Mongols in hot pursuit. He succeeded in raising a new army in Afghanistan. This marked the beginning of a decade-long military campaign in which he fought off the Mongols on multiple occasions while trying to revive the Khwarezmian Empire in new lands beyond the Mongols' reach in the mountains and pastures of the southern Caucasus and eastern Anatolia. Casus belli: Massacre at Otrar The Khwarezmians stepped onto the stage of history in the late twelfth century when they gained their independence from the waning Seljuk Empire. At the height of his power at the outset of the thirteenth century, sultan Mohammed controlled Transoxiana, Afghanistan, and most of Iran. Unfortunately, he made the fatal mistake…

When King Cnut sailed to Denmark in 1019, did he bring a copy of Beowulf with him? That is the theory put forward in a new article on why the famous Old English poem was written in the early years of the eleventh century. Beowulf is only found in one copy: the Nowell Codex, which is now kept at the British Library. In his article, “Behold the Front Page: Cnut and the Scyldings in Beowulf,” the historian Richard North argues that this manuscript was at least partially written after Cnut became king of England in 1016. Moreover, the Norse leader and his entourage took a keen interest in the story, using it to develop a claim to the throne of Denmark. Set hundreds of years in the past, Beowulf tells…

HERALDRY ON THE BATTLEFIELD The problem is that the things that supposedly made heraldry so useful – that it was a system of individual symbols, utilizing bold designs visible at a distance – actually worked against its effectiveness. It might be conceivable that a knight would know the arms of his compatriots, especially in the early years, when the use of heraldry was limited to the great barons. As time went on and the number of men with their own heraldry increased, however, it must have become increasingly difficult for anyone to identify the arms of all of one's friends on a campaign. Added to this was the increasing complexity of those designs and the possibility that one's friend could become one's foe. In 1340, on the foggy battlefield of…

CHRISTIANITY'S MOST FAMOUS RELIC Gospel accounts of the Passion identify the linens used to prepare Christ's crucified body for burial, as well as their disposition when left behind after the Resurrection. But nowhere do they definitively describe the features of the so-called Shroud of Turin. This fourteen-foot sheet has been kept in Turin, Italy since 1578. It is most recognized for the ghostly images of the front and back of a gaunt, supine body, riven with deposits of blood. Believers maintain that these grisly markings transferred to the surface of the cloth when Christ's bloodied corpse was laid against it, thereby making it both an icon preserving his true likeness and a relic containing traces of his physical body. Parallel rows of scorch marks from a fire the cloth narrowly…

There are few primary and secondary sources that mention in great detail the Assassins. The chroniclers Ibn AlAthir, Ibn Al-Qalanisi, Usama ibn Munqidh, William of Tyre, and Arnold of Lübeck, along with the travellers Benjamin of Tudela and Ibn Jubayr, provide the greatest insight into the Syrian Assassins in this period. However, they often write with views skewed heavily one way or the other: the Muslim authors tend to write about the Assassins with extreme hatred or revulsion, and the Christian authors write with heavy undertones of fear and panic. Quite regrettably, no Syrian Assassin primary sources can be consulted – if they exist at all. Farhad Daftary is the most notable modern historian who has written on the topic in his volumes about the history of the Ismailis in…

PRISONER, DIPLOMAT, AND REGENT It is from her father that she reportedly gained her values of open-mindedness and tolerance. Upon her father's death, Sitt's half-brother al-Mansur, I later known by the regnal name al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, became caliph. Sitt supported her cousin to succeed; however, al-Hakim was proclaimed ruler first, and Sitt was placed under house arrest. Tensions at Court Relations between Sitt and al-Hakim were initially amicable, with al-Hakim gifting Sitt lands with an annual income of 100,000 gold dinars. Similar to other Fatimid royal women, Sitt endowed at least one mosque. She acted as a political advisor and mediator at her half-brother's court. However, alHakim's erratic governance caused the two to drift apart. The final rupture came in 1013 when al-Hakim chose a cousin, Abd al-Rahim ibn Ilyas,…

A MEDIEVAL FOOD MYSTERY In the Middle Ages, region and status determined which bread you ate. In the Netherlands, bread was I mainly made from rye and wheat. Rye, along with barley and buckwheat, were the grains of the people. They made compact breads because there is little or no gluten in these grains. Wheat was the grain of the wealthy. Small independent farmers in Europe often grew grains in the fields around their farms. Much land was owned by cities or lords. Farmers leased farmland for work, and paid the lord or city in money and/or a portion of their yields. Millers and bakers The grains from these fields went to mills in towns or the lord's castle to be processed into bread. Often the landlord did not operate…

An Artful Relic: The Shroud of Turin in Baroque Italy By Andrew R. Casper Penn State University Press, 2021 ISBN: 978-0271090399 The Assassins: A Radical Sect in Islam By Bernard Lewis Basic Books, 2003 ISBN: 978-1842124512 The Routledge History of Medieval Magic Edited by Sophie Page and Catherine Rider Routledge, 2021 ISBN: 978-1032093994 Religion and the Decline of Magic By Keith Thomas Penguin Books, 2003 ISBN: 978-0140137446 The Voynich Manuscript By Raymond Clemens Yale University Press, 2016 ISBN: 978-0300217230 Witchcraft and Magic in the Nordic Middle Ages By Stephen A. Mitchell University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013 ISBN: 978-0812222555 The Viking Way: Magic and Mind in Late Iron Age Scandinavia By Neil Price Oxbow Books, 2013 ISBN: 978-1842172605 The Holy Shroud: A Brilliant Hoax in the Time of the Black Death…

THE END OF OLAF TRYGGVASON Prior to AD 1000, Norway was religiously divided between the Old Norse religion and Christianity, with the rapid spread of the latter from AD 995 after Olaf Tryggvason became ruler of Norway. As he marched across Norway to secure his rule, the Christianization of Norway began by force. Any pagan who refused baptism was killed, and their statues and temples were destroyed. Olaf began the Christianization of Norway not only for religious but also political reasons, as it would allow him to centralize both his and the Church's control. The life of Olaf Tryggvason After Harald Greycloak became king of Norway in AD 962, he killed his rivals to consolidate his power. One was Tryggvi Olafsson, the king of Viken (now Oslofjord). His death in…

Perhaps the most significant discovery of the decade in the field of medieval English literature was made by Euan Roger and Sebastian Sobecki in 2022. Working in the National Archives in England, the two discovered two court records that seemed to clear Chaucer of the charge of the rape of Cecily Chaumpaigne, a crime of which the famous poet had been accused for decades. The scholars argued that two newly discovered court records revealed that Chaucer had actually been involved in a labour dispute with Chaumpaigne and that the term raptus, which had long been assumed to refer to rape, actually referred to Chaucer's illegal poaching of Chaumpaigne from her previous employer. The find itself was ground-breaking, but what was perhaps even more significant was the ‘archival iceberg' that it…

The medieval and early-modern periods provided other outlets for devotion to Christ's death. Pilgrims travelled to the holy land to pray at Christ's tomb at the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. But like the Shroud of Turin, it too was copied to allow surrogate pilgrimage, especially after the Muslim capture of Jerusalem made travel there a particularly perilous endeavour. One of the oldest replicas of Christ's tomb is Santo Stefano in Bologna, Italy. This collection of seven churches comprises one of the most important and best-preserved medieval recreations of a “new Jerusalem.” According to tradition, the basilica of the Holy Sepulchre at Santo Stefano was built in the fifth century by the city's bishop and patron saint Petronius and then renovated in later centuries. By the time of…

THE MYSTERY OF THE LEWIS CHESSMEN The standard story is that they are made of walrus ivory sent from Greenland to the archbishop of Trondheim in Norway as part of the Christian Greenlanders' tithe. The chessmen were carved in twelfth-century Trondheim, then sent by merchant ship to Dublin, Ireland to be sold. The ship wrecked on the way, and the chessmen washed ashore on Lewis, where they were found when a cow fell into a hole. Where did they come from? What's true about this story is that they are made of walrus tusk (except four made of whale's tooth) and that they were found on Lewis sometime before 1831. Everything else is speculation. The consensus is pretty firm that, based on the type of mitre the bishops wear, they…

THE BATTLE OF THE BLANCHETAQUE FORD On 11 July 1346, Edward set sail from Portsmouth with a huge fleet carrying an army of 15,000 men. With the English army were Edward's sixteen-year-old son, Edward (later called the O Black Prince), many Anglo-Welsh soldiers, and allied knights and mercenaries from the Holy Roman Empire. There was a considerable presence of Welsh archers and spearmen, including Llantrisant men under the leadership of Lord Hugh de Despenser, Earl of Gloucester, who also held the lordship of much of Glamorgan. They later became known as the Black Army, reflecting the black Despenser livery. The campaign The army landed at Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue, 20 miles from Cherbourg. The intention was to carry out another devastating chevauchee across Normandy, looting Norman wealth and destroying Philip's credibility. Carentan, Saint-Lô,…

There is not much information about the seasonings and fillings of breads in the Middle Ages. That is also why this recipe is so valuable. It shows that nuts, herbs, spices, fats, and sweeteners were added – in this case, all together in one loaf! We also know that seeds such as fennel, anise, and caraway were used. Such spices depended, as with so much in the Middle Ages, on the region you lived in, your budget, and your taste. Due to its spiciness, this bread tastes a bit like gingerbread, but savoury. Ingredients » 75 g walnuts » 1 tsp grains of paradise (or 1 tsp cardamom) » 1 tsp tail pepper (or 1 tsp black pepper) » 1 tsp cinnamon » 1 tsp ginger » ½ tsp nutmeg…