1+ day, 16+ hour ago   (862+ words) Soap-making was a well-established craft in the Middle Ages, but what exactly went into medieval soap? A fourteenth-century English recipe provides remarkably detailed instructions, using ingredients ranging from sheep tallow and oak ashes to salt and wheat flour. Among these…...

5+ day, 1+ hour ago   (1007+ words) Bear baiting was already an established form of entertainment in medieval England centuries before it became notorious in Shakespeare’s London, according to new research combining archaeology, historical records, literature and medieval art. Researchers from Cardiff University and the University of…...

1+ week, 5+ day ago   (690+ words) Archaeologists in Switzerland are excavating the cemetery of a medieval leprosy hospital, where more than 200 individuals have already been uncovered. The sprawling site in Schaffhausen includes the remains of a medieval chapel and cemetery, while one skeleton displays clear evidence…...

3+ week, 3+ day ago   (734+ words) Medievalists.net What makes solving a crime in the Middle Ages so difficult—and why does that make medieval crime fiction so compelling? Anne McKendry explores how writers create detectives and mysteries in a world without modern policing or forensic…...

3+ week, 4+ day ago   (175+ words) What was work like before industrialisation? This book looks back at Britain before the rise of modern industry, exploring the professions and occupations that once played an important role in people’s everyday lives. The book has a certain vagueness that…...