Love: not for the faint-hearted?
February 14, 2014
The lyf so short, the crafte so longe to lerne, Th’assay so harde, so sharpe the conquerynge The dredful joy, that alwey slyd so yerne Al this meene I be love, that my felynge Astonyeth with his wonderful worchyng So soore ywys, that whan I on hym thynke, Nat wote I wel wher that I …
Undying Love
February 11, 2014
I met my love in the first year: it was one of those strange encounters with a new culture which I had not heard of before. I am talking about my love for all things medieval here – a love that has outlasted almost everything else. I fell for it deeply: ‘the Discreet Charm of …
Past identities: medieval differences between Scotland and England
January 21, 2014
The photo attached to this blog can be replicated in many family albums. The girls here happen to be my goddaughter and her sister, on their way to visit friends and family in Scotland, but they might equally be my children on the same mission north. There remains a slight sense of travelling to a …
Gawain’s New Year trials
January 13, 2014
Many of us will have ‘enjoyed’ Christmas games over the holiday. Some of these will have become family traditions, others will have arrived on Christmas Day, and in the process of playing them, there’s a fair chance that the players will have discovered something about themselves and about the other players. No matter how tensely …
Feasting the Dead: Hallowe’en
October 31, 2013
Today is Hallowe’en which according to many sources is based on ‘Celtic’ traditions, because the Celtic year begun on the first of November. While Hallowe’en is not necessarily about the dead (more about the undead) it falls on the night before All Saints’ Day. The Hallow part of the word is derived from Old English …
What is Robin Hood?
October 28, 2013
I’d never really thought of Robin Hood as jousting. A mean sword fighter, yes; good with the quarter staff, if not as good as Little John; and of course superlative with a long bow. Just not the lance. So it took me a few moments to re-orientate myself at the Robin Hood Pageant at Nottingham …
Prophecies and politics (or: anarchy in ASE)
October 11, 2013
Bob Geldof has joined the ranks of doom mongers when he predicted that the world only has a good 17 years left to go. While there are plenty of reasons to be pessimistic, given all the current wars and human tragedy, the idea that the end is nigh has been around for a long time. …
The Far Traveller
September 24, 2013
I have just come back from a range of different research trips which took me to Shetland, Iceland, Germany and Ireland in a very brief time span. While I have really enjoyed the opportunities to talk with my colleagues, I am less keen on the travel itself, especially since flying is not very comfortable, airports …
Different Strokes
September 6, 2013
Last Sunday I joined the community cycle ride as part of the University of Nottingham’s Life Cycle 3, and while I was cycling along with my IMR colleague Gaby Neher I was pondering the nature of stroke rehabilitation in Anglo-Saxon England. For all the difference between Anglo-Saxon life experience and our own, there are some …
Comparing technologies of publication
July 25, 2013
About five and a half centuries ago, printing with moveable type became possible, a result of Johannes Gutenberg’s inventiveness, but also because the necessary materials, including the right kinds of metal to make type, became available. Over the subsequent fifty years or so, this technology spread and became commercially viable: more printed books circulated, especially …