Well we can honestly say that only a week ago we did not think we would be in a position to be saying this, but thanks to the amazing generosity of some […]
ThePostgradChronicles
It looks like it’s time to say goodbye…
It looks like it’s time to say goodbye from The Postgrad Chronicles.
A Case of Mistaken Identity: Ealhswith and Æthelswith
There is a manuscript in the British Library with two famous illuminations of early English queens. The images below do not really do them justice. What looks like a brownish colour is […]
Defining Queenship in the West Saxon Dynasty
Exactly what constituted a queen in ninth- and tenth-century England is a key topic of Matthew Firth‘s new book, Early English Queens, 850-1000: Potestas Reginae. Queenship is not always easy to define. […]
The Viking Burials at Hjarnø: An Interview with Erin Sebo
The first survey of the Kalvestene viking ship burial site on Hjarnø, Denmark in nearly 100 years was published last month. Researchers used everything from medieval chronicles to 17th-century illustrations to lidar […]
Interview with Matthew Firth
Isolation, Loneliness and Risk Taking in Medieval Icelandic Outlaw Sagas
Originally posted on Histories of Emotion:
By Matthew Firth and James Kane, Flinders University In recent months, ‘isolation’ has become part of our core vocabulary. For many of us, COVID-19 has imposed…
The St. Brice’s Day Massacre: History, Archaeology, and Myth
The St Brice’s day massacre looms large over the legacy of Æthelred II (978-1013/1014-1016) as a well-known tale often held to exemplify the English king’s reign: a poorly considered act of fear, […]
A Scribe’s Life (5): The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles
This article is part of an ongoing series of short biographies of medieval scribes (except not really this time – we’re more focused on the source itself). Scribe: Multiple, unknown Lived: c.890 – […]
Blood Eagles and Fatal Walks Revisited: Orms þáttr stórólfssonar
It’s nearly two years since we posted our article on the viking tortures of literature and the likelihood that the acts as described ever occurred. This included two implausible instances of brutality: […]
Reading England in the Icelandic Sagas: Cultural Memory and Archaeology
‘In those days’, Gunnlaugs saga relates of the eleventh-century, ‘the language in England was the same as that spoken in Norway and Denmark’. It is an assertion which raises some compelling questions […]
Queenship and Power: The Political Life of Emma of Normandy
There are few women in late Anglo-Saxon England for whom we have as much information as Emma of Normandy. The wife of two kings, we find her name in charter witness lists, […]
A Scribe’s Life (4): Saxo Grammaticus
This article is part of an ongoing series of short biographies of medieval scribes. Scribe: Saxo Grammaticus Lived c. 1150 – 1220 Location: Lund, Denmark (modern Sweden/Scania) Notable works: Gesta Danorum – a […]
Chaucer and English Maritime Culture
There is something of the sea inherent in English identity. After all, the ocean makes up over 90% of England’s borders, it has long dictated external political and military policy, and defined […]
Owain and the Giant Herdsman – Identifying Celtic Mythology in the Mabinogion
The tale Yvain ou le Chevalier au Lion (Yvain, Knight of the Lion) is simultaneously one of the most famous of the Arthurian romances, and one of the more bizarre. In essence […]
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