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 […]
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 – […]
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: […]
‘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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
Edward I is considered by many to be the mightiest warrior and most formidable leader of the Plantagenet kings; which, considering the competition, is an impressive feat. So, the question has to […]
This article is part of an ongoing series of short biographies of medieval scribes. Scribe: Snorri Sturluson Lived c. 1179 – 1241 Location: Reykholt, Iceland Notable works: Prose Edda – literary work, […]
There is nothing like a good outlaw story, they tend to contain some very enjoyable motifs – a trickster hero, feats of derring-do, vengeance, comeuppance and, usually, some interesting female characters. A […]
This article is part of an ongoing series of short biographies of medieval scribes. Scribe: John of Worcester Lived: c.1075 – 1140 Location: Worcester Priory Notable works: Chronicon ex chronicis John of […]
This is the first of an ongoing series of short biographies of medieval scribes. Scribe: William of Malmesbury Lived c. 1095 – 1143 Location: Malmesbury Abbey, England Notable works: Gesta regum Anglorum […]
Early medieval England did not have the rich tradition of royal portraiture that existed among in the contemporary Byzantine, Ottonian, and Carolingian courts. Our earliest images outside of numismatics (coinage) date from […]
A man of no mean ambition, by 927 King Æthelstan found himself walking on untrodden ground, the ruler of much of what we would consider modern England. His grandfather, Alfred, had beaten […]
On the death of Sihtric, the Danish King of York, in 927, King Æthelstan seized control of the Viking Kingdom of York. It was an event reasonably early in his reign, Æthelstan […]
There was a man named Thórarin, who live in Sunnudalur; he was old and nearly blind. He had been a fierce viking in his youth, and in his old age he was […]
The Postgrad Chronicles 