Medieval Miracles, Medicine and Miscellany
The following two videos were recorded for the Richard III Society's Schools Conference (June 2022). These videos aim to offer a brief overview for those thinking about applying to study History as an undergraduate student and to highlight some of the points prospective students should consider when looking into History degrees. Further, and more thorough, [...]
I am delighted to announce that registration is now open for The Maladies, Miracles and Medicine of the Middle Ages, III ‘Patients, Prayers and Pilgrims’. The conference will be run in a hybrid format online and in-person at the University of Reading (UK). Please note that we have limited in-person attendance available, and this will [...]
I'm excited to announce that the third quadrennial 'Maladies, Miracles and Medicine' (MM&M) conference will be taking place on Friday 1 April 2022. The Call for papers (CFP) can be found below with further details about the conference theme and the submission of abstracts. The image is presented as a .jpg, however a .pdf version [...]
If you are anything like me you will be thinking that after what felt like a prolonged grey, cold winter it feels like we should’ve turned a corner into summer. I suppose it’s mild at least and that’s almost enough to break out into a rendition of Reading Abbey’s own thirteenth-century composition ‘Sumer is icumen [...]
So, it would be fair to say it's been quite a while since I've posted anything on this site. This was a much longer hiatus than intended but I'm looking forward to getting back into blogging a bit now (I wouldn't call this a 2021 resolution, but an aim for sure!) I might have been [...]
Last year I shared three December entries from my great-grandfather’s War Time Signal Log on the Reading History blog.[*] Having come to a bit of a creative block with my writing this afternoon, I thought I would take a break from medieval medicine and return to the pages of Arthur John Pidgeon’s Log to see [...]
My research focuses particularly on the experiences of pilgrims who sought out miraculous cures from saint cults in high-medieval England. A key resource for this, therefore, are the hagiographical sources which include reports of the posthumous miracles (collected together in a subgenre called miracula) worked by various saints through their shrines. However, these formally written-up [...]
My co-organiser, Frances Cook, and I are pleased to announce that we can now share our programme for the sixth annual GCMS (Graduate Centre for Medieval Studies) postgraduate and early-career researcher conference. Further details including the programme can be found below. 'The Maladies, Miracles and Medicine of the Middle Ages, II' (MMM 2018) will take [...]
by Dr Ruth Salter 836 years ago, on a day much like this (possibly), Henry II was crowned at Westminster Abbey. His predecessor (and uncle), Stephen, had died just under two months earlier, much of his reign having been taken up by ‘The Anarchy’ – a civil war of succession following the death of Henry [...]
There are many indulgent foods that are synonymous with Christmas today, but two of the key ones must surely be chocolate and alcohol. True, the turkey and its trimmings are Christmas classics, but it’s those festive extras – the champagne at breakfast, and the mid-morning opening of the chocolate selection box… all of which will [...]
Ruth J. Salter 