How did women escape domestic abuse in late medieval London? Charlotte Berry explores how women navigated the social and economic barriers to leaving a violent marriage to find a safe place to live in a medieval city.
In Britain today, 9 out of 10 women marrying men will change their name on marriage. Rebecca Mason discusses the history of female name changing after marriage in Britain, arguing that reference to tradition is not necessarily rooted in…
Just how much immigrant newcomers should have a voice in the political life of their new communities is a question that has occupied people for centuries. Bart Lambert explores the twists and turns of that issue in later medieval England in…
Perhaps we share the medieval fantasy that if only evil counsel were removed or more closely supervised, governance would be much improved, argues Jenni Nuttall as she sets the Dominic Cummings dispute in medieval context.
The oldest surviving book owned by English speakers was a book made in North Africa. Alison Hudson traces how these radical fragments reveal that immigrants and cultural exchange have always been fundamental to British economies, culture,…
‘Anglo-Saxons’ has long been associated with the early English people, but this label suffers from a long history of misuse. Mary Rambaran-Olm explores the racist legacy of this term.
Why are so few women found participating in premodern revolts? Shannon McSheffrey uses the Evil May Day riots of 1517 to unpack the patriarchal underpinnings of all our political practices
Alaya Swann explores connections between white supremacy and Dungeons and Dragons online communities, focusing on the perpetuation of the myth of a white medieval Europe.
Tensions about the rights of native and foreign-born workers in Britain, and attempts to deal with them, are not new but have been the subject of public debate for centuries. Even during the later Middle Ages, the influx of alien workers…
The way medieval men write about women can be more sophisticated and less immediately offensive discourse than Trump's pussy-talk, but their language may ultimately share a similarly dismissive attitude toward women as individuals with…
How did a hundred naked men in a bath help create a great empire? Charlemagne's pool parties suggest a male elite that had been heavily socialised not to respond to potential insults to honour by their fellows.
