Mediæval Byways

To read a medical dictionary is to marvel that any man should enjoy even brief intervals of health, there are so many delicate organs in the body and so many diseases lying in w...

Whatever the meaning of 'Wekare,' there can be no doubt of the insult conveyed by Robert Sutton to Roger of Portland, clerk of the Sheriff of London, when he exclaimed in full c...

Pope Boniface having agreed to act as arbiter between the Kings of France and England, Sir Hugh de Vere's mission was accomplished and the embassy left Rome on the afternoon of...

Alchemy, like so many other branches of knowledge, found a home in the monasteries, and there is a story of an abbot in one of the Western Counties who, at the time of the Disso...

But, of course, this lay knowledge of herbs and so forth was not enough, for, as Andrew Borde, that man of wit and sound learning, said, quoting Galen, '"If Phisicions had nothi...

Three cases of magic occurred in 1432. On May 7 of that year an order was issued for the arrest of Thomas Northfelde, D.D., a Dominican friar of Worcester, and the seizure of al...

TO WHOM SHOULD I DEDICATE THESE STUDIES OF THE LIGHTER SIDE OF THE MIDDLE AGES IF NOT TO MY WIFE WHOSE STUDY IT IS TO LIGHTEN MY OWN MIDDLE AGE?

Mediæval Englishmen seem to have a partiality for strange beasts, combined with a reluctance to pay exorbitant fees for seeing them. In 1364 Edward III. had to order the mayor a...