So apparently eels were pretty valuable in the XIII century, a bundle of 25 dried eel sticks was equivalent to $10 in today's currency, and you could buy a watermill for 1000-2000 sticks
Oh, I had no idea it was time for a new take on the Arthurian legends, but it actually always is! I thoroughly enjoyed the pilot, although the reactions were quite mixed if not outright negative (am I missing smthng?)
The approach is fresh in every sense, cinematography and set design are amazing. Music, script, cast, you name it.
Lately, fantasy and historical TV shows left me longing for something more epic and deeper - this might be it y'all! NOTE: I haven't read the books, this review is based purely on the pilot episode
Well... MediumAevum is back on your dashboards after exactly FIVE years! A lot has happened in that time, but the only constant is how much I missed my followers/friends, curating content for you, following fandoms and tumblr humor. I can't wait to get back in the saddle! I'd love to see how many of you remember following MAe, what you miss, and what would you love to see?
In the meantime, here's a gorgeous medieval, female, orthodox monastery Gradac, that I visited this summer. (also, very happy to see I still have 145.000+ followers how crazy is thaaaat?!) - Hex.
The illuminated sketchbook of Stephan Schriber is a series of pages dating from 1494 in which "ideas and layouts for illuminated manuscripts were tried out and skills developed" by the author, a monk in the southwest of Germany.
As printed books began to displace illuminated manuscripts, the production of the latter went commercial, no longer produced only by the hands of individual monks. But some of those monks, like Schriber, kept up their dedication to the craft: "These pages show an artist trying out animal motifs, practicing curlicued embellishments, and drafting beautiful presentations of the capital letters that would begin a section, page, or paragraph." Read more
Source: openculture.com
mediumaevum reblogged
MediumAevum Halloween Tradition
Accepting your medieval-ish costume submissions! Let’s see you!
Anonymous asked:
I love this blog! It's always full of such fun and fascinating stuff. I don't know how I always end up here when I'm supposed to be doing work, but it's a pleasure nonetheless. Thank you for all your hard work and dedication!
Thanks so, so much! I keep trying to get to the regular posting schedule from what seems like ages ago. Thanks for sticking around, guys. I’m always here, and hopefully will find more time to post.
omg this is like a blog that i need to get to know my muse's lifestyle better OoO amazing blog!!
MediumAevum Halloween Tradition
Accepting your medieval-ish costume submissions! Let’s see you!
Detail from one of the pages in Ars Moriendi, a 15th century manuscript made in France.
Translated The Art of Dying, it consisted of a pair of Latin texts offering “advice on the protocols and procedures of a good death, explaining how to "die well” according to Christian precepts of the late Middle Ages.“
Anglo-Saxon glass drinking-horn, VII c. Excavated in Rainham, London
Drinking horns are attested from Viking Age Scandinavia. In the Prose Edda, Thor drank from a horn that unbeknown to him contained all the seas. They also feature in Beowulf, and fittings for drinking horns were also found at the Sutton Hoo burial site. Carved horns are mentioned in Guðrúnarkviða II, a poem composed about 1000 AD and preserved in the Poetic Edda:
On the horn’s face were there All the kin of letters Cut aright and reddened, How should I rede them rightly? The ling-fish long Of the land of Hadding, Wheat-ears unshorn, And wild things inwards.
Source: britishmuseum.org
mediumaevum reblogged
It’s still Spooktober - you can’t stop the spoops!
I’m finally enjoying this 1972 edition I picked up a few years back, when I raided a used bookstore.
If you’re wondering what’s my mental image of Henry VIII whenever someone mentions him, this is it. Not Damian’s version in general. This particular image.
Francesco Petrarch, accompanied by his brother Gherardo, made an ascent of 6,263-foot (1,912-meters) Mont Ventoux on April 26 in 1336, a towering rounded mountain that overlooks the Provence region of southern France.
Petrarch, while certainly not the first human to climb a mountain for fun and to reach its summit, instead became the spiritual "father" of alpinism while slogging up to Ventoux's summit, meditating on his experience, and then writing a celebrated 6,000-word essay-The Ascent of Mount Ventoux-after his descent (scholars now say it was written about 1350). As Petrarch wrote in the essay, actually a letter to his former confessor, "My only motive was the wish to see what so great an elevation had to offer." Read more An essay on this
You may have heard about "dos-à-dos" (back to back) book bindings that make one book turn into two, but this is mind blowing!
A 16th-century book that contains no fewer than six different books in a single binding. They are all devotional texts printed in Germany during the 1550s and 1570s (including Martin Luther, Der kleine Catechismus) and each one is closed with its own tiny clasp.
Read more
This is such exquisite craftsmanship. Even not considering the clasps and folds, it’s just so breathtaking. You can view it in more detail on the National Library of Sweden’s Flicker stream.
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.
Perjury, perjury, in the high'st degree;
Murder, stern murder in the dir'st degree,
Throng to the bar, crying all, 'Guilty!, guilty!
William Shakespeare, Richard III
King Richard III was born on this day in 1452.
Not many monarchs have had such tumultuous history after their death, and not many had a conclusion in a public DNA research. History takes no sides, but one has to admit, he’s one of the most interesting historical figures.
Accidentally read “dukes” as “dudes”. Makes for a far more interesting reading - King Otto I crushes a rebellion against his rule by a coalition of Frankish dudes
- 4th Dude of Devonshire
- Dude Peter came under fresh military pressure