Latest Posts

  • Mythical Creatures: A History of Dragons

    One of the most prevailing and popular creatures of folklore and legend is the dragon. From Mesoamerica, Medieval Europe, Asian folklore, to more modern depictions in books such as Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, and A Song of Ice and Fire, dragons crop up time and again. Unlike other legends, the essence of…

  • Medieval Marginalia: At It Like Rabbits

    The pages of medieval manuscripts might be something that sounds very boring, but for those in the know, they read more like fantastical comic books. Pages upon pages of doodles in the margins showing imaginary creatures, hybrid animals, people doing all manner of activities, and many, many animals. A few months ago, I wrote about…

  • Women of Just History Posts: International Women’s Day 2018

    As today is International Women’s day, and women hold such a huge focus in my blog, I thought it would be remiss of me to not do a post to celebrate. Over the past year and a half I have written about plenty of amazing royal women, and I am hoping to soon expand into…

  • Fashion as Liberation: Edwardian Women’s Hatpins

    “No man, however courageous he may be, likes to face a resolute woman with a hatpin in her hand.” When you think of fashion, you probably think of a variety of things. Superfluous trends, silly styles, strange catwalk concoctions. However, whilst fashion has been ridiculed for centuries, over many periods of history fashion has been…

  • Royal People: Anna Komnene – Historian, Physician, Byzantine Princess

    When people think of medieval princesses, they often think of an almost fairy-tale like person. A beautiful young woman who was married off at a young age to a foreign prince, traded as a political pawn, with little agency of her own. Of course, this was often far from the truth, and one such example…

  • New Year, New Me: A History of Calendars

    So the New Year is here, and I’m sure many of you will have made resolutions or goals for how you’re going to make this year better than the last. As humans in a modern world, we are ruled by time. Minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years dictate our lives – what we are…

  • When The Thames Froze Over: The ‘Little Ice Age’ Thames Frost Fairs

    Between roughly 1300 – 1850, the world experienced the ‘Little Ice Age’, where there was significant cooling in global temperatures. Temperatures and the effects varied from region to region and year to year, but there were 3 significant intervals of particular cold, c. 1650, c. 1770, and c. 1850. In England, this resulted in particularly…

  • Medieval Marginalia: Why Are There So Many Snails In Medieval Manuscripts?

    If you’ve ever flicked through an illustrated medieval manuscript, or seen pictures of some marginalia on the internet, chances are you’ve seen pictures of snails. Sometimes the snails are fighting each other, sometimes they are fighting knights, sometimes things are riding the snails, but in one form or another, snails keep cropping up in these…

  • Gunpowder, Treason, and Plot: Who was Guy Fawkes?

    Remember, remember the Fifth of November, The Gunpowder Treason and Plot, I know of no reason Why the Gunpowder Treason Should ever be forgot. If you live in the UK, or possible elsewhere in the world, this weekend you probably had fireworks, bonfires, and sparklers to celebrate the 5th November. This holiday remembers the failed…