Tag: Medieval England
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Royal People: Jacqueline of Hainault, pawn or political player?

I recently received a request for some Dutch history, and I am always happy to oblige. In all honesty, I know fairly little about Dutch history on its own, with most of what I do know being how the country was used by the French, English, and Spanish for their own gains. One person who…
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Mythical Creatures: Medieval Elves

It is a fairly common belief that the legend of elves was created by JRR Tolkien amongst other now popular mythical creatures that he created. However, Tolkien simply popularised the creatures, and legends of elves have existed for centuries as a distinct legend from fairies (although the two legends often get conflated). The English word…
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The Medieval Titanic: The Tragedy of the White Ship Disaster

Every one of us knows the tragic tale of the Titanic. It has been made into a blockbuster film, with a similarly famous theme song, and helped launch Leonardo DiCaprio as a heart-throb (and an almost-oscar-winner meme… until recently). The Titanic certainly was a horrendous disaster, in many ways, and it will probably remain in…
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The Humanity of Manuscripts

Following on from my previous blog post, where I discussed the idea that the use of historical pictures in social media could highlight to modern eyes the humanity of people who lived long ago, I thought I would delve deeper into this idea by looking at examples from medieval manuscripts. During my Masters, I was…