Medieval History and Anarchist Studies

Medieval Studies (MDST)

MDST123 Escaping Purgatory: Music and Devotion in Medieval Europe This course will explore the creative expression of religious belief in the music, poetry, literature, art, and architecture of Medieval Europe. We will begin with the everyday experience of monks, nuns, poets, and street musicians. What role did music play in their lives? Was it limited to religious practice and secular festival...

Epistolary Documents in High-Medieval History- Writing

A liquid history Blood and animation in late medieval art

In 1276 Giles of Rome compared sperm’s effect on menstrual blood to the work of an artist carving idols from wood.2 His modification of a famous argument by Plato, later taken up by Aristotle, is highly original and points to an important junction of theories about human procreation and theories of artistic creation. Aristotle drew analogies between divine, natural, and artisanal creation with ...

Pharmacy in medieval Islam and the history of drug addiction.

DRUG ADDIcTIoN, especially through the use of poppy (Papaver somniferum Linn.) and hemp (Cannabis sativa Linn.), is the main concern of this paper. Although the use of these two plants in medieval Islam was extensive, yet little has been written on this timely subject by historians of medicine and pharmacology. Consulting contemporary original sources, it is my hope to sketch a history of their...

Feminist Approaches to Medieval Spanish History and Literature

Although many of Spain's earliest poetic texts give expression to a female voice, 1 it is not until the fifteenth century that Spain's first female authors are documented.2 It is perhaps for this reason that gender-conscious studies of medieval Spain have been so scarce in relation to those concerning other parts of Europe. Researchers with a feminist perspective have had to limit their investi...