Sara Lipton. Dark Mirror: The Medieval Origins of Anti-Jewish Iconography

Medieval iconography of watermelons in Mediterranean Europe.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS The watermelon, Citrullus lanatus (Cucurbitaceae), is an important fruit vegetable in the warmer regions of the world. Watermelons were illustrated in Mediterranean Antiquity, but not as frequently as some other cucurbits. Little is known concerning the watermelons of Mediterranean Europe during medieval times. With the objective of obtaining an improved understanding of wat...

Reassessing Jewish Life in Medieval Europe

Was the Christian encounter with Jewish society in medieval Europe defined by the emergence of a “persecuting mentality,” in which Jews and other subalterns were subjected to an aggressive policy of social and political exclusion, as framed by Robert Moore in his seminal book, The Formation of a Persecuting Society? 1 Should the Jewish experience in medieval Christian Europe be viewed as a “lac...

Origins of Genetic Determinism in Medieval Creationism

The discovery of statistical laws of heredity by Gregor Mendel was an important advance in biological science. However, Mendel's opinion that the entire character was transmitted was not derived from his data and instead reflected prior beliefs outside the domain of science. It is argued here that Mendel, a monk and later abbot of an Augustine monastery, was influenced by St. Augustine's theory...

Medieval herbal iconography and lexicography of Cucumis (cucumber and melon, Cucurbitaceae) in the Occident, 1300-1458.

BACKGROUND The genus Cucumis contains two species of important vegetable crops, C. sativus, cucumber, and C. melo, melon. Melon has iconographical and textual records from lands of the Mediterranean Basin dating back to antiquity, but cucumber does not. The goal of this study was to obtain an improved understanding of the history of these crops in the Occident. Medieval images purportedly of Cu...

(Review) The Myth of Nations: The Medieval Origins of Europe