[1] The role of tropical Pacific SSTs in driving global medieval hydroclimate is assessed. Using fossil coral records from Palmyra Atoll, tropical Pacific sea surface temperature (SST) boundary conditions are derived for the period 1320–1462 A.D. These boundary conditions consist of La Niña‐like mean state conditions in the tropical Pacific with inter‐annual and decadal variability about that a...

The medieval period in Denmark (11-16 century) was a time of great social and economic change. The current study seeks to analyze dietary patterns of individuals from a medieval site in Holbæk, Denmark who lived during this historically dynamic and tumultuous period. A previous isotopic analysis indicated a mixed terrestrial C3 based diet with varying amounts of marine foods (Jørkov 2007). This...

The medical writings of early medieval western Europe c. 700 – c. 1000 have often been derided for their disorganised appearance, poor Latin, nebulous conceptual framework, admixtures of magic and folklore, and general lack of those positive features that historians attribute to ancient or later medieval medicine. This paper attempts to rescue the period from its negative image. It examines a n...

Periods of widespread warmth or cold are identified by positive or negative deviations that are synchronous across a number of temperature-sensitive proxy records drawn from the Northern Hemisphere. The most significant and longest duration feature during the last 1200 years is the geographical extent of warmth in the middle to late 20th century. Positive anomalies during 890 to 1170 and negati...

both positive and negative; in the medieval world, however, it held a precise meaning, often also referred to as “contemplation” or “the contemplative life.” The mysticism of this period had some merits, but also some serious flaws in both theology and practice. In many respects, the mysticism of the medieval world derived from early Latin mysticism, which in turn evolved from an amalgamation o...

In this study we apply an evidence-based approach to model demographic fluctuations and their corresponding impact on land use during the Roman and early-medieval periods in the Rhine-Meuse delta in the present-day Netherlands. Past population numbers are reconstructed based on Roman and early-medieval settlement patterns. Corresponding impacts of these demographic fluctuations on potential lan...