Witchcraft and Witch Trials in Wales
A discovery in Tuscany might indicate an incident where a witch was killed in Tuscany: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2041671/800-year-old-remains-witch-discovered-graveyard-Tuscany-Italy.html#ixzz1Z6Q83H34 They found “the 800 year old remains of what archaeologists believe was a witch from the Middle Ages after seven nails were found driven through her jaw bone . . . ” The evidence isn’t conclusive, but it is surely suggestive. I have ancestors who were both accused witches, and the accuser of witches in the Salem trials 350 years ago in the late 1600s. That fear of witchcraft seems to have been widespread during that era. What’s interesting is that it was far more widespread then than in the Middle Ages. In fact, nobody was accused of witchcraft in Wales in the 13th century, and there is essentially no mention of it in the historical record. “The development of witch trials and the witch Read more…
What Richard III looked like …
The bones of Richard III were dug up out of a car park and now they have reconstructed his face from the skeleton: Read more: http://photoblog.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/05/16852349-king-richard-iiis-face-revealed-after-500-years?lite&lite=obnetwork From the BBC: “Richard was born on 2 October 1452 at Fotheringhay Castle in Northamptonshire. His father was Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York and his mother Cecily Neville. Richard had a claim to the English throne through both parents. We now know that Richard had a curvature of the spine, but the withered arm and limp of legend are almost certainly either fabrications or greatly exaggerated. Wars of the Roses His father’s conflict with Henry VI was a major cause of the Wars of the Roses, which dominated Richard’s early life. His father and older brother died at the Battle of Wakefield in 1460. In 1461, Richard’s brother, Edward, became Edward IV and created Read more…
Breaking news! Richard III’s Skeleton Found in Car Park
Finally … the word is in: “A skeleton found beneath a Leicester car park has been confirmed as that of English king Richard III. Experts from the University of Leicester said DNA from the bones matched that of descendants of the monarch’s family. Lead archaeologist Richard Buckley, from the University of Leicester, told a press conference to applause: “Beyond reasonable doubt it’s Richard.” Richard, killed in battle in 1485, will be reinterred in Leicester Cathedral. Interactive: Twisted bones reveal a king Mr Buckley said the bones had been subjected to “rigorous academic study” and had been carbon dated to a period from 1455-1540. Dr Jo Appleby, an osteo-archaeologist from the university’s School of Archaeology and Ancient History, revealed the bones were of a man in his late 20s or early 30s. Richard was 32 when he died. His skeleton had Read more…
The Coracle, Prince Madoc, and the Mandans
Lewis and Clark trekked up the Mississippi river in 1804 and spent the winter of 1804-05 at Ft. Mandan (present day Washburn, North Dakota). Lewis believed that the Mandan people were descended from Madoc ap Owain Gwynedd, who purportedly sailed from the new world in 1170 after the death of his father, and to escape the murder and infighting among his brothers for the throne of Wales. Given that all but one of his brothers ended up dead within 5 years, this might have been a good plan, all around. Now, if Madoc’s family hadn’t been associated with the Danes of Dublin, the notion of such an expedition would have been even more far-fetched. Madoc’s great-grandmother was Ragnhild, “the daughter of Olaf of Dublin, son of King Sigtrygg Silkbeard and a member of the Hiberno-Norse Uí Ímhair dynasty. Through his mother, Read more…
Memo to Llywelyn ap Gruffydd’s Staff
I unearthed this from my archives and thought I’d share. Too bad this isn’t a deleted scene from Footsteps in Time 🙂 _____________________ Breaking News! A historic document has been found in the archives at the University of Bangor in Wales! Read on for the full text! 18 November 1282 To: All Welsh Staff From: Goronwy ap Heilin, Seneschal to Llywelyn ap Gruffydd RE: Dafydd ap Gruffydd, traitorous weasel Summary of Facts: Prince Dafydd ap Gruffydd, brother of Prince Llywelyn ap Gruffydd has betrayed the Cause of Wales in the following manner: 1) In June, 1255, Dafydd and his elder brother, Owain, leagued against Prince Llywelyn, discontented with his rule of Wales and his refusal to partitition Gwynedd. Prince Llywelyn repulsed them at the Battle of Bryn Derwin. 2) After Prince Llywelyn forgave this shocking betrayal and released him from prison, Dafydd Read more…
Would a Medieval Prince Have Had an ‘Office’?
A reader asked me this the other day, and I thought it worth a post because we think of ‘offices’ as being a modern invention, with computers and fax machines and secretaries. And yet, a medieval prince or king–any ruler, from a sheriff to a thane for that matter–must have had a place for conducting business. Where were papers kept? Where did he upbraid his inferiors for shoddy work? England in particular has been known for its government system of record keeping back to the Middle Ages. Where did the king keep all that? I chose to use the word ‘office’ because it does, in fact, have ancient roots in the English language and because even if a Welsh prince wouldn’t have used the word ‘office’ (which he actually might have, see below), he still would have needed its function. Read more…
Medieval Moneylending
Edward Longshankes (Edward I) got himself in debt to various moneylenders in order to fund his wars. During his reign, he fought with his father in the Baron’s War against Simon de Montfort, against Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, the Prince of Wales, against the French, and against the Scots. All of these wars cost money. A king had a couple of options when on a quest for funds. One, he can tax his people. Edward certainly did that. Two, he can confiscate funds from those over whom he wields power. I blogged earlier about what he did to Jewish coinsmiths in 1278 (https://sarahwoodbury.com/?p=179). Henry VIII had the great plan of starting his own religion and confiscating the wealth of the Catholic Church. That was a little more radical than Edward, who often relied on the third method, money lending. In the Read more…
Marriage in the Medieval Era
“Perfect love sometimes does not come until the first grandchild.” –Welsh proverb Marriage as we know it now is a new institution. While ‘love’ (at least among the upper classes) transformed the internal workings of marriage in the modern age, in Wales prior to the Midde Ages, marriage was a contract between two families, with no relationship to the Church or State at all. Even once the Roman Church got involved, it still had nothing to do with the State. Probably the change had something to do with taxes. Regardless, what we know of marriage in medieval Wales comes primarily from the Laws of Hywel Dda (see the footnotes in Wikipedia for the English sources): “The second part of the laws begins with ‘the laws of women’, for example the rules governing marriage and the division of property if a married Read more…
Life in the Middle Ages not so Bad :)
We have a view of life in the Middle Ages as “solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short”, thanks to the quote from Thomas Hobbes. However, he wasn’t talking about life in the Middle Ages, though somehow that’s what his quote has become to mean. Instead, he is talking about a fictive moment in human history before the development of formal society, which he viewed as the natural state of humanity. He saw it as a “warre of every man against every man”. The cultures of Great Britain have maintained a formal society for thousands of years, and even then, as an anthropologist, what Hobbes might have called ‘primitive societies’ often had a strong social order and a way of life which was very far from his war of every man against every man. The majority of medieval people were ‘poor’ Read more…
The Black Death in Wales
The Black Death is generally understood to have been caused by the flea on a rat that appeared in Europe from Asia, having come from the steppes. The Black Death came in three forms: bubonic, pneumonic, and septicemic, all caused by a bacterium called Yersinia pestis. These three forms had a mortality rate of 30-75%, 90-95%, and 100% respectively. http://www.insecta-inspecta.com/fleas/bdeath/Black.html Skip Knox writes: ‘The Black Death erupted in the Gobi Desert in the late 1320s. No one really knows why. The plague bacillus was alive and active long before that; indeed Europe itself had suffered an epidemic in the 6th century. But the disease had lain relatively dormant in the succeeding centuries. We know that the climate of Earth began to cool in the 14th century, and perhaps this so-called little Ice Age had something to do with it. Whatever Read more…
The Ninth Crusade
Edward I of England took the cross in 1268. His father, King Henry, was still alive at the time so he was able to take the opportunity to campaign in the Holy Land. The eighth crusade, which was very short and only lasted a few months, is sometimes lumped into the ninth. It’s leader, however, was Louis the IX of France, “sailing from Aigues-Mortes, initially to come to the aid of the remnants of the crusader states in Syria. However, the crusade was diverted to Tunis, where Louis spent only two months before dying.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades By 1270, things had deteriorated for the Christian states in the Middle East considerably. Jerusalem had fallen in 1244 AD and was never recovered. For Edward’s purposes, the Baron’s War against Simon de Montfort was over and the Welsh threat contained with the Treaty of 1267. Read more…
Westminster Palace
Today, Westminster Palace is the seat of the British government. “The Palace of Westminster is the meeting place of the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Commonly known as the Houses of Parliament after its tenants, the Palace lies on the Middlesex bank of the River Thames in the City of Westminster, in central London. Its name, which derives from the neighbouring Westminster Abbey, may refer to either of two structures: the Old Palace, a medieval building complex that was destroyed by fire in 1834, and its replacement New Palace that stands today. For ceremonial purposes, the palace retains its original style and status as a royal residence.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Westminster No floor plans of what Westminster Palace looked like in the middle ages still exist, but we do know a few things: “When William the Conqueror’s son, William Rufus, came to the throne in Read more…
^