Historical

This summary is of a paper that was the last in the English Cistercian series at Kalamazoo.

Tony Rothman recalls one of the turning points of early modern history, when a heroic defence prevented the rampant Ottoman forces from gaining a strategic foothold in the central Mediterranean.

In order to understand why the fortifications of Malta evolved as they did, we need to study them in the context of the technical publications and military academies of the period.

In 1530 the crusading brotherhood of the Hospitaller Knights of St. John of Jerusalem accepted the offer of the Emperor Charles V to occupy the Maltese Islands and hold them against the Ottomans who were seeking to control the Central Mediterranean

Produced some seven hundred years ago, a large map of the world that is housed today in the cathedral at Hereford, on the English border with Wales, is a great encyclopedia of knowledge imprinted and illustrated on a single page, but a page that measures over five feet long running vertically down the middle and almost four-and-one-half feet horizontally.

The hair samples of Ferdinand II of Aragon (1467–1496), King of Naples, whose mummy is preserved in the Basilica of San Domenico Maggiore in Naples, showed a high content of mercury, with a value of 827ppm.

Wet-nurses in early modern England: some evidence from the Townshend archive

By Linda Campbell

Medical History, Vol.33:3 (1989)

Introduction: Between them Dorothy McLaren and Valerie Fildes have pioneered the study of English wet-nursing. In her work on the parish of Chesham during the late sixteenth century, McLaren drew attention to the way in which prolonged lactation reduced fertility. Believing that most mothers understood this, she suggested that some women might have become wet-nurses in order to limit family size. Fildes, casting her net much wider, has looked at wet-nursing from the earliest times until the present day. In her work on the early modern period, Fildes has focused upon the Home Counties, where nursing babies from London was almost a local industry. In particular, she has pointed the danger of confusing parish nurses, who were often themselves on poor relief and therefore not in a position to do the best for their charges, with professional wet-nurses who were usually well-paid and well-respected. A failure to distinguish between these two types of nurse has led some historians, most notably Lawrence Stone, to associate all wet-nursing with parental indifference and neglect.

Click here to read this article from PubMed Central

This paper was the second in a series of papers on English Cistercians at Kalamazoo. It focused on the lack of liturgical evidence in Cistercian nunneries.

The Greenland of the sagas was a unique and at times strange place, lying somewhere on the boundary between the known, familiar Norse world, and an unfamiliar, exotic sphere beyond.

On Monday 12 November 1291, Welsh rebels, William Cragh and Traharn ap Howel, were dragged from the dungeons of Swansea Castle and hanged on the nearby gallows. That, by all reason, should have been the end of the story – except that it was not.

The real reason for the diversion to Constantinople in 1203 by the Venetians and the crusaders, and for their subsequent attack on the imperial capital in 1204, was a simpler and, in their minds, increasingly pressing concern: the payment of outstanding debts

Archaeologists say they’re poised to unravel the mystery behind a set of “hugely significant” ancient Aboriginal remains discovered near lake Cargelligo last year.  Aerial view of Lake Cargelligo [Credit: Lachlan Shire Council] A man found the remains near an old water course late last February while working on a property outside Lake Cargelligo.  The remains – confirmed to be tens of thousands of years old –have...

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Babylon's Hanging Gardens were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, but heritage appears to be no match for Iraq's booming oil industry in a dispute over a new pipeline.  A general view shows the archaeological site of Babylon, south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. Babylon's Hanging Gardens were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, but heritage appears to be no match for Iraq's booming oil industry in a...

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The Liuhuaishan site is an important early Paleolithic site found in the Bose Basin. In December 2008, Scientists from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP), Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Youjiang Museum for Nationalities, Bose, carried out a short survey around this site and found three new Paleolithic localities with a collection of 37 stone artifacts. This new finds will help better understand the...

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New photographs reveal what lies beneath the surface of Easter Island, one of the most remote places in the world -- the carved bodies of the island's 887 famous guardians.  The excavation of this moai, nicknamed "Papa" by Katherin Routledge in 1914, began in spring of 2010. Quarry bedrock is visible in one of the excavation squares and the color variation on the statue's stone surface reflects previous soil levels [Credit:...

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A wooden ship believed to be over 200 years old was discovered during a recent exploration of the northern Gulf of Mexico, according to a press release from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).  [Credit: NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program] Scientists were able to view the remains of "anchors, navigational instruments, glass bottles, ceramic plates, cannons, and boxes of muskets" aboard the ship, NOAA...

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A priceless piece of Peru’s cultural heritage was put up for sale last week at Sotheby’s Auction House in New York, where it fetched $212,500.  The Sicán mask displayed on Sotheby's website [Credit: Peru This Week] The object in question was a gold Sicán funeral mask, dating from somewhere between 950 and 1250 A.D., with its origins in the Pomac Forest region of Lambayeque.  According to Sotheby’s, the mask came from...

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A summary of the controversial “Fuck This” session at Kalamazoo.

Archaeologists have discovered ancient houses as well as precious artifacts and jewels from a buried kingdom, beneath the volcanic ash in Indonesia.  The excavated remains were found on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa near the foot of the Tambora volcano known for its largest eruption in recorded history.  "Based on the unearthed remains, particularly the many bronze objects and jewels, evidence suggests the site...

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The US Supreme Court has refused to grant a final appeal to a Florida company that discovered treasure on a sunken Spanish vessel but was then ordered to return the gold and silver to Spain.   Silver coins from the Spanish frigate Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes [Credit: AFP/GETTY] The Court did not give a reason for refusing the request from salvage specialist Odyssey Marine Exploration, which recovered 17 tons of silver and...

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