It is like taking a step inside the restricted section of the Hogwarts’ library – rows and rows of chained up books and manuscripts line the tall wooden shelves secured in place on thick metal rods. Hereford Cathedral’s chained library dates back to 1611 and it is not hard to imagine how it looked in…
Helen Castor’s very readable “She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth” is, she writes, “the kind of book I loved to read before history became my profession as well as my pleasure.” It’s full of beautiful, imperiled ladies; fearless knights; and remarkable, often unbelievable turns of fortune. Pause a moment if you feel this…
The macabre encounter of skeletons mocking the living has haunted Case Western Reserve University art historian Elina Gertsman’s imagination since childhood walks with her grandfather through the St. Nicholas Church in Tallinn (now the Art Museum of Estonia). That childhood fascination led to Gertsman’s newly published book, The Dance of Death in the Middle Ages:…
A Canadian novelist is causing a stir in Britain after claiming that the mythic figure of Robin Hood — outlaw champion of medieval England’s poor — was actually inspired by the 13th-century Scottish freedom fighter William Wallace, hero of the 1995 Mel Gibson film Braveheart. A Canadian novelist is causing a stir in Britain after…
A Game of Thrones is a epic fantasy novel written by George R.R. Martin. HBO is currently making a TV mini-series based on the book. Here is a fantastic behind the scenes video of the production.
A hooded assassin hums a tune as he lashes his victim to a rotting corpse and hurls him to his death in the freezing inky blackness of the Thames. This is London in March 1304, a city of thatched roofs, cold winds, Lenten fasting, spindle-thin alleyways…and murder. Amidst all the death, avarice, greed and lust…
The wait is finally over. The Pillars of the Earth is available on DVD and Blu-Ray! There are not many details about the extra features included in the DVD release. A ‘Making of’ Featurette and a Special Effects Featurette will appear on both the DVD and Blu-Ray versions. The Pillars of the Earth is available…
Medieval history is a fashionable but challenging period: the sources are often flimsy and obscure, yet modern readers have a craving for detail that is often absent from the prissy monkish chronicles of the time. The great challenge is to present the period’s subtle complexities without sacrificing historical authenticity. She-Wolves is a history of a…
The time has finally come for our friends over in Great Britain to see The Pillars of the Earth. It aired today, 16 October 2010 on BBC Channel 4 at 2100. The Pillars of the Earth will air every Saturday for the next seven weeks. I hope you all enjoy the show. click on the…
Before the mini-series started I hoped it would live up to all the hype. I think that it has and more! The exploits of Tom Builder, Prior Philip, Waleran, The bastard Jack, Ailena, Ellen, and King Stephen have been exhilarating. All good things must come to an end and this Friday, 27 August, the 2-hour…
Maybe Nicholas Carr is right: the internet is just so much catnip in a world already filled with too many distractions. And, like any such drug—even those that seem relatively harmless, especially in relation to the benefits they seem to offer—my freewheeling engagement with the internet is slowly but surely reshaping my brain so that,…
There is some good news if you do not get the Starz channel. If you have DirecTV you will be able to view the first 2 episodes of The Pillars of the Earth on Channel 101! The first episode, Anarchy, will air on 21 July 2010 at 2000ET. The second episode, Master Builder, will air…
The starz original series The Pillars of the Earth starts Friday 23 July 2010. It will air at 2200ET on the Starz movie channel in the USA and on The Movie Channel in Canada. Pillars of the Earth will air this fall in the United Kingdom on BBC Channel 4. Since I do not subscribe…
Associate Professor of Art History Stephen Perkinson’s book The Likeness of the King: A Prehistory of Portraiture in Late Medieval France (University of Chicago Press, 2009) has just won the Morris D. Forkosch Prize For The Best First Book in Intellectual History from the Journal of History of Ideas. The book upends several well-established theories…
A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin is the first book in an epic fantasy series that currently spans four novels with a total of seven planed. If you haven’t read the books they are well worth the time. HBO has picked up the first book A Game of Thrones for a series to…
