Boris and the haunted village: no not THAT Boris, I mean Boris Karloff….!

In my internet exertions trying to trace the origin of and more details about a certain Joan Bramshott, daughter of Sir Roger Bramshott and widow of Sir John Shardelowe of Fulbourn in Cambridge, I learned her family originated from Bramshott in Hampshire. This site popped up. The most haunted village? Well, I won’t argue, becuse…

Henry Tudor was Medieval, not Renaissance….!

You can take your pick of our medieval monarchs at this site ! Although I’m sure Henry Tiddler wouldn’t appreciate being included as Medieval. He was Renaissance, indeed, he started that whole shebang – ask any Tudorite!  

The true significance of posy rings….

Treasure buried in fields and discovered centuries later are always in the news these days. These are usually coins, of course, but also jewellery, including posy rings. A posy ring was found in Wales very recently so I was interested to then read about the true meaning of such rings in A Crisis of Truth…

IF THE SHOE FITS…

15th C fashion could be quite dramatic…and sometimes, to our modern eyes, a bit ridiculous. Nothing more so than the infamous Poulaine shoes, with their excessively long pointed toes that looked as if they were dangerous to walk in (the nearest we had to them in modern times were the Winklepicker shoes worn by Teddy…

Break out the walking boots, we’re going to Bosworth….

It’s always good to walk around the British countryside, and for Ricardians the prospect of including the site of Bosworth Field in our rambling has to be a carrot par excellence. Such a walk is newly available, called the Battlefields and Borderlands Way , and takes in a number of important sites in south-west Leicestershire, some…

A new series of medieval murder mysteries….

  “….AN initiative to find the bones of Alfred the Great in the Hyde suburb of Winchester, sponsored more than 20 years ago by the City Council, has had a surprising outcome. This is the launch of a series of whodunnits in settings that many readers will find easy to imagine. “….The first title, Charter…

Mud, mud, glorious Agincourt mud….!

  When I watched the movie The King about Henry V of England, I was bemused by the mud bath that was Agincourt. It seems this one aspect of the movie’s depiction was accurate, even if liberties had been taken with much of the rest of the film. Which I enjoyed very much, albeit taking…

And the Bishop of Ely breakfasted at Kamelot….

On Sunday, 25th October 1383, Thomas Arundel, Bishop of Ely (soon to be Archbishop of York and then Archbishop of Canterbury), breakfasted at Kamelot. Oh yes, indeed. I learned of this on page 199 of Thomas Arundel, the biography by Margaret Aston, which I quote: “….This letter, like another of 24th October concerning an exchange,…

Another medieval scoundrel who abducted a woman….!

  I’ve written before, more than once, about the abominable practice of medieval men abducting women and forcing them into marriage in order to lay hands on their estates. It was a capital way for impoverished, unprincipled knights to improve their status and finances. In this they were only too usually aided and abetted by…

England’s American knight in armour….!

    Here is a link to a video of Toby Capwell, the American curator of arms and armour at The Wallace Collection in London. It concerns his thoughts on seven medieval weapons scenes in movies and TV. He was, of course, one of the two fully armed knights who escorted Richard on his final…