The imposition of ransom….

    My latest target for research is the English garrison/bastion of Brest, on the coast of Brittany, specifically the final years of the 14th century before it was handed back to the Bretons. My interest had been aroused when reading Ducal Brittany 1364-1399, by Michael Jones. In it I learned of the practice of…

What were our medieval kings’ voices like….?

Today I once again heard Henry VIII described as Bluff King Hal. Well, this is usually said almost affectionately, which the Henry VIII we all know does not warrant. He was a monster. I think his voice was probably stentorian. Eventually he was downright nasty and needed to be approached with an excessively long bargepole.…

The White Friars of Farringdon Without and their property in Fleet Street….

Whitefriars is in Farringdon Without ward, London, where in medieval times stood a religious house belonging to the Carmelite friars. I came upon it (on-line, not in person) because while researching a certain Sir William de Windsor, a very unpopular and harsh Lieutenant of Ireland in the later reign of King Edward III. He was…

The anonymous friar and the black arts….

I quote the footnote below because I believe it to be an example of giving someone the wrong name. “….Another high-profile case comes in 1376, during the Good Parliament, with antagonism against Alice Perrers, Knights of the Parliament captured her physician, the Dominican friar Palange Wyk, accused of practising black arts on her behalf; Carole…

Ten medieval scandals….!

“….What are the scandals that made headlines in the Middle Ages? Kings and Popes would be involved in some of the craziest stories of sex and corruption that would make today’s news seem quite tame. From a cross-dressing prostitute to the trial of a dead Pope, here are ten almost-unbelievable medieval scandals….” Well, you’ll find…

It’s Alice Perrers’ biography, but the author puts the boot into Lionel of Clarence….!

Given her huge notoriety at the time, it’s odd that Edward III’s mistress, Alice Perrers, has (as far as I can ascertain) only garnered one biography. This is Lady of the Sun by F George Kay, 1966 (and seemingly never reprinted). There are no surviving contemporary likenesses of Alice, nor even a description of her.…

ENGLAND’S MINORITY KINGS 1216-1483

Introduction This essay was prompted by a sentence in John Ashdown-Hill’s latest book ‘The Private Life of Edward IV’: “ According to English custom, as the senior living adult prince of the blood royal, the duke of Gloucester should have acted as Regent — or Lord Protector as the role was then known in England…

JANE SHORE—TART WITH A HEART?

Medieval mistresses seem to get a raw deal from most contemporary and near-contemporary chroniclers, being seen as falling ‘outside the accepted norm’ in regards to sexual mores. Prim Victorian authors also enjoyed making moral judgments on them, and even modern historians, while less interested in the prurient details, often paint them as scheming she-wolves or…