Yet another erroneous Tudor boast….!

  Once again it seems the Tudors claim to have invented something that had been around for over a century before Old Misery Guts stole the throne. To wit, mince pies. Well, the Tudors would, wouldn’t they? They couldn’t bear ANYTHING to have been around before they were. Typically insecure rear-ends. Anyway, these kuskenoles look…

Caxton was way ahead of his time….!

Well, there I was, snooping around for information about Henry V and the 1418/19 Siege of Rouen, when I went to this site and came upon the above. Absolutely brilliant! Caxton was clearly born in the wrong century – he’d fit into the 21st very well indeed.

Starkey on home territory

This BBC documentary was actually very good and it worked because Starkey spoke about a subject he knows inside out – the Reformation and Henry VIII, relating it to current affairs. From Luther’s theses, indulgences and translating the Bible, first into German then English, he moved onto Tyndale‘s efforts to smuggle it into England and…

English kings, queens and ladies of the late 15th century and their books….

On a whim, I acquired a copy of The Medieval Mystical Tradition in England, edited by Marion Glasscoe. It concerns the papers that were the proceedings of the Exeter Symposium IV: Dartington 1987. And the first of these papers concerns The Mystics and the Early English Printers, and is by George R. Keiser. I confess…

Richard, the man in blue and ermine….

The above illustration is of Edward IV receiving a book from Anthony Woodville. With the king are his queen, Elizabeth Woodville, and his heir, the future Edward V. Looking at it, I found myself wondering if the man in blue and ermine, third from left, might be Richard III. As Duke of Gloucester, of course.…

William Caxton and the Birth of English Printing

It is always a pleasure to visit the sumptuous J. Pierpont Morgan Museum and Library located in the Murray Hill section of New York City.  Built in 1906, designed by the esteemed architectural firm of McKim, Meade and White, it is breathtakingly beautiful as well as a unique source of medieval riches, housing one of the smallest…

A guest post from (Professor) Karen Griebling

From time to time I have alluded rather obliquely to the fact that I see strong similarities between late 15th century English politics and early 21st century American politics and that is among the reasons I think that Richard III’s story needs to be told, and told NOW especially. I had been sitting on those…