Steven Till

On this date, October 21st, in medieval history:

1096 - Turks attack and slaughter the army of the People’s Crusade near Civetot
1422 - Death of Charles VI (the “Well-loved” and the “Mad”), King of France

Filed under: Medieval Timeline, Middle Ages History, Medieval History on October 21st, 2008 | 2 Comments »

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
Paperback: 704 pages
Publisher: Back Bay Books (October 1, 2006)
ISBN-10: 0316154547
The Historian is the debut novel from Elizabeth Kostova. I read this novel a couple of years back when it first came out. I was working in a bookstore at the time, and I remember picking this book up and reading the […]

Filed under: Historical Fiction, Book Reviews on October 20th, 2008 | 6 Comments »

“A group of archaeologists are trying to establish if Norsemen brought Christianity to Caithness before St Columba arrived on Iona … ”
Read the rest and watch the video at BBC News.
*image retrieved from the linked BBC article page

Filed under: Archaeology, Middle Ages History, Medieval History on October 20th, 2008 | No Comments »

Tenant in Chief
1) A lord or institution (the Church being most common) holding land directly from the king. All Earls are Tenants in Chief. (MEDIEV-L. Medieval Terms)
2) A “tenant-in-capite [kap-i-tee],” one who holds land by direct grant from the Crown; one who is a vassal of the king. (Hogue, Arthur R. Origins of the Common […]

Filed under: Middle Ages History, Medieval Glossary, Medieval History on October 17th, 2008 | 1 Comment »

Title: Foundation
Author: Mercedes Lackey

Title: The Pirate King
Author: R.A. Salvatore

Title: City of Jade
Author: Dennis L. McKiernan

Title: The Red Country
Author: Sylvia Kelso

Title: Living with the Dead
Author: Kelley Armstrong

Title: The Company
Author: K.J. Parker

Filed under: Fantasy, Literary News on October 15th, 2008 | 4 Comments »

“Peter Vansittart, the English writer who breathed new life into the historical novel by mingling myth with modernity, and by injecting 20th-century preoccupations into historical settings as various as Roman Britain, medieval France and 16th-century Germany, died on Oct. 4, in Ipswich, Suffolk. He was 88 and lived in Kersey.” - […]

Filed under: Literary News on October 15th, 2008 | No Comments »

Baudolino by Umberto Eco
Paperback: 544 pages
Publisher: Harvest Books (October 6, 2003)
Average Customer Review on Amazon: 4 stars (111 customer reviews)
Editorial Review from Amazon.com:
The most playful of historical novelists, Umberto Eco has absorbed the real lesson of history: that there is no such thing as the absolute truth. In Baudolino, he hands his narrative to an […]

Filed under: Middle Ages History, Medieval History, Historical Fiction on October 14th, 2008 | No Comments »

The monastic way of life, a life of religious piety entirely devoted to God, had longed favored the Benedictine form of monasticism in medieval Europe up until the middle of the eleventh century. At some point during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, various forms of monastic orders began to spring up, as the older ways […]

Filed under: Middle Ages History, Medieval History on October 12th, 2008 | 2 Comments »

Pantry
[pan-tree]
Etymology: Middle English panetrie, from Anglo-French paneterie, from paneter servant in charge of the pantry, from pain bread, from Latin panis
Storeroom for bread and other foodstuffs. (Kenyon, John R. Medieval Fortifications, 211)
*term definitions retrieved from Netserf’s Medieval Glossary (http://www.netserf.org/Glossary)

Filed under: Middle Ages History, Medieval Glossary, Medieval History on October 10th, 2008 | No Comments »

Today is officially Leif Erikson Day. Commemorated as a national holiday by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, the holiday is an observance of Leif Erikson and his companions as the first known Europeans to set foot in North America. The holiday gives the nation a chance to honor the contributions of Americans of Nordic […]

Filed under: Medieval Timeline, Middle Ages History, Medieval History on October 9th, 2008 | 2 Comments »