A Mediterranean Emporium: The Catalan Kingdom of Majorca by David Abulafia

The Catalan kingdom of Majorca was established under the will of King James I of Aragon, who conquered Majorca in 1229, but it was ruled from 1276 to 1343 by a cadet dynasty. The kingdom included the key business centers of Montpellier and Perpignan, and other lands in what is now southern France. It was home to important Jewish and Muslim communities, and was the focus of immigration from Catalonia, Provence and Italy.

This book emphasizes the major transformations in the trade of the Balearic Islands from the eve of the Catalan conquest to the Black Death, and the effect of the kingdom's creation and demise on the economy of the region.
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Synopsis: This title offers an account of the trade and commercial life of the medieval Spanish kingdom of Majorca. Synopsis: This is the first account of a medieval Spanish kingdom that was of vital importance in the trade of the Mediterranean and beyond. Combining lands in southern France with the Balearic Islands, the Catalan kingdom of Majorca was home to Christian settlers, Jews and Muslims, and enjoyed maritime links as far afield as England and the Canaries. Synopsis: The first account of the trade and commercial life of the medieval Spanish kingdom of Majorca.

Table of Contents Preface; Note on nomenclature; List of the kings of Majorca 1229-1343; Note on the coinage of the kingdom of Majorca; Part I. Unity and Diversity: 1. The Balearic setting; 2. The kingdom and its historians; 3. The constitutional problem; 4. One kingdom, three religions: the Muslims; 5. One kingdom, three religions: the Jews; Part II. The Crossroads of the Mediterranean: 6. The rise of the trade of Mallorca City; 7. Commerce in the age of the vespers; 8. Towards economic integration: the early fourteenth century; 9. The trade of the autonomous kingdom in its last two decades; 10. From the Mediterranean to the Atlantic; 11. The reshaping of Mallorca's economy, 1343-1500; Conclusion; Appendix; Bibliography.

Read here parts of the book

Medieval Times

Medieval Times
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Glossary of medieval clothing terms

Glossary of some medieval clothing terms

Compiled by I. Marc Carlson:

Unlike many glossaries or lexicons, the definitions given here are not monocular, they have not been drawn together and written as a single source presenting The Truth.   These are generally separate definitions drawn from a number of sources.  That means that as you look through here, you may notice definitions that may conflict with one another, or what you have been taught elsewhere. As virtually nearly everything in here is a paraphrase, or a direct quotation of some other stated source, this means that if you disagree with what a particular source has to say about something, there's not much I can do about it.

Check here the entire glossary

Medieval Islam: the Empire of Reason

Professor Al-Khalili travels to northern Syria to discover how, a thousand years ago, the great astronomer and mathematician Al-Biruni estimated the size of the earth to within a few hundred miles of the correct figure. He discovers how medieval Islamic scholars helped turn the magical and occult practice of alchemy into modern chemistry. He discovers how medieval Islamic scholars helped turn the magical and occult practice of alchemy into modern chemistry. In Cairo, he tells the story of the extraordinary physicist Ibn al-Haytham, who helped establish the modern science of optics and proved one of the most fundamental principles in physics - that light travels in straight lines. Prof Al-Khalili argues that these scholars are among the first people to insist that all scientific theories are backed up by careful experimental observation, bringing a rigour to science that didn't really exist before. First shown on BBC4 12/01/2009 Professor Jim Al-Khalili presents Science and Islam

The beauty of maps: a BBC documentary

Click here to visit the documentary website Cartography (from Greek χάρτης khartēs, "map"; and γράφειν graphein, "write"), or mapmaking, has been an integral part of the human story for a long time, possibly up to 8,000 years.[1] From cave paintings to ancient maps of Babylon, Greece, and Asia, through the Age of Exploration, and on into the 21st century, people have created and used maps as the essential tools to help them define, explain, and navigate their way through the world. Mapping represented a significant step forward in the intellectual development of human beings and it serves as a record of the advancement of knowledge of the human race, which could be passed from members of one generation to those that follow in the development of culture. Maps began as two-dimensional drawings. Although that remains the nature of most maps, modern graphics have enabled projections beyond that.

Medieval culture: Women and Laughter in Medieval Literature

Women & Laughter in Medieval Comic Literature

By Lisa Perfetti

A likely question in the mind of some readers of this book is how anything can be known about the laughter of women who lived more than five centuries ago. Scholars interested in medieval women have long been frustrated by the difficulty of researching women’s lives given that the majority of texts we have about them are written by men. The difficulty of studying women’s laughter is compounded by the fact that what texts we do have are part of an elite written culture and can only hint at the kinds of oral interactions that would have taken place between the man and woman of the street.

Click here to read the preface of the book

Medieval Total War game

Medieval: Total War is a turn-based strategy and real-time tactics computer game developed by The Creative Assembly and published by Activision. Set in the Middle Ages, it is the second game in the Total War series, following on from the 2000 title Shogun: Total War. Originally announced in August 2001, the game was released in North America on 20 August 2002 and in Europe on 30 August.

English fashion in the Middle Ages (1)

During this time period mens garments transformed far more quickly as compared to other types of designs; in addition, both male and female used very items of clothing until their clothing ended up in such disrepair that they had to be entirely replaced. Moreover, often clothing was a mark of social divisions as stated in numerous legal guidelines.

Women's Fashion 1300–1500 

The majority of records on women’s fashion during the medieval period come from the mid-fourteenth century onwards. Around the year 1340 there was a change in women’s clothing, to tighter-fitting garments, lower necklines, and more curvaceous silhouettes; “tight lacing was used on women's clothes to create a form fitting shape which, girdled at the hips, created a long-waisted appearance”. Clothing was over-lapped and tightly bound; “The female chest was frequently exposed, yet the true structure of the female body was visually distorted…”. The corset became a staple in a woman’s wardrobe, and the open surcoat, a garment with an open bodice and a skirt that trailed to the ground, became “one of the most elegant inventions of the Middle Ages…”. In fact, by the end of the 14th century, the gown had replaced all garment items aside from the surcoat. The basic garments for women consisted of the smock, hose, kirtle, gown, surcoat, girdle, cape, hood, and bonnet. Each piece had designated colours and fabrics, for example “Materials used in the middle ages were woolen cloth, fur, linen, cambric, silk, and the cloth of silver or gold…the richer Middle Age women would wear more expensive materials such as silk, or linen”. The development of the skirt was significant for women’s medieval clothing, “The more fashionable would wear very large or wide skirts”. The petticoat made way for the skirt, which quickly became a popular garment because it “wraps rather than enclosing, touches without grasping, brushes without clasping, coasts, caresses, skims, strokes”. The headdress, in various forms culminating in the hennin was an important element in women's dress, often complicated arrangements of hair and fabric, sometimes including veils over the face or hanging behind the head. The importation of luxurious fabrics increased over the period, and their use widened somewhat spread from the top of the elite downwards, but clothing remained very expensive and relatively few items were owned except by the very wealthy. Medieval clothes provided information about the status of the person wearing them.