It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a woman in possession of a love of history, must be in want of a blog.
The past was a dangerous time to be alive. If you were lucky enough to survive infancy and adolescence, you were very likely to die of any number of frightful diseases well before you reached what we regard as old age. Readers of old novels or historical death records are confronted with many unfamiliar names …
St Vladimir of Kiev, or Vladimir the Great, as he is also known, is one of the most unlikely saints in the Christian calendar. He is still venerated today as the father of Christianity in Russia and the Ukraine, yet for much of his life he was the very stereotype of a pagan king: bloodthirsty, …
Continue reading Vladimir the Great: pagan, philanderer, saint
The Georgian era (1714-1837) was the golden age of English print satire. Gillray, Rowlandson and the Cruikshank family made themselves famous with their exuberant, brightly-coloured caricatures which lampooned everything from government to the clergy, from fashion to the French. Here are some of their satirical takes on marriage. They point out the problems so often …
Continue reading The torments of marriage in Georgian caricatures