It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a woman in possession of a love of history, must be in want of a blog.
This illustration is from the Codex Manesse, or Großer Heidelberger Handschrift, a 14th century anthology of Middle High German poetry. The Codex contains 140 texts including works by the famous poets Wolfram von Eschenbach (the author of Parzival), Heinrich von Morungen and Walther von der Vogelweide. The manuscript was produced in Zürich for the wealthy …
What exactly is a monster? According to the Oxford English Dictionary it is an 'ugly or deformed person, animal or thing'. The narrator of the 14th century The Travels of Sir John Mandeville categorises a monster as 'a thing deformed against kind, both of man or of beast'. Given society's changing standards of beauty and …