It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a woman in possession of a love of history, must be in want of a blog.
Football in the form that we recognise today didn't really begin to coalesce until the 16th and 17th centuries, but English references to games of "fote-ball", "fute-ball", "ffootballe", and so on, start in the late medieval period. At this early stage there were few, if any, regulations. There was no set number of players and no clearly …
Continue reading “This murdering play”: the violent origins of English football
In 1842, William Thackeray published the fourth of his satirical pieces titled Miss Tickletoby's Lectures on English History, in Punch magazine, for which he was a regular contributor. They are a hilarious send-up of 19th-century English education, as captured through the lectures of the imaginary schoolmistress/historian, Miss Tickletoby. Readers who can remember Our Island Story may see some similarities …
Continue reading Miss Tickletoby’s Lectures on English History: the Battle of Hastings
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 …