General news, articles and discussions regarding the Middle Ages.
During this turbulent period of history, the fall of the Roman Empire led to invasions, mass migrations and the formation of new kingdoms. A prolonged period of cultural and economic stagnation was followed by the consolidation of monarchies, and progress in the arts and literature including the first universities, in turn followed by famine, plague, and increased religious conflicts.
I heard this from a podcast so I don't have a source.
Apparently the English wouldn't use the crossbow even though it required barely any training, they viewed it as unchristian basically seeing it as cheating and stuck to the long bow.
Maybe they thought God would favor them more than crossbow users in battle.
Hoard of silver coins may have been part of historic ransom to save Paris
24 minutes ago
A hoard of silver coins minted in the Carolingian Empire about 1,200 years ago has been unearthed in northeastern Poland and may have been part of a historic ransom to save Paris from a Viking invasion.
It's the first time anyone has found so many Carolingian coins in Poland. Only three such coins — of a distinctive style with Latin inscriptions and a central crucifix — have been found in the country before now.
The Carolingian Empire was founded by the Frankish king Charlemagne — Charles the Great — and spanned much of modern France, Germany, Switzerland and northern Italy in the eighth and ninth centuries.
Archaeologists think the newfound coins may have come from the Viking trading town of Truso, which was then located near the Baltic coast about 60 miles (100 kilometers) west of the farmer's field where they were found.
And if the coins did come from Truso, it's possible that they were part of an immense ransom of gold and silver paid by a Carolingian king to prevent invading Vikings from sacking the city of Paris.
This story actually straddles the Middle Ages and the era preceding the Middle Ages. I will put it here because that seems to be the more relevant orientation.
Human Skulls Reveal New Clues About Early Anglo-Saxon Ancestry
by Dustin Manduffie
June 23, 2021
Introduction:
(Courthouse News) — The early ancestry of the peoples inhabiting Britain never has been quite settled. It’s known that large groups of Germanic tribes from continental Europe came over at some point between the fall of Rome and the rise of the English crown — but who, how many and how they got on with the locals has been a source of debate for as long as anyone can remember.
Germanic settlers first flooded into Britain between the 5th and 7th centuries A.D., described in historical texts as an invasion from the continent. That “invasion” led to the formation of the Anglo-Saxon ethnic group that would rule much of the island for the next roughly 500 years, until the Normans showed up. That’s also when the English language formed, which is itself based on an early form of German. Was it actually an invasion, though?
As it turns out, early Medieval Britain following the influx was much like modern-day Britain in that it was full of people from a diverse range of backgrounds, eventually united by a common language, culture and values, according to the authors of a study published Wednesday in the journal PLOS One.
“The most significant finding is that Anglo-Saxon identify was based on cultural practices and language, not genetics, since we found that the area that came to be called England was occupied by people of different ancestries who shared a common language and culture,” said Kimberly Plomp, a postdoctoral researcher at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, in an email. “England is a country with an unusually high level of diversity in relation to ancestry, as anybody watching the current Euros soccer competition will readily appreciate. But of course, the vast majority of people living in the country speak the same language and share a large number of cultural values and practices.”
Derbyshire cave house identified as ninth-century home to exiled king
Thu 15 Jul 2021
A cave house previously thought to be an 18th-century folly has been identified as one of the oldest intact domestic interiors ever found in the UK and was once, archaeologists tantalisingly believe, the home of an exiled Anglo-Saxon king.
In the 18th century, Anchor Church cave in south Derbyshire was used by local gentry as a place for parties, and until now it was officially understood that that was as far back as its history went.
But archaeologists now believe the cave house can be dated to 1,200 years ago, probably lived in by Eardwulf who was deposed as king of Northumbria in AD806 and died in AD830.
Edmund Simons, the principal investigator on the project, grew up in an area surrounded by cave houses. “They are very difficult things to understand and date and I’ve been fascinated by them all my life,” he said. “I remember falling off one when I was three.”
He normally works abroad but with travel impossible over the last year he decided to “indulge myself and get together a project to work out what the hell what these things are”. The project is looking at 170 sites, but it is Anchor Church cave where “everything just fitted together in a way that it normally doesn’t happen with these things”, Simons said.
New Discovery Indicates Machu Picchu Could Be Decades Older Than We Realized
5 AUGUST 2021
The history of the Incas was written by their conquerors, and as we're coming to find out, the story we know is not necessarily accurate.
Modern radiocarbon dating now suggests Machu Picchu is at least two decades older than historical records have indicated.
According to interpretations of 16th century documents by the American archaeologist and anthropologist John Rowe, this high-altitude citadel was built for the Inca Emperor Pachacuti, shortly after he rose to power in AD 1438.
This date has served as a baseline for the construction of Machu Picchu since Rowe's work was published in the 1940s, and repeated in textbook after textbook. Yet it seems he may have read a little too much into those historical texts.
Now, the dating of human bones and teeth buried at the sacred site indicates Machu Picchu was already occupied by AD 1420, which means it was probably built earlier than that.
Vikings settled in North America in 1021AD, study says
31 minutes ago
Vikings had a settlement in North America exactly one thousand years ago, centuries before Christopher Columbus arrived on the continent, a study says.
Scientists say a new dating technique analysing tree rings has provided evidence that Vikings occupied a site in Newfoundland, Canada, in 1021AD.
It has long been known that Europeans reached the Americas before Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492.
But this is the first time researchers have suggested an exact date.
Writing in the journal Nature, scientists said they had analysed the tree rings of three pieces of wood cut for the Norse settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows.
^^^Speaking of early settlement and exploration of North America, there is also a very controversial belief that the Chinese may have explored the North American continent circa 1421. Here is a website devoted to furthering this argument as well as the broader argument that Chinese sailing vessels basically circumnavigated the globe in that same time frame:
As I say, the idea is very controversial, so I would carefully explore both sides of the argument before spreading the ideas further around via the internet.