The Society for Creative Anachronism has hosted a Middle Ages tournament in Jefferson City every year since 1992, and it has ...

Since ancient times, dragons existed in different cultures as indomitable creatures or signs of good luck. But when these fascinating beings took center stage in Christian myths and iconography, ...

“In public, your bottom should emit no secret winds past your thighs. It disgraces you if other people notice any of your smelly filth.” This useful bit of advice for young courtiers in the early 13th ...

Nothing calls to mind nonsensical treatments and bizarre religious healing rituals as easily as the notion of Dark Age medicine. The “Saturday Night Live” sketch “Medieval Barber Theodoric of York” ...

It is hard not to shake one’s head when hearing feminist activists describe misogynistic speech and other attacks on women’s dignity as “medieval” — especially for those who have taken the trouble to ...

The figure of the fool walked off the margins of medieval manuscripts into the unholy courts of the Renaissance, then returned to the page as Hamlet’s Yorick. Later, in the age of reason and democracy ...

Madeleine S. Killacky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations ...

Diane Purkiss is affiliated with Keble College, University of Oxford. “You have to keep beating it for longer,” my grandmother instructed me. “It isn’t pale yet. It’s still too yellow.” I didn’t ask ...

According to European folklore, if a black cat crosses your path, you've run out of luck. The association between strolling felines and terrible misfortune likely comes from the tradition of the ...