Kralen spreken tot de verbeelding. Ze zijn aantrekkelijk en persoonlijk vanwege hun kleuren, materialen, patronen en associaties. Je draagt ze op je lichaam, waar je ze voelt en anderen ze zien. Kralen zijn waardevol en verplaatsbaar, tegelijkertijd reizigers en souvenirs.

Early Modern Medievalisms: The Interplay between Scholarly Reflection and Artistic Production

How did Anglo-Saxons reflect on the experience of growing old? Was it really a golden age for the elderly, as has been suggested?

Beads are among the oldest types of human artistic expression. Even so, the small ornaments have a bad status record regarding archaeological investigation. PhD candidate Mette Langbroek, usually at home studying early medieval beads, had the opportunity to work on a publication and exhibition on 5000…

During the early modern period, many medieval manuscripts were cut up into strips of parchment which were reused to reinforce the bindings of newly printed books. Until recently, these reused pieces of medieval manuscripts only came to light when the early modern book binding was damaged and/or subjected…

Generations of Leiden students and academics have done archaeological research into the early medieval history of Oegstgeest. This makes this old settlement one of the best-documented sites from that era. In a new book, Leiden researchers take stock.

How did the life course, with all its biological, social and cultural aspects, influence the lives, writings, and art of the inhabitants of early medieval England?

Archaeometric analysis of glazed pottery assemblages from the Early Byzantine to the Early Modern periods in the Aegean.

This research cluster explores processes of cultural creation, reception and transformation within a wide range of societal contexts from the early Middle Ages until c. 1800.

The contributions in this volume seek to highlight the atypical features of the Hanse, and place them in a wider context of common roots, influences and parallel developments.

Leiden’s Institute for History has an exceptionally strong expertise in premodern European history in its global context, with specialists whose interests cover virtually the whole continent. We have a strong track record in leading larger research teams and work together with colleagues across Europe…

Promotores: Prof.dr. J. Zaanen & Prof.dr. K.E. Schalm

Leiden’s Institute for History has an exceptionally strong expertise in premodern European history in its global context, with specialists whose interests cover virtually the whole continent.

The Corfu Papers

Introduction to Medieval Europe 300–1500 provides a comprehensive survey of this complex and varied formative period of European history, covering themes as diverse as barbarian migrations, the impact of Christianisation, the formation of nations and states, the emergence of an expansionist commercial…

Archaeological and Historical Perspectives on Eastern Cuisine and Western Foodways

In early medieval England, there was an interest in the history of the Roman Empire and kings adopted such imperial titles as 'imperator' or 'basileus'. How can we explain this interest and what functions did imperial ideas and the reception of the classical world serve in early medieval England?

Mapping sanitary infrastructure in large urban societies in the Low Countries, 1200–1900

Politically speaking, the Frisian coastal area constitutes a special case in late medieval Europe since it was not subject to an overlord as it withstood feudalization in the 13th century. Its many sub regions, which were dominated by elites of small noblemen and freeholders, long time succeeded in…

Due to the fact that the Frisian lands lacked major political centers in the Middle Ages and also because most of its monasteries suffered complete destruction in the second half of the 16th century, relatively few written documents concerning medieval Frisian history have survived. To analyze them…

Did early farmers deliberately use animal manure on their fields?

The Medieval Studies Day 2023 will take place in Utrecht, on November 3. The theme is Public Engagement.

This research project studies the distribution and impact of medieval malaria in the Netherlands.

This collection brings into conversation several kinds of scholarship on medieval authorship which have tended to remain separate over the last two to three decades, a period of steadily increasing scholarly interest in this topic.

This book is a celebration of the work of Professor Frans Theuws and was published in conjunction with the symposium held at the University of Leiden on June 29, 2018.

Within the Dutch Research School for Medieval Studies, medievalists from six Dutch universities work together. The school (together with the local graduate schools of the universities) takes care of the training of researchers focussed on the Middle Ages and provides educational activities…

Did you know that Arabic was for centuries the lingua franca in an area stretching from the south of Spain to the Chinese border? And that the Middle East under Muslim rule was the world’s beating heart of trade, but also of science and scholarship?

This thesis attempts to establish a dialogue between the modern and the medieval traditions in logic, by means of ‘translations’ of the medieval logical theories into the modern framework of symbolic logic, i.e. formalizations.

Proceedings of the First International Conference on Byzantine and Ottoman Archaeology, Amsterdam, 21-23 October 2011

This special issue of the peer-reviewed journal Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik (Brill, 2021) brings together articles that explore new digital ways of analyzing and annotating Old English vocabulary.

The Centre for Late Antique and Medieval Studies (LAMS) is an academic initiative housed at the Leiden University Institute of Philosophy. It brings together researchers and academics working on one or more aspects of late antiquity and medieval studies, across the fields of philosophy, history, theology,…

In this course, we will focus on the fascinating history of the Arabic Medieval World. We will take you on a journey through the Middle Ages. All along, we will present you with historiographical debates and dilemmas and travel back and forth in time explaining to you how events of the past affected…

This research project focuses on the thoughts of ethnicity and political orthodoxy in Medieval China by investigating Wang Tong’s works.

One of the three long-term research interests of our group concerns the Transformation of the Roman World (c AD 450-900).

On October 9th, Peter Alexander Kerkhof succesfully defended his doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Peter Alexander on this great result.

This book is witness to Hendrik Vanden Abeele’s research into the development, construction and creation of a present-day performance practice of late medieval plainchant, based partly on his work with the Belgian chant group Psallentes.

This new study by professor Peter Hoppenbrouwers focuses on conflict in village communities of late medieval Drenthe in order to depict a typical peasant society in late medieval Europe.

Long-distance Trade in Early Medieval Landscapes (ca. 6th-12th centuries)

This project aims to answer the following questions: how did the landscape and geography of the local surroundings of Chalcis impact medieval to early modern productivity, habitation, mobility and interaction in a wider sense? And where are such changes and continuations still visible in the landsca…

In Voices on Birchbark Jos Schaeken explores the major role that writing on birchbark – an ephemeral, even ‘throw-away’ form of correspondence and administration – played in the vibrant medieval merchant city of Novgorod and other cities in the Russian Northwest.

How can the importance of the image in late medieval spirituality be understood in the context of the love mysticism inspired by the imagery of the Song of Songs?

Magistri Symonis (?) Questiones secunde partis Doctrinalis Alexandri de Villa Dei First Critical Edition from the Manuscript with Introduction, Appendices and Indexes

This project incorporates spatiality into the discussion of medieval demography, allowing for a more nuanced view on medieval town populations. It establishes a maximum population count for towns for periods prior to 1400 and provides a means to compare the ranking of towns using size and density instead…

This book is a result of the collective research project Urban Societies in the Port Towns of Atlantic Europe in the Late Middle Ages. It studies the connections between diplomacy and trade from a comparative and transnational perspective throughout medieval Atlantic Europe.

University Lecturer Ahab Bdaiwi:

What are the capabilities or limitations of traveling between islands and how does this reflect seasonal variation? Is it possible to show higher levels of connectivity between islands based on generated pathways between several sites on two separate islands?

Family, Work, and Household presents the social and occupational life of a late medieval Iberian town in rich, unprecedented detail. The book combines a diachronic study of two regionally prominent families—one knightly and one mercantile—with a detailed cross-sectional urban study of household and…