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.

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.

Nietzsche's most famous and infamous book Thus Spoke Zarathustra is perhaps the most read, but probably also the least understood, book in Nietzsche's oeuvre. Nietzsche considered it his highlight. He called it a symphony, a holy book, a fifth gospel and even the greatest gift ever given to humanity.…

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.

This NWO-funded VICI project (2025-2030) led by Prof.dr. Petra M. Sijpesteijn examines the place-making processes in the early Islamic Empire.

Promotores: Prof. dr. G.R. (Geert) de Snoo, Dr. E. (Ester) van der Voet

Promotores: W.T. de Groot, M. Tchuenté, Co-promotor: J.P. Cheylan

An exploration across thirteen essays by critics, translators and creative writers on the modern-day afterlives of Old English, delving into how it has been transplanted and recreated in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

In a podcast episode of 'New Books in History' Claire Weeda talks about her book 'Ethnicity in Medieval Europe 950-1250: Medicine, Power and Religion'.

On 24 September 2020, Bernardo Ribeiro de Almeida defended his thesis 'Building land tenure systems: the political, legal, and institutional struggles of Timor-Leste'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. A.W. Bedner. Co-supervisor was Dr. C.I.M. Jacobs.

The central research question in this study was twofold: 1. To what extent are the three reconstruction models useful in a reconstruction of the public decision-making process concerning decentralized government between 1947 and 2014? 2. To what extent does the reconstruction of this public decision-making…

This research investigates the changing landscape and land use in two case studies of the coastal villages of St. Kitts and the Kalinago Territory of Dominica. By integrating human and ecological aspects of agrarian landscapes, this research analyzes how land degradation or land change impacts cultural…

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?

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.

This project explores the decline of shifting cultivation in Northeast India. What is the impact on society of people’s deepening engagement with markets and the state?

Promotor: J.A. van Veen, Co-promotor: E.E. Kuramae

Presenting case studies by both senior and emerging scholars, it makes mandatory reading for anyone interested in the challenges of governance, citizenship and development faced by the people of India’s North East.

An investigation into how racial stereotypes were created and used in the European Middle Ages.

Interview for National Public Radio sparks media frenzy.

Foute taal? Bestaat niet!

Plant diversity is essential for us and our planet as it sustains the stability of our ecosystems, provides vital materials and food to us and supports many ecosystem services.

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.

Anyone who thinks that #MeToo is a new phenomenon, can think again. Subjects such as sexual intimidation, female self-defence and subjection to male desires can be found as early as in Medieval Islamic literature. Senior lecturer Asghar Seyed-Gohrab explains further on the Leiden Medievalists Blog,…

Did early farmers deliberately use animal manure on their fields?

This study employs a comparative perspective to identify generic and specific qualities of petitions and petitioning. It charts the chronological development of petitioning practices over centuries. The interdisciplinary approaches provide range of conceptual and methodological expertise for reade…

In the contemporary myriad of definitions and approaches of landscape, the starting points and limits of the concept of landscape biography are being explored, but also tested in this thesis. What exactly is a landscape biography? What does it constitute of? Is landscape biography just a narration of…

This project investigates the full ecosystem of Middle Dutch prayerbooks in order to answer questions about their role in – and impact on – religion, culture, and society in the late medieval Low Countries.

The research focuses on the understanding of symbolic stratigraphy of the land (through time) from the worldview of the People of the Rain (one of the Indigenous Peoples of southern Mexico), by studying contemporary cultural heritage in communities of the Mixtec Highlands.

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

Anthropology of Law in Muslim Sudan analyses the hybridity of law systems and the plurality of legal practices in rural and urban contexts of contemporary Sudan, shedding light on the complex relation between Islam and society.

De Pagus Renensis van de 4de tot de 8ste eeuw na Chr.: Een archeologische synthese

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.

Promotor: G.R. de Snoo, W. Kustiawan, Co-promotor: H.H. de Iongh

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), often referred to as drones, have become easy and inexpensive to buy, and it is generally expected that the use of drones by private individuals, businesses and public authorities will increase tremendously in the coming years. This raises questions as to what is technologically…

Is the quality of the current supervision and enforcement by the government such that companies that work with large quantities of hazardous substances are brought into compliance with legislation and regulations?

On 14 May 2020, Pieter Rustenburg defended his thesis 'Een algemene normtheorie toegepast op open normen in het belastingrecht'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. A.O. Lubbers and Prof. J.L.M. Gribnau.

Enschede gaat als eerste gemeente in Nederland een fatbikeverbod invoeren om de verkeersveiligheid te verbeteren. Volgens Geerten Boogaard, hoogleraar decentrale overheden, kleven er juridische ricico’s aan het verbod. ‘Het is lastig om als gemeente een eigen verkeersregel te bedenken. Dat mag eigenlijk…

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…

Arie van Steensel and Ariadne Schmidt (eds.)

Tussen 14 en 30 september 2022 wordt Het Land van Belofte gespeeld door Theatergroep De Kale. Het Land van Belofte neemt u mee naar de groteske verhaalwereld van middeleeuwse pelgrims naar het Heilig Land. Het Land van Belofte is gebaseerd op het zestiende-eeuwse tafelspel Schipper, Pelgrim en Post.…

On 23 June 2020, Santy Kouwagam defended her PhD-thesis 'How lawyers win land conflicts for corporations: Legal Strategy and its influence on the Rule of Law in Indonesia'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. A.W. Bedner and Prof. C.E. von Benda-Beckmann.

Minims are letters that are made up of short, vertical pen strokes, such as 'm', 'i', 'n' and 'u'. In Gothic script, there is often little distinction between letters composed of minims. Assistant professor of medieval literature Krista Murchison has written an article in History Today on the hidden…

The transformation of the myriad of medieval kingdoms, principalities, local lordships, city-‘states’ and peasant ‘republics’ into ‘modern’ states, claiming some measure of sovereignty, remains one of the core themes of European history, because it gets down to the very root of the (idea on the) Europe…

The project Deconstructing Stability aims to improve reconstructions of late prehistoric landscapes and predictive models for the purpose of archaeological heritage management.

What can a doodle tell us about the person who drew it? Erik Kwakkel is a Dutch book historian at Leiden University who searches for the secret meanings of doodles and scribbles in medieval manuscripts. He talks to BBC World Service about his passion for books.

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

On 30 November the website Pas d'Armes was launched. The website, aimed at students and a more general audience, offers a gateway into the world of the pas d’armes (English: passage of arms). This was a highly ritualised form of tournament, that was very popular in Anjou, the Burgundian lands, France,…

The archaeology of food is in all sorts of ways ‘hot’. To illustrate this, recently the book Medieval MasterChef was published, focusing on cuisine and foodways in the Mediterranean and north-western Europe during Medieval and Post-Medieval times.

The P.J. Cosijn Research Fellowship is an initiative to give promising Research MA students of Leiden University with an interest in Anglo-Saxon Studies the opportunity to conduct research on Old English language and literature. The Cosijn Fellowships are part of the ERC-funded project ‘Early Medieval…