Medieval gay royal scandals, buddhist David Hume, and a really boring Queen: a roundup of history articles online this week.

September 26, 2015October 25, 2015 [email protected]3 Comments 2221 views

Three of the best history-themed articles I’ve read this week. Scandal, drama, buddhism in 18th century Europe, and boring vanilla queens. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. From historytoday.com: http://www.historytoday.com/js-hamilton/menage-roi-edward-ii-and-piers-gaveston For nearly 700 years people have been debating whether a) Edward II was gay, and b) if he was in a romantic relationship with…

Medieval Monks and Nuns weren’t as Promiscuous as We All Think They Were

September 25, 2015October 12, 2015 [email protected] 618 views

I recently came across a post on medievalists.net about a thesis by Christian D. Knudsen concerning sexual misconduct in convents and monastic houses. The idea that the monasteries were corrupt, and in “decline” just before the Dissolution is a narrative that has been largely unchallenged for 500 years, and in that light the Dissolution undertaken…

Richard Hakluyt: England’s first Travel Writer

September 24, 2015October 12, 2015 [email protected] 602 views

I’m working on a new Renaissance English History Podcast about trade and exploration (because of course the two were linked – without the possibility of new trading markets, there could be no exploration of new lands). It’s impossible to read much about any of the early English explorations without stumbling across Richard Hakluyt, England’s first…

Ronda Explorations: Arab Baths and Roman Ruins

September 22, 2015October 12, 2015 [email protected] 527 views

I posted last week about the history of Ronda, the town where I’m living right now, and how its history spans pre-Roman Celtic times, through Christians, Moors, and back to Catholic with the Reconquista. Over the weekend I dove deeper into two of the epochs, Roman and Muslim. After spending Saturday in Gibraltar buying groceries…

Staying relevant in pop culture after 500 years: Tallis and Spem in Alium

September 21, 2015October 18, 2015 [email protected] 1140 views

A few months ago I went to pull up a recording of Thomas Tallis’ Spem in Alium, his famous 40 part motet written for 8 5-part choirs. I hadn’t listened to it in a while, and it was the kind of day that called for some later Tallis. The recording that came up first in the search…

Anne Boleyn’s Songbook: sharing the intimate emotions of a Queen

September 18, 2015October 4, 2015 [email protected] 687 views

I posted recently about my interview with Dr. David Skinner, an eminent musicologist based out of the College of Sidney Sussex, Cambridge. When I posted before it was about the logistics of my interview (getting caught in the rain, microphone not working, etc etc). But now that his CD is soon available on Amazon in the…

Queen or Pope – Catholics in Elizabethan England

September 17, 2015October 12, 2015 [email protected] 540 views

Caitlin Moran talks in her book, How to be a Woman, about the idea that often when we discover a particular book, we are suddenly introduced to all its friends, and so join this society that we hadn’t even known existed before. So if you, for example, start reading Dorothy Parker, suddenly before you know…

Ronda: How one city is Celtic, Roman, Moorish and Christian all at the same time

September 15, 2015October 12, 2015 [email protected] 636 views

Ronda is the closest big town to where we live, it’s where our Spanish school is located, and where we do most of our shopping (when we don’t want to make the drive to Little England aka Gibraltar). It’s jam packed with history, and the architecture is a constant reminder that Spain was ruled by the…

These things seem wondrous: Weelkes and the giddiness in late 16th century England

September 14, 2015October 13, 2015 [email protected] 537 views

Last week when I was interviewing Suzi Digby for my podcast episode on her Los Angeles based project The Golden Bridge, which pairs choral music of the English Renaissance with that of contemporary composers, she mentioned a madrigal by Thomas Weelkes called The Andalusian Merchant. Since I live in Andalusia, I looked it up immediately,…

Let’s Pause for a Moment, and Reflect

September 13, 2015 [email protected] 412 views

I’ve started working through the Jeff Goins TribeWriters and Intentional Blogging course in the past month. I’m about midway through TribeWriters, which is why you’re seeing some nifty changes around this blog – like a move towards being self-hosted, the newsletter sign up box, a more consistent blogging schedule (which I’m still trying to work out),…