Since the late 1970's, dozens of researchers, scholars, skeptics and "professional debunkers" have presented their theories on how the image on the Shroud of Turin was formed. Some are based on serious science while others show a complete lack of understanding of the Shroud image or its properties. In this paper, I will review the "proto-photography" theory proposed by Prof. Nicholas Allen of S...

Much of medieval ethics was practical. Christian spiritual guidance, monastic culture, the regulatory interests of the Church and princes, as well as numerous other factors merged to create a moral framework with a distinct emphasis on application. Because moral and theological guidance were largely intertwined, practical ethics evolved under the guise of pastoral concerns. The subject area of ...

The element titanium has been identified in a number of inks from historical documents. However, no further analyses of these inks have been carried out in order to determine in what molecular form the titanium is present. This paper emphasizes the need for further studies of historical inks and provides information about their preparation, which suggests that the compound anatase might be pres...

This article examines a fifteenth-century remedy book, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson c. 299, and describes its collection of 314 medieval medical prescriptions. The recipes are organised broadly from head to toe, and often several remedies are offered for the same complaint. Some individual recipes are transcribed with modern English translations. The few non-recipe texts are also noted. ...

RICHARD C. DALES, The scientific achievement of the Middle Ages, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1973, 8vo, pp. ix, 182, illus., $12.50. Professor Dales has selected extracts from primary sources to illustrate early medieval scientific thought, from the twelfth to fourteenth centuries, and presents them with lengthy introductions in the form of an historical narrative. There are...

Notions and interpretations of the peasantry of early medieval Castile evolved significantly during the twentieth century, along the lines of major historiographical changes. After a period largely dominated by the paradigm of legal and institutional history, the incorporation of social and economic approaches in the 1960s gave way to a significant increase in the volume of research and a deepe...

Dream narration has a lengthy history in the Western literary tradition, functioning as the earliest iteration of the frame story. Dream narratives can be found in the Bible, and in Greek and Latin classical literature, but perhaps reached a zenith during the Medieval period, when dream visions became a central narratological strategy in theological texts and secular romances alike. Deriving fr...

Animals and products derived from different organs of their bodies have constituted part of the inventory of medicinal substances used in various cultures since ancient times. The article reviews the history of healing with animals in the Levant (The Land of Israel and parts of present-day Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan, defined by the Muslims in the Middle Ages as Bilad al-Sham) in the medieval an...

Throughout history, opium has been used as a base for the opioid class of drugs used to suppress the central nervous system. Opium is a substance extracted from the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum L.). Its consumption and medicinal application date back to antiquity. In the medieval period, Avicenna, a famous Persian scholar (980-1037 AD) described poppy under the entry Afion of his medical enc...

who wants to read the medieval Latin of the translated texts which are being discussed is not often helped towards a printed edition: this is an understandable consequence of the manuscript focus of the book and (perhaps) the author's view of the poor quality of older editions. O'Boyle has produced a very clear account of the complex history and development of a text which was very important in...