Impressive new research sheds light on the size of the Viking fleets operating in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean between c. 750 and 1100.
Author: Medieval Histories
Weaving Sails for Viking Ships?
A new excavation at Søften, near Lisbjerg, has revealed an extensive production environment that may have supplied Viking Age Aarhus with textiles and other craft products.
Otto the Great
According to German Historians in the 19th and 20th centuries, Otto the Great (912-973) was responsible for consolidating Germany as a nation. After WW2, the history has been told in a more nuanced way.
Otto I (912-973) was the duke of Saxony (as Otto II, 936–961), German king (from 936), and Holy Roman emperor (962–973). He consolidated the German Kingdom (1) by his suppression of rebellious vassals and his decisive victory over the Hungarians. His use of the church as a stabilizing influence created a secure empire and stimulated a cultural renaissance.
Early years
Otto was the son of King Henry I (the Fowler), of the Liudolfing, or Saxon, dynasty, and his second wife, Matilda. Little is known of his early years, but he probably shared in some of his father’s campaigns. He married Editha (Eadgyth), daughter of the English king Edward the Elder, in 930. She obtained as her dowry the flourishing town of Magdeburg. Nominated by Henry as his successor, Otto was elected king by the German dukes at Aachen on Aug. 7, 936, a month after Henry’s death, and crowned by the archbishops of Mainz and Cologne.
While Henry I had controlled his vassal dukes only with difficulty, the new king firmly asserted his suzerainty over them. This led immediately to war, especially with Eberhard of Franconia and his namesake, Eberhard of Bavaria, who were joined by discontented Saxon nobles under the leadership of Otto’s half-brother Thankmar.
Thankmar was defeated and killed, the Franconian Eberhard submitted to the King, and Eberhard of Bavaria was deposed and outlawed. In 939, however, Otto’s younger brother Henry revolted; he was joined by Eberhard of Franconia and by Giselbert of Lotharingia and supported by the French king Louis IV. Otto was again victorious: Eberhard fell in battle, Giselbert was drowned in flight, and Henry submitted to his brother.
Nevertheless, in 941 Henry once again joined a conspiracy to murder the King. This was discovered in time, and, whereas the other conspirators were punished, Henry was again forgiven. Thenceforward he remained faithful to his brother and, in 947, was given the dukedom of Bavaria. The other German dukedoms were likewise bestowed on relatives of Otto.
Foreign conquests
Despite these internal difficulties, Otto found time to strengthen and to extend the frontiers of the kingdom. In the east the margraves Gero and Hermann Billung were successful against the Slavs, and their gains were consolidated by the founding of the Monastery of St. Maurice in Magdeburg, in 937, and of two bishoprics, in 948.
In the north, three bishoprics (followed in 968 by a fourth) were founded to extend the Christian mission in Denmark, which however remained a separate kingdom under the rule of Gorm the Old . Otto’s first campaign in Bohemia was, however, a failure, and it was not until 950 that the Bohemian prince Boleslav I was forced to submit and to pay tribute.
Having thus strengthened his own position, Otto could not only resist France’s claims to Lorraine (Lotharingia) but also act as mediator in France’s internal troubles. Similarly, he extended his influence into Burgundy. Moreover, when the Burgundian princess Adelaide, the widowed queen of Italy whom the margrave Berengar of Ivrea had taken prisoner, appealed to him for help, Otto marched into Italy in 951, assumed the title of king of the Lombards, and married Adelaide himself, his first wife, Editha (Eadgyth), having died in 946. In 952 Berengar did homage to him as his vassal for the Kingdom of Italy.
Otto had to break off his first Italian campaign because of a revolt in Germany, where Liudolf, his son by Editha, had risen against him with the aid of several magnates. Otto found himself compelled to withdraw to Saxony; but the position of the rebels began to deteriorate when the Magyars invaded Germany in 954, for the rebels could now be accused of complicity with the enemies of the kingdom. After prolonged fighting, Liudolf had to submit in 955.
This made it possible for Otto to defeat the Magyars decisively in the Battle of the Lechfeld, near Augsburg, in August 955; they never invaded Germany again. In the same year Otto and the margrave Gero also won a victory over the Slavs. A further series of campaigns led, by 960, to the subjection of the Slavs between the middle Elbe and the middle Oder. The archbishopric of Magdeburg was founded in 968 with three suffragan bishoprics. Even Mieszko of Poland paid tribute to the German king.
Coronation as emperor
In May 961 Otto procured the election and coronation of the six-year-old Otto II, his elder son by Adelaide, as German king. Then he went for a second time to Italy on the appeal of Pope John XII, who was hard pressed by Berengar of Ivrea. Arriving in Rome on Feb. 2, 962, Otto was crowned emperor, and 11 days later a treaty, known as the Privilegium Ottonianum, was concluded, to regulate relations between emperor and pope. This confirmed and extended the temporal power of the papacy, but it is a matter of controversy whether the proviso enabling the emperor to ratify papal elections was included in the original version of the treaty or added in December 963, when Otto deposed John XII for treating with Berengar and set up Leo VIII as pope. Berengar was captured and taken to Germany, and in 964 a revolt of the Romans against Leo VIII was suppressed.
When Leo VIII died in 965, the Emperor chose John XIII for pope, but John was expelled by the Romans. Otto, therefore, marched for a third time to Italy, where he stayed from 966 to 972. He subdued Rome and even advanced into the Byzantine south of Italy. Prolonged negotiations with Byzantium resulted in the marriage of Otto II to the Byzantine princess Theophano, in 972. Having returned to Germany, the Emperor held a great assembly of his court at Quedlinburg on March 23, 973. He died in Memleben several weeks later and was buried in Magdeburg at the side of his first wife.
Legacy of Otto I
Otto I’s achievement rests mainly on his consolidation of the kingdom. He deliberately made use of the bishops to strengthen his rule and thus created that “Ottonian church system of the Realm” that was to provide a stable and long-lasting framework for Germany. By his victorious campaigns, he gave Germany peace and security from foreign attack, and the preeminent position that he won as ruler gave him a sort of hegemony in Europe. His Italian policy and the acquisition of the imperial crown constituted a link with the old Carolingian tradition and was to prove a great responsibility for the German people in the future. All areas under Otto’s rule prospered, and the resultant flowering of culture has been called the Ottonian renaissance.
NOTES
(1) Often called the German Reich in English historiography, the term Reich echoes the expression, The Nazi Reich. Here it is called the more neutral “German Kingdom”.
FEATURED PHOTO:
In 2025, the remains of Otto the Great were taken up from his grave in Magdeburg Cathedral. This led to public access to a number of photos, including several of his skull. The present photo is an AI-reconstruction based on fleshed out version of his death-mask (also done by AI).
BIOGRAPHIES:
The biography of Johannes Laudage is the best of the more current publications. Unfortunately it has not been translated. However, to these must be added the catalogues from the major exhibitions in the last 25 years in Magdeburg. The smaller publication by Matthias Becher offers a quick overview.
SOURCES:
Primary narrative sources to the history of the 10th century German Kingdom
Viking Connections:
The Viking Age was a vibrant and complex period of movement and change, not easily grasped inside a set of fixed notions and ideas. A new book presents 32 papers presented at the Nineteenth Viking Congress in 2022
Viking Connections. Proceedings of the Nineteenth Viking Congress
By Clare Downham, Fiona Edmonds, Nancy Edwards and David Griffiths
Liverpool University Press, 2026
ISBN:9781805967422 (Hardback),
eISBN:9781805967439 (PDF)
eISBN:9781805967477 (ePub)
ABSTRACT.
Viking Connections is an edited collection representing the most recent scholarship in the interdisciplinary study of the Viking Age. The 32 papers arise from the Nineteenth Viking Congress which took place in Wales and North-West England in July 2022. They focus on new research from across the Viking World encompassing Archaeology, History, Literature, Language, Place-names, Numismatics, and the History of Art. Themes include Irish Sea connections as well wider connections across the Viking World. There is also a Congress diary.
The title Viking Connections expresses the importance of international networks and long-distance patterns of contact, which underlie both the Viking Age itself and our contemporary community of interdisciplinary scholarship. Contributors include senior academics, early career researchers, and museum and heritage professionals.
The picture that emerges from this volume is of the Viking Age as a vibrant and complex period of movement and change. Highlights include James Graham-Campbell’s survey of the metallic wealth of the Isle of Man, Mark Redknap’s comprehensive account of Viking Age finds in Wales, Orri Vésteinsson’s investigation of the effects that the introduction of large amounts of silver had on Viking Age society, Elizabeth Pierce’s study that tracks the tenth- to twelfth-century Scandinavian presence in eastern Scotland whose evidence suggests substantial trading activity, Søren Sindbæk’s demonstration of how radiocarbon calibration curves, when applied to the fine-meshed stratigraphy of Ribe, suggest a new chronological framework for the beginning of the Viking Age, and Christian Cooijmans’ exploration of the idea of viking camps as not just military barracks, but sites where all aspects of everyday life went on, and which formed the basis of the whole viking phenomenon.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Paton’s foreword, Introduction and Congress Diary, Council, attendance and contributor lists, and Obituaries
- Máire Ní Mhaonaigh Kin, Allies, Frenemies: the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland and cross-cultural exchange
- Ben Guy Poetry and Taxes: Welsh responses to Viking attacks in the late tenth century
- John Hines Exploitation of the unfree: the impact of the Viking Age on Welsh society and economy
- Mark Redknap Vikings, Places, Silver and Contexts: a Welsh perspective
- Ryan Foster† Scandinavians in Cumberland: elite takeover, mass migration, or something else?
- Steve Dickinson The Viking Age shieling: craft, cues and contexts
- Caroline Paterson The Contribution of Recent Excavations of Furnished Burials to our Understanding of the Scandinavian Settlement of Cumbria
- Danica Ramsey-Brimberg Grave Circumstances: revisiting the influence of location on Viking Age burials in the Irish Sea area
- Erin McGuire Migrant Identities, Mortuary Citations, and New Ancestors in Western Scandinavian Scotland
- Dirk H. Steinforth Pagan Images for a Christian Message: tracing bi-cultural Viking-Age iconography in the Irish Sea region
- Maeve Sikora A Hoard of Vessels from Derreen, Co. Clare: its Irish and Scandinavian context
- Raghnall Ó Floinn† Late and Early Post Viking-Age Insular Ringed Pins (c. 900 – c. 1125): a reassessment
- Griffin Murray The Shrine of St Patrick’s Bell and the Origins of the Hiberno-Urnes Style
- Russell Ó Ríagáin The Viking Age in the Overkingdom of Ulaid
- Caitlin Ellis Um Írlandshaf: presentations of the Irish Sea in Old Norse-Icelandic
- Jane Kershaw and Stephen Merkel Viking Wealth in the Irish Sea Zone: new evidence from lead isotope analyses of Viking-Age rings and ingots
- James Graham-Campbell Wealth in the Isle of Man in the Early 10th Century
- Kristin Bornholdt Collins The 2021 Northern Mixed hoard (c. 1030/35), Isle of Man
- Johanne Porter A Saint from the East and a Hoard in the North: a reassessment of the St Edmund coins from the Cuerdale hoard
- Wendy Scott Copies and Crossing the Water: the implications of the unusual elements in the Lenborough Hoard for coin circulation in Anglo-Danish England.
- Fedir Androschchuk Viking-Age Silver Hoards in Norrland: find places, content and origin
- Jens Christian Moesgaard Who Controlled the Minting in Lund in the 11th Century?
- Orri Vésteinsson Silver and Social Change in the Viking Age
- Søren M. Sindbæk Ribe and the Beginning of the Viking Age
- Thorsten Lemm All Roads Lead to Hedeby: communication routes, local markets and mercantile interaction in the hinterland of a trading town
- Lene B. Frandsen Nybro: a road connection in south-west Jutland from the early Viking Age
Christian Cooijmans A Place of Contact and Contradiction: the socially constructed space(s) of viking encampment - Lesley Abrams Defining the Danelaw
- Elizabeth Pierce Identifying a Scandinavian Presence in Eastern Scotland in the Viking Age
- Mari Arentz Østmo and Marianne Moen Connecting Death: interpersonal and other affiliations in burial monuments with multiple individuals from Norway
- Cassidy Croci Building Bridges: visualizing the Role of Women in Sturlubók
- Judith Jesch Afterword
ABOUT THE EDITORS:
Clare Downham is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Liverpool. Her publications include Medieval Ireland (Cambridge University Press 2017) and Medieval Kings of Britain and Ireland: The Dynasty of Ivarr to A.D. 1014 (Liverpool University Press 2007).
Fiona Edmonds is Professor in Regional History, Lancaster University. Her publications include Gaelic Influence in the Northumbrian Kingdom: the Golden Age and the Viking Age (Boydell & Brewer 2019).
Nancy Edwards is Professor Emerita in Medieval Archaeology, Prifysgol Bangor, Bangor University. Her publications include Life in Early Medieval Wales (Oxford University Press 2023).
David Griffiths is Professor of Archaeology, University of Oxford. His publications include Vikings of the Irish Sea (History Press 2010, new edition 2025).
Caedmon’s Poem – Literature
Cædmon was a cowherd, who turned poet and saintly monk in 7th century Northumbria. Although only one hymn in Old English is preserved, it is venerated for its beauty. Find the literature here
About Cædmon
We know of Cædmon from Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England from c. 731, written at the monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow in Northumbria. Arguably, Cædmon composed the first poem in Old English.
Cædmon’s Hymn in new version
New copy of earliest poem in the English language discovered in Rome
Winiþharjaz of Vindelev – A Military Leader in Fifth-Century Denmark
The village of Vindelev in Eastern Jutland was presumably a gift to a Vendish military commander, who operated east of Vejle in the middle of the 400s. An impressive gold hoard opens up the world, in which he lived.
Late Medieval Female Subject Consciousness
Autobiographical writings was the inroad to identity formation among female mystics and authors.
Late Medieval Female Subject Consciousness. Italian and English Mystics, Boccaccio, Chaucer, and Beyond
By Stephanie Amsel
Palgrave 2026 
Late Medieval Female Subject Consciousness: Italian and English Mystics brings together disparate feminist theoretical approaches to explore the formation of medieval female subject consciousness in writings by female mystics including Angela of Foligno, Catherine of Siena, and Margery Kempe, as well as secular writings of Christine de Pizan, and powerful female characters of Giovanni Boccaccio and Geoffrey Chaucer. The rise of what Amsel calls “medieval female subject consciousness” shows that increased self-awareness and sense of self relates to how the authorship of texts reconstructs traditional female roles, particularly in Italian and English. These writing women challenged prevailing norms as they forged literal and figurative spaces to self-actualize through writing, even if the act of writing was performed by male amanuenses. This book explores how Boccaccio and Chaucer serve as witnesses by creating female characters who reflect changes in women’s writing in late medieval society in Italy and England.
FEATURED PHOTO:
A miniature of the Erythrean Sibyl, writing. British Library, Royal 16 G V f. 23., CC BY-SA
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
- Lo Specchio Spaccato
- From Subaltern to Self-Actualization: Defining Medieval Female Subject Consciousness
- Medieval Women’s Work: Women’s Writing as Intellectual, Productive Work
- Writing the Body in Medieval Texts: Autobiography and Testimonio
- Witnessing Medieval Female Subject Consciousness in Works of Giovanni Boccaccio and Geoffrey Chaucer
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Stephanie Amsel is professor at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, USA
Italian Gothic in Catalonia: Jaume and Pere Serra
Fourteenth-century Barcelona was home to a number of flamboyant artistic workshops producing cartoon-like altarpieces for a wider market.
The Altenberg Madonna
Altenberg Madonna Enters the Städel Museum: A Landmark Acquisition
This morning, the Städel Museum announced what can rightly be described as a watershed moment for the study and appreciation of medieval art in Germany: the acquisition of the Madonna and Child Enthroned, known as the Altenberg Madonna. Dating from around 1320–1330, the sculpture entered the museum’s collection through the joint support of the Ernst von Siemens Art Foundation, the Städelscher Museums-Verein, and the Kulturstiftung der Länder.
With the acquisition of the Altenberg Madonna—made possible through the generous support of leading German cultural foundations—the Städel Museum in Frankfurt achieves the long-awaited reunification of the Altenberg Altar. This exceptional 14th-century Gothic sculpture thus ranks among the most significant acquisitions in the museum’s history.
Considered one of the supreme masterpieces of German Gothic sculpture and among the earliest surviving works of 14th-century Cologne production, the Altenberg Madonna is listed as cultural property of national importance and is therefore subject to strict export protection.
A Long-Awaited Reunion
The sculpture was originally created for the Altenberg Altar, commissioned for the abbey church of the Premonstratensian convent of Altenberg an der Lahn, near Wetzlar in Hesse. For more than a century, the Städel Museum has preserved the painted wings of this extraordinary polyptych—among the oldest examples of German panel painting in its collection. The altar’s central shrine has long been held on permanent loan from the Braunfels Castle Museum. With the acquisition of the Madonna, once positioned at the very heart of the ensemble, the Altenberg Altar can now be fully reassembled and permanently presented to the public for the first time in its history.
The sculpture’s recent history reflects a prolonged period in private ownership. From the late 1920s onward, the Altenberg Madonna was located in southern Germany and, from 1981, remained on permanent loan to the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum in Munich. Its transfer to the Städel thus represents not only a major enrichment of the museum’s collection, but also a symbolic and historical return of the work to its original artistic and narrative context.
Philipp Demandt, Director of the Städel Museum, remarked: “After one hundred years, the celebrated Altenberg Madonna has returned to its rightful place at the heart of the altar—a truly memorable moment in the history of the Städel. This exceptional acquisition was made possible by the foresight of the owners and the extraordinary commitment of our supporters. I extend my sincere thanks to the Ernst von Siemens Art Foundation, the board and members of our supporting association, and the Kulturstiftung der Länder.”
The Altenberg Altar in Context
The Altenberg Altar occupies a distinguished place in the history of European sacred art. From the late 13th century onward, sculpted and painted altarpieces became central fixtures in churches across Latin Europe, fostering close collaboration between painters and sculptors. Particularly north of the Alps, altars with movable wings were developed to accommodate changing liturgical requirements throughout the church calendar. Created around 1330, the Altenberg Altar is among the earliest surviving examples of this innovative format.
On weekdays, the altar displayed scenes from the Passion of Christ against a dark ground. Gradual opening revealed the central shrine containing the Altenberg Madonna, surrounded by the abbey’s relics. On Sundays, a partial opening presented the Virgin flanked by episodes from her life. This sophisticated iconographic program emphasized Mary’s role as patroness of both church and convent, reflecting the significance of Marian devotion in the spiritual and political life of the region.
The abbey of Altenberg maintained close ties to the ruling family of the landgraves of Hesse and Thuringia. After the death of Ludwig IV of Thuringia, Saint Elizabeth of Thuringia entrusted her youngest daughter, Gertrude, to the abbey. Gertrude later became abbess and shaped its fortunes for decades, while the presence of Saint Elizabeth’s relics established Altenberg—alongside Marburg—as a major center of her veneration.
Artistic Excellence and Preservation
Artistically, the Altenberg Madonna belongs to the well-known type of enthroned Virgins with the standing Christ Child, developed in Cologne under strong French influence. Related examples are preserved in numerous collections, including the Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung in Frankfurt. The Altenberg Madonna, however, is distinguished by its extraordinary sculptural refinement and the exceptional preservation of its original polychromy—an exceedingly rare survival for wooden sculpture of this period.
Mary is shown as a youthful figure with a gentle, animated smile, seated on a throne with a slender cushion and a high back crowned by a pointed, ornamental gable. Her feet rest upon a polygonal base adorned with tracery. In her right hand she once held a lily, symbol of her virginity and emblem of her queenship, while her left supports the Christ Child, who stands partly on her thigh and partly on the throne. The Child’s gesture—reaching toward the lost lily while clutching a bird that pecks painfully at his finger—subtly prefigures the Passion.
The sculpture’s splendor is further enhanced by the gilded garments of both figures, enriched with glass insets imitating precious stones, and by the original presence of a crown. Mary’s gold mantle, lined with ermine, underscores her role as Queen of Heaven, while the lavishly decorated throne affirms the sacred and regal character of the image.
Monastic Culture and Provenance
The Altenberg Madonna and its altar also stand as eloquent testimony to the artistic and spiritual achievements of medieval female monastic culture. Within a society dominated by male hierarchies, the Premonstratensian nuns of Altenberg fostered a remarkably sophisticated theological and artistic environment, giving rise to one of the most distinguished sacred ensembles of its time.
The sculpture’s provenance is comprehensively documented. Following the secularization of the abbey in 1803, the Madonna passed into the possession of the princes of Solms-Braunfels and was sold in 1916 to Munich art dealer A. S. Drey. By the late 1920s, it entered the collection of Julius Böhler, remaining in family ownership until its acquisition by the Städel Museum.
Martin Hoernes, Secretary General of the Ernst von Siemens Art Foundation, commented: “The Altenberg Madonna is a captivating and remarkably early example of Cologne’s medieval sculpture. Preserving cultural heritage for present and future generations lies at the heart of our mission. Bringing this work—from Cologne via Altenberg to Frankfurt—to the Städel Museum fulfills our founder Ernst von Siemens’s conviction that works of art should be placed where they can be experienced by the widest possible audience.”
PHOTOS:
The Altenberg Madonna © Städel Museum and Norbert Miguletz
SOURCE:
PRESS RELEASE: Altenberg Madonna acquired for the Städel
READ ALSO:
Praise Poem to Aonghas of Islay – Angus Mór of Islay
When Angus’s father died c. 1250, an Irish bard composed a praise poem petitioning the son to pay his father’s debt. The poem offers a vivid account of the cultural inventory of one of the Sea Kings.
The Remains of Kings and Queens in Winchester
Since 2012, archaeologists and scientists have been poking through 1300 bones, the remains of kings, queens and bishops laid to rest in the mortuary chests in Winchester Cathedral.
Burgundy 450-535
A new book gathers together the results of Ian Wood’s life-long immersion into the events in Burgundy AD 450-535
Burgundy, 450-535.Politics and religion in the Gibichung Province.
By Ian Wood
Series: Saggi di Storia Antica vol 38
“L’Erma” di Bretschneider 2026
This book examines the early medieval Burgundian polity, which attempted in the 5th and 6th centuries to establish itself less than a successor kingdom and more as a Roman province; and did not succeed.
In the final years of the Western Roman Empire and during the following half-century, the valleys of the Rhône and Saône were governed by members of a royal Burgundian family, the Gibichungs. They ruled not as barbarian kings but as Roman magistri militum. Their prominence derived from their association with the magister militum praesentalis Ricimer, and they operated in close cooperation with members of the late Roman senatorial aristocracy, including Sidonius Apollinaris and some of his contemporaries.
This region under their control was a centre of religious and cultural life, distinguished by the works of Sidonius, Claudianus Mamertus, Faustus of Riez, and Avitus of Vienne. The interaction of politics and religion culminated in the foundation of the monastery of Agaune, a major episcopal gathering at Épaone, and the promulgation of an important body of legislation issued by King Sigismund, before collapsing dramatically in the wake of a political crisis caused by the ruler himself. The failure of the Gibichung state in AD 534 marked the end of a remarkable experiment in governmental continuity in post-Roman Gaul.
This book is written by one of the most authoritative scholars of the Early Middle Ages, Ian Wood, Professor Emeritus at the University of Leeds. Renowned for his long-standing engagement with the cultural history and historical anthropology of the Early Middle Ages, Wood here offers a long-awaited full account of events in a region that, during the fifth and early sixth centuries, became entangled in conflicts between the Romans, the Huns, the Franks, the Visigoths, and finally the Ostrogoths. None of these powers appears to have been willing to allow this political gatekeeper to establish itself permanently at the threshold of one of the principal Alpine passes through what is now western Switzerland. Not least, perhaps, because the so-called Burgundian realm represented a genuine experiment in the fusion of Roman and Germanic cultural forms. The realm—if it was ever truly a kingdom, which this book argues it was not—came to an end when it was absorbed into the Frankish Empire in AD 534. As Ian Wood states in his introduction, this is therefore a history written “primarily through the eyes of late Roman aristocrats and those who interacted with them, and not through the perspective of the Völkerwanderung and the Germanic kingdoms”.
READ ALSO:
Les Burgondes: un royaume oublié au coeur de l’Europe
Favrod, Justin
Pu Polytechnique, Lausanne 2002
French Edition.
The Burgundians, the people of the Nibelungen, left the Rhine at the command of the Romans. They settled around Geneva, where their kings were charged with ensuring military control of the Alpine passes. However, between the fifth and sixth centuries, the Empire they were meant to defend collapsed. In a political movement that transformed Europe, the Burgundian kingdom expanded across parts of what are now France and French-speaking Switzerland and began to exercise independence. This is a fascinating and little-known period, in which the author, through a critical analysis of historical knowledge and a remarkable contribution of his own research, describes the coexistence in this first “Burgundy” of a people from the North and the Gallo-Romans.
Interethnic harmony was regulated by a law issued by King Gundobad. Gradually, the linguistic boundary between French and German took shape and has endured to the present day. Here the past takes on the face of a royal family whose tribulations—marked by bloodshed, wisdom or fury, success or disaster—are inscribed in the broader transition from Antiquity to the Middle Ages
Les Burgondes: Ier – VIe siècles apr. J.-C.
By Katalin Escher
Errance, Paris 2021
French edition
A Germanic people originating in what is now Poland, later settled on the Rhine and then in the Rhône valley of Gaul, the Burgundians inscribed their name both in the geography of Europe—where a “Burgundy” still exists today as the heir to several kingdoms—and in its great epic traditions, such as that of the Nibelungen. They were among the principal actors in the period of the Great Invasions in the West. This book takes stock of current knowledge concerning this people.
Drawing on ancient sources, it reconstructs the three major phases of Burgundian history: a kind of “preface” extending from their origins to their settlement on the Rhine (established by no later than the beginning of the fifth century); the “first” Rhine kingdom, whose destruction by the Huns in 436 inspired the Nibelungen cycle and certain Scandinavian sagas; and finally the “second” Rhône kingdom, which marked the apogee of Burgundian power before being incorporated into the Frankish kingdom in 534. For each of these periods, the archaeological remains that constitute the material traces of the Burgundian people are presented, with particular emphasis on the second kingdom. Consideration is also given to linguistic and toponymic evidence.
This study makes it possible to sketch as faithful a portrait as possible of the Burgundian people, who, at the end of their historical trajectory, became a constituent element of the French and Swiss populations. At the same time, it highlights the importance of their interactions with other major actors of Late Antiquity: the Huns, destroyers of the first kingdom; the Goths; the Alamanni; the Alans; and the late Roman world, which the second kingdom both extended and replaced. The composite culture of Burgundian Gaul in the fifth and sixth centuries, shaped by these various influences, reflects a period of intense interaction and the formation of new identities.
FEATURED PHOTO:
Vase of St. Martin at St. Maurice d’Agaune. Source: Wikipedia.The myth is, the vases was gifted to the Monastry at Agaune by St. Martin of Tours. Likely, hoever it was a gift from Sigismund while king to his new abbey. The core of the vase is from the 2. century BC, while the setting is likely to have been worked at the end of the 5th century. Thus, the vase illustrates the point made by Ian Wood that the Burgundian politi was a cultural patchwork.
READ ALSO:
Mamluk silk from Syria or Egypt
In the Late Middle Ages “Syriana”, luxury products from Syria and Egypt, were immensely desired. One such artefact is preserved in The Victoria & Albert Museum
In the Victoria & Albert Museum, a long rectangular strip of silk tapestry from the 15th century, decorated with tall palmettes, lobed pear-shaped medallions with inscriptions in their borders, and lobed cartouches containing shorter, horizontal inscriptions.
This strip of silk was used as the orphrey of an ecclesiastical vestment, and is of a type of Mamluk textiles which was very popular in Europe in the later medieval period. They must have been imported from the eastern Mediterranean.
The pear-shaped medallions are inscribed with the phrase ‘ ‘izz li-mawlana al-malik’, meaning ‘glory to our lord the king’. The smaller medallions, which have eight lobes, are inscribed with the word ‘al-Ashraf’ (meaning ‘Exalted’). This was one of the titles used by Sultan Qa’itbay (1468-1496), but that does not necessarily mean that this textile was therefore made during that Sultan’s reign.
Short history of Mamluk silks
`Izz li-mawlana al-sultan/Translation Glory to our lord the Sultan. Inventory number 8614-1863. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London/CC-BY-SA
In the later Middle Ages, silk in Europe was no longer an unattainable luxury imported at prohibitive cost from China. Instead, it had become an attainable luxury, desired by merchants and lesser nobles eager to parade what had formerly been confined to ecclesiastical and elite vestments. Although the main supplier was Byzantium, silks were also produced and exported from the Levant, especially Syria and Egypt. Soon, from the mid-12th century onward, silks were also woven in Lucca, Venice, and other North Italian cities.
The demand for these middle-quality products was first detected in Italy, fostered by the Crusades and the Latin settlements in the Levant. Soon, however, they were also praised in chivalric literature. Later, in 1260, the Mongols entered the scene, once again providing oriental silks imported from the Far East. These products were known as panni tartarici (“Tatar cloth”). Meanwhile, designers and artisans moved back and forth along the Silk Road.
Some of these textiles were adorned with Arabic tiraz inscriptions referencing the ruler. Originally quite specific, these inscriptions became fashionable, merely conventional, and ultimately unidentifiable. Indeed, it appears that they had little meaning beyond signalling Western fascination with all things “oriental.” Especially favoured were roundels or medallions, a motif adopted by Italian craftsmen and weavers from Tatar cloths. This made it difficult for scribes to inventory such silks accurately, as Italian products were considered cheaper than the “real” thing. From the evidence adduced above, it is nevertheless clear that oriental silks originating in Alexandria and Damascus were regarded as prestigious objects.Thus, the English royal court continued in the 15th century to show a clear preference for silks bearing authentic oriental names. In general, though, silks marketed in Europe during the 15th century, became increasingly Italian in origin.
This shift was probably due in part to the introduction of technical innovations, such as the silk-throwing circular machine, first attested in Lucca in 1330. Another explanation may lie in the upheavals in the Levant following the Turkish and Islamic wars and the fall of Constantinople in 1453.
FEATURED PHOTO:
Detail of silk panel from Syria or Egypt in the 15th century © Victoria and Albert Museum, London, CC-BY-SA
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Oriental Silks go West: A declining trade in the Later Middle Ages.
By David Jacoby
In: Islamic artefacts in the Mediterranean world : trade, gift exchange and artistic transfer
Ed by Catarina Schmidt et al.
Collana del Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, Max-Planck-Institut, vol 15 (2011)
‘The Desire for Syria in Medieval England
Silks, spices, fruits, jewels, glass… desired and coveted exotica were luxury products out of Syria in the Late Middle Ages. New Book by Myerson tells the story
The Desire for Syria in Medieval England
by E. K. Myerson
Cambridge University Press 2025
This book explores how desire for Syrian luxury goods reshaped English culture in the late Middle Ages. Focusing on the circulation of commodities known collectively as Syriana—sweet wines, spices, silks, jewels, and minerals—it shows how international trade connected England to the eastern Mediterranean and embedded the Levant deeply within English imagination, material life, and systems of meaning.
The study is anchored in a dramatic historical event. In June 1458, two English merchant ships returning from the Levant were attacked by pirates off the coast of Malta. Their captain, the Bristol merchant Robert Sturmy, was killed, and a cargo worth an extraordinary sum was seized. Recovered through legal records and inventories, this lost shipment provides a point of entry into a wider history of commerce, violence, longing, and cultural encounter.
Using this incident as a lens, the book reconstructs the afterlives of Syrian goods in medieval England. These commodities, once associated with the Holy Land and later traded through the markets of the Mamluk Empire, carried layered meanings: sacred, medicinal, aesthetic, and erotic. They circulated not only through ports and marketplaces, but also through texts, images, recipes, churches, workshops, and domestic spaces.
Drawing on archival research alongside art history, literary analysis, and theoretical perspectives, the book argues that Syriana functioned as a powerful cultural category. It shaped English art and language, transformed practices of medicine, cuisine, craft, and religion, and revealed an ambivalent relationship to the East—marked by fascination, appropriation, and desire as much as by fear or hostility.
By following these goods and the fantasies attached to them, the book reframes medieval England as a place formed through global entanglements. It shows how commerce and imagination worked together to produce enduring ideas about luxury, difference, and power—ideas whose legacies continue to shape the present.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
E. K. Myerson is an artist, writer, and curator, currently studying at the Royal College of Art. His academic and creative writing has appeared in publications including GLQ, The TLS, Wasafiri Magazine, New Medieval Literatures, postmedieval, and Wellcome Collection Stories. He received his PhD in medieval literature from Birkbeck College in 2022, and have held postdoctoral fellowships at the Wellcome Trust / ISSF Fund, the Parker Library, and Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
FEATURED PHOTO:
Port of Genoa 1481. By Christoforo Grassi. © Galata Maritime Museum. Source: Wikipedia
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