What I found remarkable about this article is just how little different most of these preserving methods are from today, especially in the less industrialized world. The piece is easy to ready and offers detailed explanations. The authors provides useful links for a broader understanding of European cuisine in the Middle Ages. Bon appetit!

A remarkable piece of cartographic history has revealed that ‘Canada’, in the toponymic sense, is much older than expected. Of course, the native inhabitants gave all sorts of names to their own territories, which eventurally formed the political entity know today as Canada, but it seems that as a European colony the lands north of [...]

Here is a nice summary of a lovely exhibition about the history of the fork. If you have a few minutes, prepare to be enlightened. Take a stab at it here!

My existence has been validated. The good people at the weekly glossy entertainment magazine What’s On Kyiv spoke with me recently about my latest novel and life as a long-term ex-pat in Ukraine. I am now a celebrity. To be blinded by the spotlight on me, travel here.

I might have to try a few of these recipes. I expect the research team will start up a cafe. For a preview of a medieval feast, go here.

The idea of bodily (as opposed to spiritual) cleanliness in the Middle Ages has always been a sort of running joke in modern times, with most lay people assuming that the bath houses fell with the Roman Empire and were restored in the West only with the onset of hygiene campaigns in the 19th century. [...]

I recent piece in the Huffington Post revealed that Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales was a favorite read of ex-Beatles and ex-Wings frontman Paul McCartney’s from way back: “I had the greatest teacher ever of English literature…And he communicated his love of literature to us, which was very difficult because we were Liverpool sixteen-year-olds, ‘What d’f*** [...]

Here is a video about the artists of some of the most famous images from the Middle Ages, the Limbourg Brothers of Nijmegen. Heard of the Book of Hours of the Duc de Berry? Well, these are the guys who did it. Watch the video (with subtitles) here.

It is hard to imagine that a land with such a low populartion and with the need to constantly fend off the English could field mercenary armies on a regular basis, but there it is!

Venerating a Purpose: Geoffrey Hotspur and the Truce of Leulinghem was just made available for download on the site of my publisher, Knox Robinson Publishing. This time, the young Geoffrey finds himself in the midst of tense negotiations between England and France to end the war between them that has lasted for over fifty years. [...]