Tag: Anne of Bohemia

14th Century history, Art, Fashion and Material Culture, Religious history, Richard II, Social history

Did they believe in portents? Severe weather and other extreme natural phenomena in Walsingham’s Chronica Maiora and other late-medieval monastic chronicles

Dr Simon Payling, of our Commons 1461-1504 section, explores the theme of extreme weather in medieval chronicles. It is a familiar theme in medieval chronicles, whether monkish or secular, that extreme weather, natural disaster or even just unusual events were, or, at least, could be interpreted as, manifestations of divine interaction with the temporal world. At the most extreme, they were seen as expressions of God’s … Continue reading Did they believe in portents? Severe weather and other extreme natural phenomena in Walsingham’s Chronica Maiora and other late-medieval monastic chronicles

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The Commons in the Wars of the Roses, 15th Century History, Health and Medicine, Legal history, Medieval

Plague, prorogation and the suspension of the courts in fifteenth-century England

In another timely blog from our History of Parliament researchers, today Dr Simon Payling, senior research fellow for the Commons 1461-1504 project, discusses Parliament’s response to another plague outbreak as the courts of justice were suspended in June 1464. On Wednesday 6 June 1464, at the beginning of Trinity term, a small piece of theatre was played out in Westminster Hall. Three justices of the … Continue reading Plague, prorogation and the suspension of the courts in fifteenth-century England

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