Today, the Middle Ages are a sort of paradox; the myth of the “Dark Ages,” which survives quite ably in popular culture, allows space for it to be whatever the popular imagination wants. When people ...

Public shame was a powerful weapon in medieval justice. In this video, we explore the history of stocks, pillories, and whipping posts – the devices used to humiliate and punish offenders in front of ...

In the tale, the demon called himself Wiggo. As the Frankish courtier Einhard recounted, a young girl of about 16 began behaving erratically in the early ninth century C.E. Eventually, the girl’s ...

Some may be disturbed, others may be grossed out and a few might find it fascinating, but most visitors to this new museum in Los Angles will have a hard time forgetting all of the unbelievably cruel ...

We are distracted. When we look back from our frantic present, the past seems like a place where we could hear ourselves think. In “The Wandering Mind,” Jamie Kreiner observes that the modern-day ...