When we think of eating in the medieval era, we often envision wooden banquet tables, goblets, elaborate salt cellars, and giant turkey legs. Banquet tables were even more adorned on Christmas, at ...

The warming house at Rievaulx is next to the refectory, and was altered quite substantially over the period from the 12th to the 16th century. Eventually two storeys, the warming complex also included ...

While excavating a castle in Spain, archaeologists found a surprise: a woman buried alongside more than 20 medieval monks. And like the men, she was likely a warrior who died in battle, a new study ...

Kreiner is a professor of history at the University of Georgia specializing in the early Middle Ages, and the author of The Wandering Mind: What Medieval Monks Tell Us About Distraction It’s time for ...

What do medieval monks and volcanic eruptions have in common? According to a team of researchers led by the University of Geneva, quite a bit because chronicles from the 12th and 13th century are ...

Jamie Kreiner (Hist/Mus,’04) thinks a lot about thinking. Her new book, The Wandering Mind: What Medieval Monks Tell Us About Distraction, achieved a rare feat for a scholarly work: The Wall Street ...

A University of Cambridge study has found that many -- if not most -- monks were "riddled with parasites," even more than commoners, despite their advanced technologies and wealth. Corbis via Getty ...

When we think of medieval friars, we may well picture Robin Hood’s jolly Friar Tuck, known for his rotund figure and love of food and drink. But it turns out some of these monks were full of more than ...

Melissa Breyer was Treehugger’s senior editorial director before moving to Martha Stewart. Her writing and photography have been featured in The New York Times, The Guardian, National Geographic, ...

In medieval Europe, some handcrafted books were bound with skin from an unexpected source: seals. A new analysis of ancient DNA found in medieval books from European abbeys reveals that these seals ...

The best location for a monastery was one that was close to water and wood. Many monastic chroniclers mention this. Orderic Vitalis, born in England near Shrewsbury in 1075 and sent to the Norman ...