Norman Housley
Subscribe to Norman Housley's posts
The Maid of Orleans and Crusading
The Maid of Orleans and Crusading: reflections on a colloquium La France et l’Orient au temps de Jeanne d’Arc. Idéaux pacifiques et réalités guerrières, Rouen, 29 May 2015 Meeting in the splendid surroundings of the Salle des États in Rouen’s recently opened ‘Historial Jeanne d’Arc’, the speakers at this colloquium gave their attention to a […]
A tale of three cities: Constantinople 1453, Belgrade 1456, Olomouc 1468
A tale of three cities: Constantinople 1453, Belgrade 1456, Olomouc 1468 In my essay ‘Giovanni da Capistrano and the crusade of 1456’, published in 2004 in Crusading in the Fifteenth Century, ed. Norman Housley, I briefly (pp. 112-13) made reference to a fresco in the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Olomouc. The church, which […]
English charity and the Turkish threat
English charity and the Turkish threat The Henry Smith charity When a friend of mine was at university he benefited from a charity established in his Wiltshire village for ‘indigent scholars’. He didn’t get much money, but it was typical of the thousands of similar bequests in towns and villages scattered across the country. […]
Wolf Hall, Thomas More and the Turks
Wolf Hall, Thomas More and the Turks One of the joys of the BBC’S outstanding dramatization of ‘Wolf Hall’ is its historical accuracy. While each programme is being broadcast, Tudor historians ecstatically tweet away pointing out how much the series is getting right – though there are minor slips like showing wisteria, which apparently was […]
Ottoman Defeat in the Eastern Balkans: the Battle of Vaslui, 1475
Ottoman Defeat in the Eastern Balkans: the Battle of Vaslui, 1475. We approach the 540th anniversary of the Turkish defeat at Vaslui, which occurred on 10 January 1475. Compared with the sealing of Magna Carta (1215), or with Agincourt and the burning of Jan Hus at Constance (both 1415), Vaslui is likely to attract scant […]
Two fifteenth-century prelates and crusading – Piccolomini and Cusa
Two fifteenth-century prelates and crusading – Piccolomini and Cusa The Church produced some outstanding figures in the fifteenth century and none more so than Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (1405-64), who became pope in 1458 as Pius II, and Nicholas of Cusa (1401-64), who was made cardinal in 1448. They make for an interesting comparison. Piccolomini hailed […]
Unexpected consequences: expulsion and flight in fifteenth-century Europe.
Unexpected consequences: expulsion and flight in fifteenth-century Europe. We live in an age of enforced migration, as war, ethnic cleansing and religious conflict force vast numbers of innocent people to leave their homes and livelihoods and face an uncertain future. In the 1420s the populations of certain parts of […]
Seeing double: Pope John XXIII – Baldassare Cossa
Seeing double: Pope John XXIII – Baldassare Cossa – For anyone familiar with the history of the fifteenth century, Sunday’s (27th April 2014) canonization of Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, or John XXIII, was somewhat surreal. For he was not the first pope to bear that name and number. Between 1410 and 1415 another Italian, Baldassare Cossa, […]
The perils of performance management in fifteenth-century Germany
The perils of performance management in fifteenth-century Germany The Council of Constance (1414-18) is famous for bringing the Great Schism to an end and for burning the Czech reformer Jan Hus, precipitating the series of Hussite crusades (1420-31). But the council also called for the reform of Catholic Europe’s plethora of religious orders, and in […]
A Crusading Richard III ?
A crusading Richard III? In the spring of 1484 Richard III’s position on the throne of England was as secure as it would ever be. He had put down a rebellion against his usurpation a few months previously and was doing what he could to get Henry Tudor ousted from his exile in Brittany. […]
Recent Comments