While absolute dating has become the archaeological gold standard, typology can provide context beyond time frames. Here, the authors demonstrate this with the chronological assessment of iron helmets from the underwater site of Piedras de la Barbada, near Benicarló (eastern Spain). Marine concretions helped preserve fabric linings in several helmets, permitting direct radiocarbon dating of the assemblage to the late fourteenth or early fifteenth centuries AD. Typological and iconographic comparisons agree, identifying the helmets as regionally produced, light-infantry equipment that pre-dates the fifteenth-century standardisation of European plate armour systems, corresponding with a period of maritime insecurity along the Valencian coast.

This paper presents 56 AMS radiocarbon dates from three early medieval sites in Italy: nine from the Roman Villa of Vacone in Vacone (RI), Lazio, 29 from the Roman Villa of Selvicciola in Ischia di Castro (VT), Lazio, and 18 from the necropolis of Povegliano Veronese (VR), Veneto. These results more than double the number of previously published radiocarbon dates from early medieval Italy and are therefore a substantial contribution to the absolute chronology of early medieval cemeteries of Italy. These dates have implications for the relative dating of grave goods, grave reuse, and explaining the presence of graves with multiple individuals.

This essay studies gender in medieval heresy by focusing on an inquisitorial trial in Milan in 1300. The inquisitors investigated a small group of devotees of a deceased penitent woman named Guglielma for venerating her as the Holy Spirit. A noble Humiliati nun, who would become Guglielma’s pope in a coming new age, and a wealthy layman cooperated as the devotees’ leaders. On the surface, the devotees seemed to have reversed gender roles, which late medieval male clergy-female mystic partnerships exemplified. Through an analysis of the surviving records, this article demonstrates that, instead of inverting gender expectations as the inquisitors assumed, the devotees’ vision of a new age – somewhat infused with Joachimism – and the co-leadership of the nun and the layman developed out of transcending the gender binary. As a result, the devotees saw Guglielma not as a co-redeemer with Christ but as the Holy Spirit who comforted them, would convert non-Christians, and had helped unite the devotees, even those of opposing political factions, into a family. Rejecting violent rupture as well as binary gender roles, their future age, which would begin with the nonviolent replacement of the Roman Church, would both preserve Milan’s social hierarchy and eschew binary gender roles.

The deep evolutionary relationship between humans and intestinal parasites offers opportunities for the reconstruction of diet and living conditions in archaeological populations. Here, the authors identify eggs preserved in sediment adhering to the surface of the sacrum in Muslim burials from the Southern Necropolis at Deraheib (upper reaches of Wadi al-Allaqi, Sudan, ninth–eleventh centuries AD). Species-level identification is suggested based on egg morphology and religious taboos, revealing a high prevalence of infection by Taenia saginata, the beef tapeworm, and contributing to our understanding of diet, subsistence, climate and health in the medieval Nubian Desert.

The analysis of stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes in bone collagen can reveal aspects of diet and how this may change between periods and places. Here, the authors apply a ‘whole-town’ approach to isotopic analysis, to characterise and explore variation in diet within medieval Cambridge and its hinterland. By adopting this approach, and a robust isotopic baseline, the authors argue that the number of confounding variables that typically plague archaeometric research are reduced, allowing for more nuanced interpretation of data. For medieval Cambridge, this nuance comes in the form of inter-site comparisons in the lived experience of social differentiation.

Ostrów Lednicki was a centre of the Piast dynasty (tenth–fourteenth centuries AD), laying the foundations for the development of the Polish state. A collapsed tenth-century wooden fortification associated with Bolesław the Brave (the first king of Poland) and its unique sculptural element provide insights into early-medieval construction techniques.

Macroscopic analysis of potsherds used to make herringbone-patterned pavements at two medieval centres in northern Yorùbáland suggests production variations despite shared architectural traditions. Reflecting local production choices and broader regional interactions, these results affect our understanding of pottery production, cultural interaction and social complexity in medieval West Africa.

Widowers make occasional appearances in Icelandic sagas of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and—even though Old Norse did not even have a word for them—they exhibit some distinctive behavioral patterns. This article uses the framework of bereavement studies to examine the interplay of gender, affect, and small-scale politics in the wake of the loss of a wife. It proposes two archetypes of dysfunctional bereaved husband, observable in the medieval Norse world which the sagas describe (ca. 800–1300): the widower on the warpath and the widower on the bridal path. Both followed cultural scripts for widowers’ conduct, but did so imperfectly, in a manner that exposes their society’s constructions of masculinity, its prescriptive family codes, and the clandestine channels linking private emotional turmoil with public socio-political disruption. My typology of maladjusted Norse widowers offers heuristic tools for further study of bereaved husbands in other periods and places, as well as for comparison with bereaved wives and with men in other life-stages.

Between the late Middle Ages and the early modern period, large quantities of wax were exported from the Maghrib to Europe. In the Maghrib, both raw wax and wax candles were involved in various social interactions that transcended mere environmental and economic considerations. For some Muslims, wax came to index Christianity, and its significance during the celebration of the Prophet’s birthday was critiqued as a corrupt innovation. At the same time, to prevent the facilitation of Catholic devotion—and because wax was deemed war material—the sale of wax to Christians was forbidden. Nevertheless, wax remained a profitable product sold to Christians in significant quantities. The anxiety surrounding the movement of wax and the attempts to regulate it indicate that for Muslims, wax served as a religious boundary marker. Christians too utilized the substance to reinforce communal boundaries. Catholics in the Maghrib—captives, clergy, and merchants—used wax to establish and express confessional divides, aiming to deter Catholic captives from converting to Islam. Priests distributed blessed candles to captives, who in turn donated wax to the clergy. Moreover, priests gifted candles to Algerian dignitaries, a practice opposed by the papacy. Wax formed invisible, often unintended connections between Muslim theologians and rulers, Catholic and Muslim captives, slaves, wax makers, merchants, and redeemers. These entanglements sparked anxiety, a sense of impurity, and a drive to reinforce religious boundaries. This article explores a fragmented history of these connections and relationships and argues that the failed attempts to regulate this circulation fostered new entanglements.

It has long been recognized that legal documents are invaluable for understanding the growth of pre-university teaching across fifteenth- and sixteenth-century England; when surveyed as a whole, they allow the general spread of schooling to be mapped with precision. However, smaller, more scattered legal proceedings involving teachers can be no less suggestive. Late medieval and early modern masters submitted legal pleas on a range of issues, and found themselves accused of a striking array of crimes, including murder, assault, fraud, incompetence, theft, adultery, and even high treason. Such episodes have more than anecdotal value—they throw into relief many of the conditions in which teachers of the period operated. In particular, they provide clear insight into the economic realities of medieval and early modern teaching, showing the pressures, rivalries, and anxieties that overshadowed the lives of masters, and demonstrating that instruction was not staged in a social or political vacuum.

Increasing interdisciplinary analysis of geoarchaeological records, including sediment and ice cores, permits finer-scale contextual interpretation of the history of anthropogenic environmental impacts. In an interdisciplinary approach to economic history, the authors examine metal pollutants in a sediment core from the Roman metal-producing centre of Aldborough, North Yorkshire, combining this record with textual and archaeological evidence from the region. Finding that fluctuations in pollution correspond with sociopolitical events, pandemics and recorded trends in British metal production c. AD 1100–1700, the authors extend the analysis to earlier periods that lack written records, providing a new post-Roman economic narrative for northern England.

There are no known written records pertaining to the origins of the enigmatic bronze ‘Lion’ that stands atop one of the two large columns of the Piazzetta in St Mark’s Square, Venice (Italy). Representing the Venetian Winged Lion, a powerful symbol of statehood, the sculpture was installed during a time of political uncertainty in medieval Mediterranean Europe, yet its features do not reflect local artistic conventions. Here, the authors argue that stylistic parallels are found in Tang Dynasty China (AD 618–907); employing lead isotope analysis, they further show that the figure was cast with copper isotopically consistent with ore from the Lower Yangzi River basin.