...And a Happy Medieval New Year

New Year's celebrations come and go.

But in the Middle Ages it represented days of debauchery in Germany and England, authorized rebellion against the Church in Paris, bonfires blazing for days during Scotland's Hogmanay and overall lunatic behavior throughout Europe.

Sure, some people refer to it as the Dark Ages. Why, then, did it seem like so much fun?

Happy New Year!

A Merry Medieval Christmas

A good-sized encyclopedia might someday written to include all of the holiday traditions that originate with the Middle Ages....

For now, check out my abridged version of the "Medieval Christmas Encyclopedia," compiled from various sources around the Web. Happy reading, and best wishes for a Merry Christmas.


The Santa Claus Timeline

Medieval Nativity from the French National Library

Medieval Christmas Images - Koninklijke Bibliotheek and Museum Meermanno-Westreenianum

Christmas in Medieval England

German Christmas Museum

Ukranian Christmas

Medieval Imaginations: The Nativity

Medieval Tales of the Child Jesus

Tales of the Middle Ages - Christmas

A Medieval Christmas Feast

Medieval & Tudor Christmas Courts

On Christmas in the Middle Ages

Set in Stone

It's one of those stories an old stonemason might tell an unbelieving apprentice, but it really happened.

According to the BBC, a medieval stone carving that was used as a cat's headstone has recently sold for £200,000 at auction. The cat's owner, a stonemason, used the old piece of stone to honor his dead cat, but its worth was only discovered later after the stonemason himself died. According to the rest of the BBC report, the stonemason's widow planned to spend money raised from the sale "on her grandchildren and a new rocking chair."

While in other news, freemasonry is back in the news after figuring in the plot of National Treasure, the U.S. film hit now No. 1 at the box office for the third week in a row. So now the question remains: do stonemasons really rule the world in secret? If only...

And thanks to a list member from Stone.org for this epic 8-page story singing the praises of the cathedral builder, with lore and stories documenting the typical stone worker's day in words and photos...

Far Flung Medieval News

From all points on the globe this week, the medieval news ticker has been humming with word of museum openings, stage musicals and an artist star profile centuries in the making....

Not the sublime to the ridiculous, - but the ridiculous to the ridiculous - is happening in Chicago with the opening of Spamalot, (the stage musical billing itself as "ripped off from the motion picture 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail,'") There's lots of good early buzz as it makes it way to New York, with actor Tim Curry leading the way as King Arthur. Read the report and watch the video here.

Largest exhibit on European Jewish medieval life opens ... reports the Jerusalem Post that surveys the opening of a rare exhibition of art and artifacts in Speyer, Germany including the Erfurt Treasure, excavated only a few years ago in Germany, which includes 3,000 coins from the 13th and 14th centuries. Check out more here.....and here

Meanwhile, in The Guardian, Jonathan Jones reports news of sorts - with an original take on the old chestnut that medieval artists were, by and large, anonymous tradesmen toiling in the service of God. Yet two centuries before Michelangelo, the artist Giotto was famous merely for being, well, famous. Read all about it in A Star is Born...