14th Century… Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough and William of Cloudeslie 20 Feb 2020 By Stephen Basdeo Stories of Robin Hood have been popular since at least the late fourteenth century, as we know from William Langland’s Vision of Piers Plowman (c.1377). However, around…
1381… The History of Thomas Walsingham’s Historia Anglicana traced through Reappearances of Jack Straw’s Last Dying Speech 5 Jul 2019 A paper delivered at the International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, 1–5 July 2019 by Stephen Basdeo The so-called Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 was widely reported in various chronicles. The…
11th Century… The Virgin and the Outlaw 5 Jun 2018 By Stephen Basdeo In modern popular culture, heroes often possess some supernatural powers, or at other times they are so skilled at what they do that their superiority often appears…
17th century… “Robin Hood’s Rescue of the Three Squires” and the Political Economy of Banditry 30 Mar 2018 Many Robin Hood ballads were printed as broadsides during the seventeenth century. The majority of them depict Robin Hood as a rather inept outlaw who, every time he stops somebody,…
17th century… Criminality and Animal Cruelty in 18th-Century England 17 Dec 201717 Dec 2017 I am currently in the final stages of editing a book chapter I have written for Prof. Alexander Kaufman’s and Penny Vlagopoulos’s forthcoming work entitled Food and Feasting in Post-1700…
1381… The Last Dying Speech and Confession of Jack Straw 23 Sep 201723 Sep 2017 In 1381, one of the most important events in English medieval history occurred: the Peasants’ Revolt. Under the leadership of a former soldier, Wat Tyler (d. 1381), a radical priest,…
