Feature Articles Vol. 9 #5, Issue #38   $9 each click here to order

 

Melancolia, Mania, and Madness in the Middle Ages
by Richard Mackenzie

Throughout history, the mentally ill have been treated with sympathy and even awe, but much more commonly with abuse by socities who misunderstood the nature of their illness. Affecting royalty and peasantry alike, the treatment of the mentally ill largely depended on the social and religious environment of the community.

 

The Black Death Revised
by Mark Longo

The dying began in 1346, when the Tartars beseiged the Crimean city of Kaffa. Unbeknownst to its citizens, a far deadlier invader had followed in the wake of the tartar horde - the bubonic plague. This exciting story of Tartar seiges and diseased rats has become historical fact. However, in recent years, numerous questions have arisen. Were the Tartars truely responsible for the Black Death or was there another force at work? Could a handful of diseased rats really be responsible for carrying the bubonic plague to Europe? And if rats were the primary vector of the plague, how did they manage to spread it across millions of square miles in only five years?

 

When Surgeons were Barbers: Disease, Warfare, and Amputation during the Middle Ages
by Kevin Filan

For the sick, Europe's Dark Ages were dark, indeed. The scraps of medical learning which remained from the classical world - mostly fragments from the Roman physician Galen - were treated like sacred texts, to be memorized but never considered questioned. and those who needed surgery were particularly unfortunate. As doctors considered surgey a menial task, patients were at the mercy of barber-surgeons, common tradesmen who performed operations between cutting hair.

 

Summer Days at the New York Renaissance Faire
by Scott Grimando and Meryl Tihanyi

Featured Columns

Letters to the Chronicler

Proclamations

 

Digging into the Past

Now on Exhibit

 

From the Shoppe
Paracelsus and His Doctrine of Signatures

 

The Customer's Creation
The Fashion of Fur

 

The Court Jester
Black Death Dinner

 

Forsoothly Spoken
The Vocabulary of Medieval Medicine

 

Tomes of Lore

Moving Picture Reviews

 

Ye Old Classifyds

2004-05 Faires and Festivals

On the Net

 

Period Poetry

Crossword

Plus Book, Music and Movie Reviews, and 2004 Faire and Festival Listings!

 

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