Poca favilla gran fiamma seconda
This is a wonderful book I heartily recommend, indeed re-reading the review I hope the warmth of my recommendation is clear. The balance Susan Mat strikes between mastery of the…
An interesting piece that touches on anti-Catholic myths, historical myths, and science vs. religion myths. The medieval Church, let’s be clear, had no objection to scientific progress. Throughout the Middle…
Thank you Paul Arbair who commented on a brief reference in my post on Joseph Tainter to Brexit in Tainterian (sic) terms with a link to his own far far far…
The exercise of the heroic virtues thus requires both a particular kind of human being and a particular kind of social structure. Just because this is so, an inspection of…
Voltaire to the contrary, history is a bag of tricks which the dead have played upon historians. The most remarkable of these illusions is the belief that the surviving written…
I read Tim Severin’s The Brendan Voyage over the last few days – a wonderful adventure story and a stirring depiction of how medieval technology was adapted to the conditions it faced.…
Séamus Sweeney 