There are many fascinating museums in this world, but one that is near the top of my list to visit is the Mittelalterliches Kriminalmuseum (Medieval Crime Museum) in Rothenburg, Germany. The Kriminalmuseum is dedicated to the history of European law over the past ten centuries or so, with a special emphasis on medieval punishments.

One of the aspects of Christianity I’ve always found the most ironic is its obsession with death, hell and the destruction of the earth. On the one hand, subcultures that embrace such imagery and ideas are deemed “evil” by the Church, the work of the Devil, strange and unusual; but

While today we put the exploits of the most disrespectful, ill-mannered, drunken and depraved people we can find on TV to laugh at and make millionaires out of, in medieval Europe you would have seen Snooki and JWoww shuffling down the street muted by what’s known as a Scold’s Bridle,

via Lazer Horse  The Hortus deliciarum is a medieval, illuminated encyclopedia compiled by Herrad of Landsberg at the Hohenburg Abbey in Alsace. Herrad’s work on the document began in 1167 in her convent (yes Herrad was a woman, of all things). The incredible manuscript was produced as a learning tool

Alchemy was not just a scientific practice – one of weighing, measuring, combining, testing and creating – it was also a spiritual practice, and the practitioners aimed to bring their all too human bodies closer to God through the study of Earth’s elements and the planets. The strange universe of

In the mid-1300s, approximately one quarter of the world’s population succumbed to the Black Death; 30-60% of Europe’s population lost their lives in a painful mess of black buboes and vomited blood.1 This devastation was captured in manuscripts, paintings and murals that survive to this day. Check out the Black