The Black Chamber: Opening Europe’s Post
In the febrile political climate of early modern Europe, letters – and the information they contained – were dangerous. Notorious ‘black chambers’ turned postmasters into spies.
Renaissance
Martin Crusius’ Armchair Voyage
The greatest early modern authority on Ottoman Greece was Martin Cruisius – a man who had never left Germany.
Sex Workers and Salvation in the Renaissance
Renaissance Florence had a problem: it wanted female sex workers, but it also needed to offer them a way out. The solution was a new brothel district – and a nunnery for former prostitutes
Death of Zaga Christ
Zaga Christ died on 22 April 1638 leaving Europe no wiser as to the authenticity of the self-proclaimed Ethiopian prince who might bring his homeland to Catholicism.
Early Modern Millers’ Tales
Thieves, cheats, and scoundrels. How did early modern millers get their bad reputations?
The Affair of the Sausages
On 9 March 1522 the Swiss Reformation began with an ‘ostentatious eating of sausages.’
‘The Great Siege of Malta’ by Marcus Bull review
The Great Siege of Malta by Marcus Bull upends the myth of the Knights of Malta and their last stand of 1565.
The Great German Peasants’ War
More than 100,000 people took up arms across the Holy Roman Empire in the spring of 1525. What drove them? And why were they ultimately crushed?
‘The Grammar of Angels’ by Edward Wilson-Lee review
The Grammar of Angels: A Search for the Magical Powers of Language by Edward Wilson-Lee finds in Giovanni Pico della Mirandola a case for the Rennaissance as a triumph not of individuality, but of universal experience.
Portugal, the Mamluks, and the Age of Discovery
For the Portuguese empire to rise, an old world had to give way. Rivals in Europe’s lucrative spice trade, how much did they know about the powerful Mamluk sultanate?