A critical view of the late King Abdullah of Saudi Arabi

From the Intercept:

It’s not often that the unelected leader of a country which publicly flogs dissidents and beheads people for sorcery wins such glowing praise from American officials. Even more perplexing, perhaps, have been the fawning obituaries in the mainstream press which have faithfully echoed this characterization of Abdullah as a benign and well-intentioned man of peace.

Tiptoeing around his brutal dictatorship, The Washington Post characterized Abdullah as a “wily king” while The New York Times inexplicably referred to him as “a force of moderation”, while also suggesting that evidence of his moderation included having had: “hundreds of militants arrested and some beheaded” (emphasis added).

While granting that Abdullah might be considered a relative moderate within the brazenly anachronistic House of Saud, the fact remains that he presided for two decades over a regime which engaged in wanton human rights abuses, instrumentalized religious chauvinism, and played a hugely counterrevolutionary role in regional politics.

Above all, he was not a leader who shied away from both calling for and engineering more conflict in the Middle East.

More here. 

"Tournament Culture in the Low Countries and England" by Mario Damen

This article is available in the following book:

Hannah Skoda, Patrick Lantschner and R. L. J. Shaw eds., Contact and Exchange in Later Medieval Europe. Essays in Honour of Malcolm Vale (Woodbridge 2012) 247-266.

And also at:

https://www.academia.edu/1760499/Tournament_Culture_in_the_Low_Countries_and_England.

It is particularly interesting for its discussion of non-noble participation in 15th century tournaments in the Burgundian lands.

Mary Carleton, the Heroine Bigamist

Janice Liedl introduces us to a "bad girl" celebrity of the 17th century.

Favorite entries, 2014

A quick selection.

Charny and the Shroud

A detailed article about the context that could have led to the creation of the Shroud of Turin.

An accomplishment?

People who know me through the SCA can probably guess at the mixture of emotions I experienced upon discovering this site, which seems to be a reader mistaking something I wrote for the SCA "in persona" for an actual 12th century treatise.

Philly Jesus -- it doesn't get more medieval than this

From The Big Picture:

Michael Grant, 28, "Philly Jesus," greets a pedestrian wearing a ring with a cross in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania December 18, 2014. Nearly every day for the last 8 months, Grant has dressed as Jesus Christ, and walked the streets of Philadelphia to share the Christian gospel by example. He quickly acquired the nickname of "Philly Jesus," which he has gone by ever since. (Mark Makela/Reuters)