Demons and exorcism have been topics of discussion across many cultures and times. In Christianity’s first four centuries, exorcism became associated with marginalized or vulnerable people, providing many implications for cultural and political thinking. In this video, Dr. Jonathan Henry explains what people of the past thought about demons, the steps they took for managing problems attributed to demons, and most crucially, what all of this can tell us about people themselves. This knowledge offers a window for understanding human nature and the practical impact of abstract beliefs. 

The Life of Thecla is the first English translation, with introduction and notes, of a fifth-century writing of a popular second-century noncanonical text (the Acts of Thecla), which tells the story of a young woman who leaves behind her life and family, and risks martyrdom twice, to follow the ascetic message of the apostle Paul. The Life gives readers insight into how this popular story was reimagined centuries later, at the lively shrine to St. Thecla. Gospel Thrillers explores conspiratorial fantasies about the Bible in U.S. cultures through dozens of modern novels that invent fantastic new gospel discoveries that plunge protagonists (and readers) into a world of danger and intrigue.

This video presents a brief description of sensory history as a method of historical inquiry. Our conversation considers the sensorial experiences of Muslim converts in Granada, Spain, following the Catholic conquest of the city and wider-region, in 1492. We reflect on how a broader study of the senses can bring us closer to the everyday lives of Granada’s converted population. Further, we discuss how these methods enrich our understanding of the past and contribute to the broader discipline of history. 

This video examines the story of one medieval Jewish woman who found her death when two Christian criminals attacked her home. It discussed her family, how we learn about this event via the writings of her husband, R. Eleazar of Worms and the deeds she is described doing during her life time. It also details some facts about Jewish life in medieval Worms. The video underlines the fact that her husband wrote about her after her death and suggests that if she hadn’t died, we would not have known that women like her existed. The video ends by suggesting that there were many more women like Dulcia in medieval Jewish society and urges its listeners to learn more about them.

This video examines vernacular notarial testaments produced by Jews in fifteenth-century Spain. Wills are an important source for medieval social history as they provide information about property, family relationships, and charity among others. It uses the will of Jamila Arueti as an example of the genre. Jamila left significant bequests to Jewish charity organizations and included stipulations to ensure that her granddaughter would be raised Jewish. Together these allow us to consider how Jews reacted to the emergence of the conversos and defined who belonged to their community.

A gynocentric podcast on the ancient world, Women Who Went Before shares quality scholarship on ancient women in a creative and accessible form. Organized in thematic seasons, each episode interviews one scholar about their work. Hosts Rebekah Haigh and Emily Chesley introduce the topic to listeners, frame an array of primary and secondary sources, and draw creative connections to modern concerns in episode introductions and conclusions. The majority of each episode presents the conversation with the guest expert. 

This video explores the earliest illustrated Yiddish manuscripts, which were all illuminated by their Jewish scribe.  Such manuscripts are sometimes overlooked because of their amateurish style, but they offer a window to understanding the middle rank of Jewish society.  The video focuses on a book of customs that presents a  positive view of the Jewish religion and community, highlighting the roles of women in ritual observance.

This video introduces students to Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn ‘Abdūn's (active between the late eleventh century and early twelfth century) risāla, which is a guide for medieval market inspectors. By providing students with a "slice of life" primary source, they can better understand the complex, nuanced ways that Muslims, Jews, and Christians interacted in al-Andalus.

This video introduces the first tool produced within the "FEMIber" project (2022-present): an open-access website that provides structured information on every woman mentioned in the anonymous Crónica de Castilla (ca. 1300, Castile-León). This research and educational tool offers filtered and free-text search options to explore medieval women from multiple perspectives.

Florence As It Was presents point clouds of cultural heritage sites and photogrammetry models of the artworks inside, transcriptions of selected documents pertaining to their creation, annotations that explain their importance to Medieval audiences, translations of early modern descriptions of those sites through the eyes of Italian and German specialists, and a geo-referenced database of nearly 2000 images pinned to their original locations on the Buonsignori Map of 1584. In collaboration with the proprietors of two dozen historic institutions in Florence, this project begins the process of returning to their original locations some of the images that formed the backbone of the visual vocabulary of Medieval residents during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

This video surveys the significance of chess in medieval Europe, reflecting on the capacity of games to provide commentary on contemporary standards of behavior, respond to societal changes, and mediate relationships.

This video introduces the power of autodidactic inquiry as a way of gaining understanding of both the universe and ourselves by discussing twelfth-century Andalusi Ibn Tufayl’s Hayy Ibn Yaqzan.

This video introduces Garrett MS 26, a deluxe fifteenth-century manuscript from Princeton University Library that illustrates several events of Jewish life.

This video introduces The Book of Count Lucanor, a mid-fourteenth century collection of exempla, or short stories, written in Spanish, and suggests how to read two of the stories in this book.

This video is a discussion of item 27 in Islamic Manuscripts, Garrett Additional Box no. 20 at the Princeton University Library. This document of sale was written in 980 CE on behalf of the Coptic Christian Yuhānnis ibn Suqayna and his wife Maria, residents of the small town in the Fayyum called Buljusuq. They were buying a house from Maria’s father, Ibn al-Ḥillī. The document was registered by the notary Shuʿayb ibn Zakariyā and witnessed by several Muslims, including Muḥammad ibn Ḥisān ibn Dāwud who made a noticeable typo while writing his testimony. 

Skjærvø, Prods Oktor. The Spirit of Zoroastrianism. New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2011.

The Multimedia Yasna: https://muya-film.soas.hasdai.org/yasna/

Boyce, Mary. Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs…

This video introduces The Book of Count Lucanor, a mid-fourteenth century collection of exempla, or short stories, written in Spanish, and suggests how to read two of the stories in this book.

Access a resource that catalogues the people, places, and practices of the Medieval Middle East.

View an exhibit on the New Testament Book of Revelation through medieval and Renaissance objects produced after about 1100 C.E.

View extensive bibliographies on early, late antique, and medieval Christian apocrypha (anonymous and pseudepigraphical narratives, gospels, and epistles).