Medieval monks lived lives centered on prayer, labor, and surprisingly large amounts of alcohol. Beer and wine were safer ...

When we think of eating in the medieval era, we often envision wooden banquet tables, goblets, elaborate salt cellars, and giant turkey legs. Banquet tables were even more adorned on Christmas, at ...

The warming house at Rievaulx is next to the refectory, and was altered quite substantially over the period from the 12th to the 16th century. Eventually two storeys, the warming complex also included ...

Kreiner is a professor of history at the University of Georgia specializing in the early Middle Ages, and the author of The Wandering Mind: What Medieval Monks Tell Us About Distraction It’s time for ...

Jamie Kreiner (Hist/Mus,’04) thinks a lot about thinking. Her new book, The Wandering Mind: What Medieval Monks Tell Us About Distraction, achieved a rare feat for a scholarly work: The Wall Street ...

While excavating a castle in Spain, archaeologists found a surprise: a woman buried alongside more than 20 medieval monks. And like the men, she was likely a warrior who died in battle, a new study ...

When we think of medieval friars, we may well picture Robin Hood’s jolly Friar Tuck, known for his rotund figure and love of food and drink. But it turns out some of these monks were full of more than ...

A University of Cambridge study has found that many -- if not most -- monks were "riddled with parasites," even more than commoners, despite their advanced technologies and wealth. Corbis via Getty ...

Research examining traces of parasites in medieval Cambridge residents suggests that monks were almost twice as likely as ordinary townspeople to have intestinal worms -- despite monasteries of the ...

What do medieval monks and volcanic eruptions have in common? According to a team of researchers led by the University of Geneva, quite a bit because chronicles from the 12th and 13th century are ...

Image Credit: Survival World ...

The best location for a monastery was one that was close to water and wood. Many monastic chroniclers mention this. Orderic Vitalis, born in England near Shrewsbury in 1075 and sent to the Norman ...