Five online resources about medieval world

Here at Medieval Warfare we spend some time surfing around the Internet - trying to find interesting websites that can tell us more about the Middle Ages. Sometimes we come across sites that deserve repeated looks, and here are five online resources that we wanted to share with you.

Simon of Saint-Quentin: History of the Tartars - http://www.simonofstquentin.org/

The Mongol invasion of Europe is one of the most interesting episodes in medieval military history, but only a handful of contemporary accounts exists that detail their interactions in the mid-thirteenth century. One of those accounts was by a Dominican friar named Simon of St Quentin, who took part in a diplomatic mission to the Mongols between the years 1245 and 1247. The mission ended in failure, but we have Simon's report of the trip. This is the first time it has been translated into English.

Norse World - https://www.uu.se/en/research/infrastructure/norseworld

This resource is still being developed, but allows users to explore how how various Norse sources classified and described the wider world. There are hundreds of entries, stretching from Greenland to Ethiopia.

Warhorse: The Archaeology of a Military Revolution - http://medievalwarhorse.exeter.ac.uk/

This project was created by a team of scholars from the universities of Exeter and East Anglia, and focuses on the development of horses for military uses in medieval Britain. You can already read several blog posts talking about such topics as the armour used for these animals, and the physical costs of riding horses.

Abbasid History Podcast - http://abbasidhistorypodcast.com/

Launched in 2019, this podcast series offers interviews with historians and scholars who work on one of the most important empires of the medieval world - the Abbasid Caliphate. Ten episodes have been released so far, which range from political intrigues to practices of astrology during the period.

Zhiguai Translations - https://huhaixinwen.wordpress.com/

Created by Geoffrey Humble, this site offers readers translations from Huhai xinwen yijian xuzhi (Continuation of Records of the Listener with New Items from the Lakes and Seas), a fourteenth-century collection of strange tales. Based on folklore and supernatural tales, we can find everything from criminals to ghosts in these short stories.

Top Image: British Library MS Royal 16 E XXXVIII   fol. 1