This week: some freshers’ fare for the new term. We examine the letters of medieval students to uncover university experiences not unlike our own. Also: Vladimir Putin as a historian, post-colonial perfidy in Africa, and Ben Jonson delivers a writer’s strike.
Starting university has always been a difficult time for children and parents – and the experience was no different for medieval scholars and their families. Although, like today, some scholars remained close to their families, many young men travelled far for their studies and had to adjust to a long-distance relationship with their relatives. Universities provided new families: the university was personified as the alma mater (nourishing mother), responsible for her children; masters became paternal figures and role models, and peers resembled brothers to compete and play with. What did this mean for the relationships between the scholars and their own families?
A Secret History of African Decolonisation Rhodesia’s white minority declared unilateral independence from the UK in 1965, gaining covert support from France, Britain’s colonial rival in Africa.
Playwright Ben Jonson Duels to the Death On 22 September 1598, Elizabethan actor Gabriel Spencer settled his creative differences with playwright Ben Jonson with a duel.
