In medieval Europe, young lovers used all manner of media to declare their passion for one another – from exquisite French songbooks to lowly pieces of cattle bone. With Valentine’s Day fast approaching, Kimberley-Joy Knight introduces seven tokens of love from the Middle Ages
The secret admirer
“Kiss me” is the playful exhortation on this piece of cattle bone from medieval Scandinavia
This seemingly insignificant scrap of cattle bone has been inscribed with runes, a letterform used in Scandinavia during the Middle Ages. It was found during an archaeological dig in Oslo, and reads “kiss me”. Small pieces of bone or wood could easily be carved using a knife and delivered covertly, making them the ideal medium for secret love messages or the communication of deepest desires.
We cannot be sure of the situations in which these types of objects were given and received, but it seems likely that this object would have prompted a response from the subject of the rune-carver’s affections.
Crowning glory
Two lovers take centre stage on an ivory comb
This Parisian ivory comb, crafted in c1320, is a perfectly preserved celebration of the ritual of aristocratic courtship in the Middle Ages. The smooth, pure white surface of the ivory was valued for its beauty and was often likened to the skin of an idealised woman.
The comb is decorated with three scenes of lovers in a garden. The blossoming of new love is demonstrated by the gestures and postures of the figures, but it was the act of using this object to comb the hair that was considered the most seductive. The process of beautification only occurred in private moments, and the sexually charged performance of the comb caressing the long hair of a maiden was often described in Arthurian romances featuring Gawain, Lancelot and Guinevere.
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The Long Road Back - The Election Was Tough for the Conservatives but the Past Holds Clues on How Parties Can Return From the Brink
Itâs election night 1997, and Jeremy Paxman is grilling Tory grandee Cecil Parkinson. âYouâre the chairman of a fertiliser firm,â the famously pugnacious broadcaster asked Parkinson. âHow deep is the mess youâre in?â Twenty-seven years later, as the Conservative party comes to terms with another landslide defeat, itâs worth applying the same question to the present day. How does this result compare with previous devastating losses â not only those suffered by the Tories themselves, but also those experienced by the other major parties? And what can history teach us about the tools that politicians use to dig themselves out of the dung heap and set themselves back on the road to power?
"We Need a Meaningful Story for the New Generation - Our Composite Union"- There has been much talk of national renewal, and in due course we'll see what that means. But it felt like a watershed.
What a summer itâs been so far, with an astonishing election result. There has been much talk of national renewal, and in due course weâll see what that means. But it felt like a watershed. The new prime ministerâs dad was a toolmaker, his mum a nurse; the cabinet is majority comprehensive-educated, with more alumni of Parrs Wood High School than of Eton. Among commentators â not just on the left â thereâs been a growing feeling that 14 years of Tory rule, compounded by Brexit, have undermined what the great medieval historian Ibn Khaldun called asabiyyah: group feeling â the glue that makes societies work. And watching TV on election night, I found myself wondering whether, like sediment settling in a glass, the time has finally arrived for a new national narrative
Parthian Chicken - Eleanor Barnett recreates an ancient Roman dish that borrowed flavours from a rival neighbouring empire in the Middle East
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ALICE LOXTON talks to Danny Bird about her book on 18 individuals who left an indelible mark on British history before they were out of their teens
A Pole apart
ROGER MOORHOUSE is absorbed by a little-known but politically significant Polish princess whose life encompassed the major events of the later 18th and 19th centuries
Medieval England's p olitical miracle
From Magna Carta to parliament, taxation to the law courts, the 13th and 14th centuries laid the foundations for the modern British state
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Ãthelstan is one of the greatest of all Anglo-Saxon monarchs. So why, asks Michael Wood, does the first king of the English remain so fiendishly elusive?
