Medieval Europe
The Invention of News
These days I’m spending a lot of time thinking about the news: how it is shaped, who controls the story, how we receive it.* These questions are not only an important part of the political dialogue today, but an important part of the book I’m working on. In search of a dimly remembered idea, I…
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Road Trip Through History, Nuremberg, Pt. 3: Merchant Houses
My Own True Love and I spent three afternoons touring museums in three merchant houses from slightly different periods: the Albrecht Dürer house from the early sixteenth century,(1) the Tucher house from the mid-16h century and the Stadtmuseum in the Fembo house, which dates from the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Together they tell…
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Road Trip Through History: Nuremberg*, Pt 1. The Castle
One thing you can count on if you travel to a city that important during the medieval period is that it will have a castle: a big hunk of masonry on a hill overlooking the city.** The condition will vary, depending largely on how badly the city fared in World War II.*** You can also…
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