In the early 19th century, Nathanial McClure, a frontiersman in Garrard County Kentucky, had a problem. Open sores or abscesses were growing on his neck. Local physicians didn’t have the answer for his problem, diagnosed as the King’s Evil or scrofula. He learned about the cures of Richard Carter, a frontier herb doctor. According to … Continue reading What is scrofula? Can it be cured?
Dragons are everywhere in 21st-century popular culture: books, movies, novels, games, and decorative arts. Dragons are also historical, roaming in cultures throughout the world since ancient times. They fly, slither, and swim in the folklore and myths of past cultures in the Americas, Africa, the Near and Far East, India, and Europe. However, when it comes … Continue reading The Evil, Medieval Ancestors of Modern Dragons
In the 1320s, a Franciscan friar left Ireland to go on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Friar Simon Fitzsimons journeyed from Ireland, through London, Canterbury, Paris, to Venice, where he and his companions took a ship to Alexandria, Egypt. They toured the sites around Cairo, and then traveled overland through the desert to Jerusalem. … Continue reading What Amazing Egyptian Chicken Hatcheries Can Tell Us about Perceptions of Other Places
Should government regulate the food industry? How do these regulations impact our individual food choices? These essential questions help students connect their individual experiences and opinions of school lunches to issues behind government regulation today and in past civilizations. Food has always been connected to politics. Rulers and leaders from ancient, medieval, and early modern cultures … Continue reading From Medieval Bread to School Lunches: Government Regulation of Food
“What did you do and see on your pilgrimage?” This question was probably the medieval equivalent of “What did you do on your vacation?” If your curriculum includes history of the European Middle Ages, studying medieval pilgrimage can offer insight into the lives pre-industrial people as well as our own modern motivations for travel. Mixed … Continue reading Pilgrimage as a Medieval “Vacation”