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Articles on Medieval

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This 15th-century medical manuscript shows different colors of urine alongside the ailments they signify. Cambridge University Library

Modern medicine has its scientific roots in the Middle Ages − how the logic of vulture brain remedies and bloodletting lives on today

Your doctor’s MD emerged from the Dark Ages, where practicing rational “human medicine” was seen as an expression of faith and maintaining one’s health a religious duty.
Medieval city on a river, by Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1815). Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie / Andres Kilger

Why the Middle Ages have such a bad reputation

The press, films and series and even everyday language still reflect a derogatory conception of the Middle Ages. Was the period really that bad?
‘Le Régime du corps’ described a variety of ways to maintain health by keeping the body in balance. The Bute Painter, circa 1285, MS Arsenal 2510, © Bibliothèque nationale de France

Medieval illustrated manuscripts reveal how upper-class women managed healthy households – overseeing everything from purging, leeching and cupping to picking the right wet nurse

This illustrated health manual dating back to the 13th century provides a glimpse of daily life in aristocratic households during the Middle Ages.
An Instacart worker loads groceries into her car for home delivery. There is a strong argument to be made that gig work is false self-employment, meaning that workers are not actually freelance. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)

Gig workers aren’t self-employed – they’re modern-day feudal serfs

Feudalism has been replaced by capitalism, and the new villeiny — or neo-villeiny — has emerged to reflect a relationship between a worker and an organization.

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