At the risk of making myself immensely unpopular, I finally watched Reign and I enjoyed it. There, I said it. It bears no resemblance to history, the costumes are ridiculously anachronistic, more than half of the characters never actually existed, the storylines are insane, there isn’t a chaperone to be found, and yet, I love… Read More Everything Wrong with Reign (Season 1)
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a woman excelling in History must be questioned in ways that a man is not and/or relegated to the side-lines of the history she has shaped” – Jane Austen probably. The interesting thing about researching women (and queer people, and people of colour) in history is discovering the… Read More Badass Women in History (who took no s**t)
Part one of this little series looked at the mass outbreaks of demonic possession (see also: convent hysteria) in several convents in France between 1611 and 1613. Despite geographical distance between the convents, there were a number of incidents which saw groups of nuns of varying denominations demonstrating behaviour considered to be evidence of possession.… Read More Devil Worship and Demonic Possession in French Convents Pt II
Witch hunts were not new to the seventeenth-century population, having been around since before the time of Christ, but the 1600s saw an explosion of interest (or hysteria) regarding witches and their work. During this time convents across Europe would see spontaneous outbreaks of witchcraft, devil worship and demonic possession. For the devil to gain… Read More “Out of spite for the Saviour”: Devil Worship and Demonic possession in French convents pt I
Quills (2000) is one of the more surprising films I own. It hosts an all star cast featuring Kate Winslet, Joaquin Phoenix, Michael Caine and Geoffrey Rush, it did well at the box office and gained mostly positive reviews, yet I have yet to meet anyone who has ever heard of it. The film follows… Read More Quills (2000)
I have studied history for years and throughout it all, until very recently, you will find religion underlying a great deal of societal history. Considering that for a vast amount of time, Europe was predominantly Catholic before changing, in the sixteenth century, to somewhat Catholic with some Protestantism thrown in for good measure; religion is… Read More Joan of Arc on film: The Mad Messenger
