Caitlin nic Raighne has created a website with instructions on how to make a geometric tunic. The instructions include diagrams, fabric selections and sewing directions.

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An exhibit in Bucharest, Romania, is trying to rehabilitate the image of Vlad Dracula, aka Vlad the Impaler. The exhibit uses period illustrations and manuscripts to show the 15th century Wallachian ruler as the victim of Western European propaganda intended to show Eastern Europe in a barbaric light.

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Carola Hicks, who has died of cancer aged 68, was a glamorous academic and a serious populariser of art. She created something new in the world of contemporary biography, writing the life stories and afterlives of iconic works of art such as the Bayeux tapestry and the stained-glass windows of King's College Chapel, Cambridge. She swept the dust off old masterpieces, explained their cultural contexts and infused them with life for a new public.

Her book, The Bayeux Tapestry: The Life Story of a Masterpiece (2006), was the first of her innovative biographies of works of art. Carola brought fresh insights to this medieval strip cartoon and instrument of political propaganda. Most groundbreaking was her investigation of the afterlife of the Bayeux tapestry: its rediscovery by 18th-century antiquarians, its survival though the French revolution, its reinvention by the pre-Raphaelites, its skewed interpretation by over-reachers from Napoleon to Heinrich Himmler.

Click here to read this obituary from The Guardian

Archeologists are excavating "The Theater", London's first known successful playhouse, where it is believed that Shakespeare himself worked and may have even acted. The building was completed in 1576, and historians believe that Romeo and Juliet premiered there.

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Complete microfilms of two early medieval Spanish Bibles dating from the 9th and 10th century that were damaged or destroyed during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) have been found in the microfilm vault of the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library in Minnesota. Before the discovery of the microfilms, scholars thought the two Bibles, known as Codex Complutensis I and Codex Complutensis II, survived only in fragments or in one or two slides.

The two manuscript Bibles, which belong to the Library of the Universidad Complutense in Madrid, are considered important examples of Mozarabic art, a style that combined Visigothic and Muslim elements and was produced by Christian communities who lived under Muslim rule after the Muslims conquered Spain in 711. The decoration of the manuscripts shows such Arabic influences as zoomorphic initials and Arabic arches.

Click here to read this article from Medievalists.net

SCA member Christian de Holacombe (Chris Laning), a medieval scholar from Davis, California, has created a blog entitle Paternoster Row to share some of her research on rosaries and prayer beads.

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Thanks to a monumental effort on the part of Her Royal Majesty of Aethelmearc, Tessa, and a team of Shadowclans members, the Pennsic Children’s Water Battle will take place after all.

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Through painstaking research, historically accurate technical detail and participation in the Society for Creative Anachronism, Vancouver artist Sharow Burrows seeks the visionary feminine side of the Middle Ages.

In a cheerfully cluttered home studio on Vancouver's East Side, artist Sharon Burrows is busy re-creating the arts and crafts of the Middle Ages. Burrows, a retired Jungian-oriented therapist, creates authentic hand-bound parchment books, illuminated scrolls, Byzantine-style icon paintings and delicate embroidery.

The dazzling art works reflect Burrows' enchantment with the past and what its arts and crafts have to tell us about past eras and the human condition.

Reflecting a lifelong interest in feminism, women's history and spirituality, Burrows has focused much of her art work on the figure of Saint Mary Magdalene.

The first illuminated manuscript book she hand-crafted, in 1997, was about the life of the saint. The leather bound text is graced by a loving copy of an icon-style portrait Burrows first saw years ago in Florence. The original is by the 13th-century Italian artist known as the Master of the Magdalene. The book features other illustrations done in a similar visual style and a text, the Legend of Mary, done in classic medieval calligraphy.

Click here to read this article from the Vancouver Courier

Russia is marking for the first time in its history the Day of Baptizing of Kievan Rus – a new ‘commemorative date’ that has been established to commemorate the Grand Duke Vladimir, who adopted Eastern Orthodox Christianity as the official religion of the early medieval duchy of Rus.

“The establishing of the Christian faith in the olden Rus helped promote the consolidation and flourishing of the state and exerted a great influence on the maintenance of Russia’s unity at knotty periods of history,” members of the upper house of Russian parliament said in their decision as they added July 28 to the list of commemorative dates.

Click here to read the article from the ITAR-TASS News Agency

Ancient bones have been discovered during construction work near Graz Castle.

Manfred Lehner of the Archaeological Institute at city’s university said today (Wednesday) the human remains were found by workers at a building site outside the castle walls yesterday.

The scientist explained: "The human skeleton could derive from medieval times - maybe from the 13th or 14th century. But it will take us some time to clarify any details."

Click here to read this article from the Austrian Independent