For us, when we think about the Middle Ages, it's sort of this rarefied, distant time that we have no connection to, especially if you grew up in America.
I attribute the quarrelsome nature of the Middle Ages young men entirely to the want of the soothing weed.
For three hundred years we have had our focus on the individual. We have distinguished him from the objective world as the Middle Ages did not think of doing. We have given him the world and the universe as a playground for exploration and discovery.
Various Turkish people invaded southwest Asia during the Middle Ages and carved an empire for themselves from lands occupied by the indigenous Semitic and Indo-European inhabitants.
The genius of 'Game of Thrones' is that in this rich imagining of a world redolent of the medieval, the rules of a Middle Ages morality play have been so thoroughly discarded.
'Simeon's Gift' is really - it's about a musician who - in the Middle Ages, who goes out to find his muse.
In the Middle Ages, I think the French kings murdered slightly fewer of their family members than the English kings, though I haven't actually counted the heads.
We forget how bawdy and brutal the Middle Ages were.
Musically, there's a movement called the flatted fifth that's really evil-sounding. It was outlawed by the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages. That movement is what gives you a real evil sound that conjures up dark, fantastic images. It's like an audio horror movie. It personifies what a horror movie is about.
There was an ingredient used in perfumes and remedies in the Middle Ages called 'momie' that is certainly one of the most fascinating I've come across.
