6 November 2024
The relationship between Dieppe (Normandy, France) and England has always been tumultuous. It was the unification of the Duchy of Normandy and the Kingdom of England by William the Conqueror in 1066 that led to centuries of trade, wars, piracy, prosperity, decline, and English tourism and sea-bathing in the nineteenth century. It also led to … Read more » “Canada and England connected by Dieppe”
15 August 2024
The arrival of Hans Fugger (1348-1409) in Augsburg in 1367 marked the beginning of a dynasty that financed kings and emperors and owned many industries 150 years later. Fugger was a wealthy weaver from the small village of Graben in Lechfeld, south of Augsburg, known for the battle of Otto the Great (912-973) against the … Read more » “The Finest Hour of Jakob Fugger”
8 August 2024
The Münster Town Hall is known as the location of the Peace of Westphalia. The building dates from about 1320, though the first structure is already documented in 1250. The Citizens Hall and the Council Chamber (where the councillors met) are first recorded in a chronicle dated 1337. Towards the end of the century, the … Read more » “Pax optima rerum”
8 May 2024
The tulip-mania of the seventeenth century is well known. The financial sector and banking system hardly survived the tulip bubble. The rose-mania in France in the early years of the nineteenth century is far less well known, likely because interest was mainly concentrated on decorations, gardens, paintings and drawings, rather than on speculation. France became … Read more » “The Rose Mania in the early years of the nineteenth century”
22 November 2023
The Lewis chess pieces are among the most splendid Romanesque art of the second half of the twelfth century. Trondheim, the capital of the archbishopric Nidaros, founded in 1153, is regarded as the city of origin. Although the chess pieces were found on the remote Scottish island of Lewis in 1831, the Norman origin is … Read more » “The bishops of Lewis and Eystein”