The King’s House at Perth Professor Richard Oram. Some modern descriptions of the assassination of James I in his lodgings at Perth give the impression that he and Queen Joan lived in the Dominican friary and that they took over the convent whenever they came to the town. This is not true; the medieval accounts…
James I – Viral Infection, Medieval Infectious Diseases and Mortality Professor Richard Oram. Medical knowledge in the time of James I had no awareness of bacterial or viral infection. It was centuries yet before germ theory emerged and scientific equipment was invented that enabled microbial forms to be studied. Although surgical techniques had grown in…
Climate Change Makes History in the Reign of James I. Professor Richard Oram. Although the fourteenth century, with its catalogue of wars, famines, pandemics and extreme weather, has been described as the worst century to be alive in terms of human recorded history, the fifteenth century was in many ways little better. Indeed, in some…