Hey! Big Spender: Extravagance, Values and Conspicuous Consumption in James I’s Scotland. Professor Richard Oram. How much of the royal income did James spend on his purchases of spices, sugar and other luxury goods? The £78 Scots spent on various spices in 1435 represented perhaps 0.75% of the crown’s income at that date, and…
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Sugar and Spice and All Things Nice. Professor Richard Oram. No menus survive from the banquets that were lavishly prepared celebrations of James I’s power and superior status. The food which was prepared for the king, often including some of the rarest and most expensive commodities of the day, formed one facet of the…
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Praying for a Cure: Plague Saints and Protection from Epidemics in Medieval Scotland. Professor Richard Oram. In a previous post, I wrote about the Scottish responses to epidemic disease enshrined in the measures of the 1456 act of parliament issued in the time of James I’s son, James II. Perhaps the greatest amount of…
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Scattering Stewart Seed: The Rise of Robert, Duke of Albany. Professor Richard Oram. Robert the Steward’s prodigious expansion of the ranks of the Stewart family through his remarkable productivity as a father might have been a very visible way of taunting his uncle’s infertility and boosting his own reputation, but it threw up more problems…
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Goodbye Christies Bar – Long Live The King James. A popular Perth pub has given a nod to its medieval past as part of a recently-completed makeover. The former Christies Bar on Kinnoull Street in the heart of the city centre officially re-opens tonight under a brand new name – The King James. The…
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Sex, Scandal, Succession and the Salacious Stewarts. Professor Richard Oram. Power, politics and sex has been a heady mix throughout human history. From Helen of Troy and Paris or Antony and Cleopatra, to John F Kennedy and Marilyn Monro, the Profumo Affair, or even Boris Johnston’s extra-marital relationships, they have been basic elements in the…
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