When the mighty ruins of Bungay Castle were still in their entirety, still a defensive structure to be wary of and above all, still a home to Alice of Norfolk and her husband, Sir Edward Montagu, y…

Illustration of the marriage of Edward I and Marguerite of France, from the fourteenth century Nuova Cronica, Wikicommons Edward I's famous first marriage to Eleanor of Castile is well known to have been happy and fruitful until he was widowed in 1290. He remained unmarried for nine years but was more than aware that he had only one son - who would become Edward II - and in 1299, he married Marguerite, half-sister of King Philippe IV of France, who was forty years his junior.

Edward I and his offspring, especially Edward II, are not shrouded by the mists of time. Edward I’s two sons and daughter by his second…

South-east side of Chepstow Parish Church, once the church for the Benedictine Priory of St Mary’s. The east facing window, at the forefront of the image, is where the monastic burial area li…

Ancient medicinal and food crop – Barley. Drawing by Fauget (1867), Histoire de Plantes The word Tisane is derived from the Ancient Greek ptisane which developed into the French tisane meanin…

Welcome to Just History Posts’ Book Hub! Over the years we have had dozens of historical authors on the blog, answering interview questions and writing fantastic guest posts for us about their rese…

Image courtesy of www.publicdomainreview.org The The flowering plant in the image is Ypericon, known in the modern world as St John’s Wort, a common herbal medicine to treat depression and an…

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Occasionally, when reading various ancient medical texts, remedies and surgical details, there appears some interesting hint at nursing care. Aulus Cornelius Celsus (c.25 BCE – c.50 CE) was a…

Workhouse nurse with children. Image courtesy of Manchester Archives We have all read - and sometimes horribly fascinated by - the awful stories we read about all sorts of goings-on in Victorian Workhouses. The stuff of nightmares. Whilst researching (down yet another rabbit hole) it became clear to me that Workhouses not only date back a long time before the Victorian era, but also these places were set with good intentions a lot of the time and that they weren't always the places of murder, mayhem and darkness that sometimes prevails.

Approximately a mile north of Chepstow, on English side of the River Wye and right on the the border of Monmouthshire and Gloucestershire, sit the ruins of an old church, as seen above. It is all t…

BSHM Congress 2025 Open to all interested in the history of medicine and healthcare The 31st BSHM Congress will be held at the University of Leeds Wed 10 – Sat 13 September 2025 The President and Offi...

Courtesy of Wellcome Collection Worms in your ear? In your stomach? Even in your carpet rushes of your medieval hall? No worries, there was always Wormwood … In the Westminster Infirmary Roll…

Dropsy can be seen in literature, biographies and historical articles as an ailment of the rich and poor alike. But what was it? Dropsy is an antiquated term for oedema being a collection of fluid …

South-east side of Chepstow Parish Church, once the church for the Benedictine Priory of St Mary's. The east facing window, at the forefront of the image, is where the monastic burial area likely was as well as the infirmary and herb garden. Image courtesy of National Library of Wales. From the 1800 illustration above, you will see the figure of a woman to the far left; this is now the A48 road crossing the Wye at Chepstow.

Tea, for example, a greatly prescribed item, was usually tied in a cloth and made in the same boilers and cauldrons as the meat; the cloth shrunk with tea inside and sunk to the bottom. Even Fanny Taylor makes mention of the tea being ‘the most wretched stuff possible.’ Soyer quite rightly said the tea needs to be diffused in the water instead of just sitting at the bottom in a heap so, using a coffee filter, he made the ‘Scutari Teapot’ with one teapot amount based on twenty men.