March/April 1999

Editor's Note

From the Medieval to the Modern

A Conversation with . . .
1999 Jefferson Lecturer Caroline Walker Bynum talks about the legacy of the Middle Ages to the present day.

Historian of the Ambiguous Core
Reflections on the approach of an "improper medievalist" to feasting, the body, and death. By Fred Paxton

Old Tales for a New Millennium

Chivalry Revisited: In Print and Online
Romance, poetry, and protest literature are rescued from obscurity. By Rachel Galvin

Why Read Beowulf?
How a manuscript that was nearly lost still speaks to us. (By Robert F. Yeager)

Pieces of the Puzzle

Amid Rubble and Myth
Excavations beneath Florence's cathedral reveal a church for a saint that never was. By Franklin Toker

A Land Without Lords
Early Icelanders turned feuding into an art form. By Anna Maria Gillis

Around the Nation

Women of Power
An eleventh-century nun with attitude becomes the subject of a Maryland film. By Erin Erickson

The Lunts
At Home in Wisconsin. By Amy Lifson