medieval history
Why must medieval mysticism be treated as a malady?
Medieval women – they were ‘just like us’. Except that they weren’t. Poet, Mystic, Widow, Wife is the first popular…
The medieval English matriarch was a force to be reckoned with
Like many 15th-century women, Margaret Paston was a fearless protector of her family, supremely capable, in her husband’s absence, of defending their property against predatory neighbours
When the local wizard was the repository of all wisdom
Before the arrival of ‘proper’ doctors, everyone in the Middle Ages, from rulers to peasants, turned to magic practitioners and cunning folk for healing and advice
Sixteen cathedrals to see before you die
There can be no clearer illustration of the central role that great cathedrals continue to play in a nation’s life…
How the quarrelsome ‘Jena set’ paved the way for Hitler
Frances Wilson describes a group of self-obsessed intellectuals united by mutual loathing in a small university town in the 1790s
Sex and politics in the precincts of St Paul’s Cathedral
In the tight dark maze of alleys that wind between the Thames and St Paul’s the pleasures of the living…
What the Anglo-Saxons made of 1066 and all that followed
By any yardstick, the Norman Conquest was a ghastly business. Within two decades, the English aristocracy had been more than…
From pirates to princes — the heroic transformation of the Normans
The Normans had an astonishingly good run. Not only did they take over England in 1066, of course, but they…
The magic of manuscripts
Nothing captures medieval life more vividly than a manuscript that has passed through many hands, says Jonathan Sumption
They weren’t all that pious in the good old days
You need to be wary of being too flattering about English churches. As John Betjeman said: ‘Be careful before you…
What happens next? Gauging the fallout from the pandemic
What just happened? Some 15 months after the pandemic first struck, it’s still horribly unclear, which is perhaps why there…
Gazing heavenwards: the medieval monks who mapped the planetary motions
We can probably blame George and Ira Gershwin. It was that brilliant duo who, in 1937, penned the memorable lyric…
The crusaders were not such incompetent zealots after all
One of the strange effects that modernist, progressive society has had on what the French Annales school would refer to…
Robert the Bruce — master of guerrilla warfare
The story of Robert the Bruce runs from the death of Alexander III of Scotland in 1286 to Robert’s own…
Eleanor of Aquitaine is still as elusive as quicksilver
Eleanor of Aquitaine is the most famous woman of the Middle Ages: queen of France and England, crusader, mother of…
Homage to Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor
It is not often that a book’s blurb gives any idea of what’s inside, but Helen Castor’s endorsement — ‘a…
Heroism in a hopeless cause: why the crusades remain fascinating
The crusades are part of everyone’s mental image of the Middle Ages. They extended, in one form or another, from…
Rebel girls of the 13th century
Women who can — however tenuously — be described as ‘rebel girls’ are big in publishing now. Goodnight Stories for…
The Siege of Acre: a monstrous blot on the Third Crusade
Lionheart! Saladin! Massacre! There is no shortage of larger-than-life characters and drama in the epic, two-year siege of Acre, the…
How a 14th-century Arab thinker influenced Ronald Reagan’s fiscal policy
At a press conference in October 1981, Ronald Reagan quoted Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) in support of what is known…
The pilgrims’ ways
Liza Picard, an chronicler of London society across the centuries, now weaves an infinity of small details into an arresting…
Crusading passions
In W.B. Yeats’s ‘Meditations in Time of Civil War’, a testing allusion emerges amid a scene of nightmare: Monstrous familiar…
Norman Sicily was a multicultural paradise – but it didn’t last long
There are lessons to be learned from the disintegration of this once majestic multicultural Norman kingdom, says Martin Gayford
