the crusades
Are all great civilisations doomed?
If plague, war or natural disasters don’t destroy our own, then ‘a cascading systems failure’ seems likely, on past evidence, says Paul Cooper
Light and shade in the Holy Land – a century in spectacular images
Justin Marozzi on the troubled history of a small, much-coveted country
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…
A new version of Saladin — as silver-tongued diplomat
I can only remember one page of any of the dozens of Ladybird histories that I read avidly as a…
Francis of Assisi’s life in poetry will stay in the mind forever
This passionate series of engagements with the life of St Francis will stay in my mind for a very long…
Crusading passions
In W.B. Yeats’s ‘Meditations in Time of Civil War’, a testing allusion emerges amid a scene of nightmare: Monstrous familiar…
William Marshal: kingmaker — or just king of the joust?
In February 1861 a 21-year-old French medievalist called Paul Meyer walked into Sotheby’s auction house near Covent Garden. He had…
