Cultural

Richard Almond has trawled medieval and Renaissance sources for insights about ladies’ riding habits in the Middle Ages and what they reveal about a woman’s place in that society.

Chris Corin ressurects the life of a Soviet survivor whose remarkable and significant career deserves to be better known.

Richard Wilkinson finds much to enjoy in the opening volumes of a comprehensive new series on British social history.

Robert Pearce has been pleasantly surprised at the quality of a new textbook.

Viv Saunders reveals how sport and society are intertwined.

R. E. Foster sifts myth from reality in the life of the 'Lady with the Lamp'.

History tells us that the West’s embrace of liberal values was not inevitable and is unlikely to last, says Tim Stanley.

Courtly love, celebrated in numerous songs and poems, was the romantic ideal of western Europe in the Middle Ages. Yet, human nature being what it is, the realities of sexual desire and the complications it brings were never far away, says Julie Peakman.

The fools of the early Tudor court were likely to have been people with learning disabilities as a new project demonstrates, says Suzannah Lipscomb.

Despite numerous attempts by radicals to reform the calendar, it is usually commerce that decides the way we measure time, as Matthew Shaw explains.