Medieval

In the mid-fifteenth century, writes Anthony Bryer, George Kastriota, surnamed Skanderbeg, was acclaimed as a powerful champion of Christianity on the eastern shores of the Adriatic.

Dorothy Margaret Stuart describes how the earliest English printed book was issued from William Caxton’s press at Westminster in 1477, under the patronage of the ruling House of York.

The medievalist Jacques Le Goff was inspired by the work of his uncle and fellow historian, Marc Bloch.

The medieval scriptorium was not necessarily the ordered hive of activity we have come to imagine.

The violence and gore in the hit TV series simply reflect the bloodiness of the Middle Ages, right? Not necessarily, says Marc Morris.

In 1373, writes Jan Read, King Edward III signed an alliance with Portugal which has lasted ever since.

The use of the sword as an effective military weapon has been abandoned since the First World War, but its decline had begun at a very much earlier period. T.H. McGuffie describes how, during the Franco-German struggle of 1870-1871, among some forty thousand cavalry engaged, only six men are believed to have received a mortal sabre-wound.

Though he had begun life as an energetic mercenary soldier, writes Alan Haynes, the Duke of Urbino became a celebrated humanist and a generous patron of contemporary art and learning.

‘The pleasure of books possessed me from childhood’ wrote this twelfth-century historian. Among other work, William of Malmesbury, writes J.J.N. McGurk, produced an Historia Novella, extending until 1142.

John Godfrey describes how the capture of Constantinople in 1204 was an unexpected result of the Crusading movement.