Margaret Wade Labarge describes how, in 1247, having resolved to set out on a crusade, the pious King of France organized a new body of officials to help him put the affairs of his realm in order by investigating any complaints against himself or those who served him.
Towards the end of the fourth century, writes David Jones, a Spanish emperor from Britain and his Welsh empress held their spendid court in a city on the Moselle.
J.L. Kirby describes an episode in the long struggle of the English Kings to keep their fiefs as Dukes of Aquitaine.
F. Bastian finds that in composing his lively Tour, Defoe drew upon memories of journeys he had actually made and also upon the writings of earlier observers.
H.A. Monckton offers a taste of the beer of Elizabethan England, a beverage reportedly, ‘dark in colour, not very heavily hopped, and probably rather sweet and vinous’.
Joan Hasler describes how, as controller of Calais in 1558, Edward Grimston was captured when the town surrendered to the Duke of Guise and held to ransom in the Bastille.
C.R. Boxer offers a study of the religious problems in early Roman Catholic missions.
Geoffrey Powell offers a study of everyday Imperial military life.
George A. Rothrock introduces the son of a Protestant engraver, Jean-Baptiste Tavernier; a dealer in gems, Tavernier made six important journeys to Persia, India and Tonkin during the reign of Louis XIV
