Medieval

Nigel Saul discusses attempts to revive the crusading zeal in late medieval Europe and explains why they failed to rekindle the fervour of the earlier movement.

What did medieval contemporaries think of military orders such as the Knights Hospitaller and Teutonic Knights? Helen Nicholson investigates.

Henry VIII may be our most famous monarch, a man who still bestrides English history as mightily as he dominated his kingdom nearly 500 years ago – but how well do we really understand him? 

The Magyars of Hungary were defeated by an army led by Otto I, on August 10th, 955.

Richard Cavendish explains how Archbishop Scrope and Thomas Mowbray were executed on June 8th, 1405.

Len Scales considers the complex role of martial skill in the development of national identity in the Middle Ages.

The only Englishman ever to be Pope, Nicholas Breakspear was elected on December 4th, 1154.

Nicholas Vincent celebrates the founder of the Plantagenet dynasty.

David Harrison considers one of the greatest but most underrated achievements of the medieval world: the hundreds of bridges that defined the British communication system up to the 19th century.

Glenn Richardson looks at almost nine hundred years of enmity, jealousy and mutual fascination, a hundred years after the Entente Cordiale.