The Valladolid Debate on the Rights of Indigenous People
Was the subjugation of indigenous peoples a just means to expedite Christianity? On 15 August 1550, a humanist scholar and a Dominican friar debated.
Christianity
The King Who Wasn't There
Belief in Prester John, a lost Christian king ruling over a distant kingdom, gripped medieval Europe for half a millennium. Once seen as a saviour, he would become an adversary.
How Angels Found their Wings
In the Bible, angels do not have wings. How did they come to take the form we know today?
Age of Doubt: Saints and Sceptics
The medieval period was a golden age of saints and miracles, but they were met with a healthy dose of scepticism.
Apocalypse Then: When The World Didn’t End
Despite the religious rupture caused by the Reformation, fear of the Apocalypse remained common to both sides of western Christendom. But older, classical ideas of an eternal return were at work, too.
I'm A Believer
An account of how belief became opinion.
‘The Gutenberg Bible’ Göttingen Library Edition review
How one of the greatest advances in human culture, the Gutenberg Bible, also helped divide Christendom.
The Ascension
A master of the early Renaissance depicts the moment that Christians regard as the confirmation of Jesus’ divinity.
The Invention of Individual Freedom
The ideas set out by Martin Luther sparked a reformation in the idea of authority itself.
Martin Luther and the German Reformation
A comprehensive account of the man who split western Christendom for good.