Religion

Cunning Folk: Life in the Era of Practical Magic by Tabitha Stanmore gives a human face to magic in medieval and early modern England.

A community of Ethiopian monk-scholars in Renaissance Rome brought their learning, language and liturgy into the heart of the Roman Church.

The Queen of the Night, rendered in clay in ancient Babylon, was evidently an important goddess who enjoyed considerable status – but who is she?

In The House Divided: Sunni, Shia and the Making of the Middle East Barnaby Rogerson seeks geopolitical answers for ideological conflicts.

In the 17th century news spread that the Jewish messiah had finally arrived. Within a year he had converted to Islam. Who was he, and what had happened?

Lisbon’s convents were not just religious houses, but safe havens for the noblewomen of Portugal offering refuge from abusive husbands, unhappy marriages and a city swarming with ‘dogs and devils’.

Arriving in the West in the 19th century, the Buddha of legend was stripped of supernatural myth and recast as a historical figure. What do we really know about him?

Early Christianity brought new opportunities for Roman and Byzantine women – it also brought new reasons to vilify them.

On 6 December 343, Saint Nicholas died but his miracles continued. Eventually, the man was replaced by the myth of Santa Claus – if he even existed at all.

Did Jesus have a difficult childhood? Was his youth spent in Egypt or England, India or Japan? The four canonical gospels are quiet on his early life, leading some to speculate.