Five Characteristics of a Witch – An Extract by Ronald Hutton
Witches can be defined, quite legitimately, in a number of different ways in the present world. What follows is concerned only with the most…
Medieval History
‘Otherness’ – Inside the International Medieval Congress 2017
This year the International Medieval Congress will focus on ‘otherness’. This focus has been chosen for its wide application across all centuries and regions and…
The English Reformation: Was Henry VIII the founder of Roman Catholicism? by Peter Marshall
2017 marks 500 years since the Reformation. Peter Marshall, author of Heretics and Believers, asks whether Henry VIII really was the founder of Roman Catholicism? It…
The Mongols and the Islamic World from Conquest to Conversion
The Mongol conquest of the Islamic world began in the early thirteenth century when Chinggis Khan and his warriors overran Central Asia and devastated…
Civil Wars by David Armitage – An Extract
For much of recorded history, the most frequent, horrific, destructive and yet strangely overshadowed form of collective human violence has been civil war. It…
‘1016 and all that’ (with apologies to Sellar and Yeatman) by Timothy Bolton
One thousand years and a few months ago, Anglo-Saxon England was successfully invaded by Danes and their allies. This was a half century before…
Like Grandmother, like granddaughter: Eleanor of Aquitaine and Blanche of Castile
Arguably the most successful woman to wield political power in the middle ages, Blanche of Castile is today not so well known as her…
William the Conqueror: 950 years on by David Bates
October 14th 2016 marks the 950th anniversary of 1066, the Battle of Hastings and the Norman Conquest. The defeat of England’s last Anglo-Saxon king, King Harold, changed the…
Understanding Our Unconscious: Five Facts About Sleep by Sasha Handley
Sleep—or the lack of it—is important to everyone. Yet its history has barely been told. Sasha Handley, author of Sleep in Early Modern England, documents…
Medieval Europe: An Extract from Chris Wickham
‘This is tremendously good. Chris Wickham has an outstandingly keen and understanding eye for the diversities of life across a broadly-framed Europe, and for…