Search
Medieval History
Grab a sword, a small plate, and a young child. We've got a demon to summon.
Why human attempts to mechanize logic keep breaking down.
A sober look at a wild conspiracy theory that argues the Middle Ages never happened.
From Æthelred the Unready to Halfdan the Bad Entertainer, these strange epithets colored the legacy of four rather unlucky historical figures.
A single knife is sometimes worth more than a thousand armies.
This necropsy represents an early entry in what would become a tradition of performing autopsies to consider an individual’s sanctity.
Thanks to protocols established centuries ago in Europe, world leaders no longer need to worry about having their heads bashed with an axe.
The history of cartography might have been very different if the Latin version of Muhammad al-Idrisi's atlas had survived instead of the Arabic one.
Alchemy had its golden age in the 17th century, when it counted Isaac Newton and Robert Boyle among its adherents.
John Templeton Foundation
Perhaps there was something theatrically satisfying about a learned man waving around a flask of pee, looking at it from all angles, sniffing it, and making bold proclamations.
Mansa Musa, perhaps history's richest man, claims he ascended the throne of Mali after his predecessor sailed west and never came back. Could he have made it to the New World?
500 sheep were slaughtered to produce the 2,060 pages of the "Codex Amiatinus," a Latin translation of the Bible.
Mongol forces never fully conquered the continent, but they played a key role in its historical development.
The cathedral is being explored as never before.
Queen Calafia seems like she could have sprung from the pages of a modern fantasy novel.
Far from practicing witchcraft, the experimentation of medieval alchemists helped bring about the Scientific Revolution.
The amazing life of “Gudrid the Far-Traveled” was unjustly overshadowed by her in-laws, Erik the Red and Leif Erikson.
As interest rates rise, the "dead pledge" may live up to its name.
The Knights Templar were not only skilled fighters, but also clever bankers who played a crucial role in the development of Europe’s financial systems.
How drugs, demons, and the search for immortality gave us words we use everyday.
Some animals were even assigned their own lawyers.
Many people lived long enough to grow old in the olden days, too.
Is "The Garden of Earthly Delights" by Hieronymus Bosch a condemnation of sin or a celebration of hedonism? Art historians still aren’t sure.
Three out of four Russians accused of witchcraft were men.
The weird and wild ways mummy fever swept through Europe.
Before gunpowder was introduced to the West, medieval Arabs devised grenades using crockery.
"Immodest Acts" tells the story of Benedetta Carlini, a lesbian nun who claimed to be a mystic visionary but failed to convince the leaders of her faith.
When Saint Ambrose of Milan was venerated, his life became public property, its meaning expanding with the unique interpretations of each new generation.
Far from acting as the conduits of a benevolent deity, these religious leaders threw the teachings of their own church out of the window.