Middle Ages

In early 13th-century France, the county of Toulouse found itself the focus of Pope Innocent III's ire. It was an area that housed heretics who followed the Cathar religion – an amalgamation of various religions, including Christianity, that challenged the religious orthodoxy of the Catholic Church with conflicting accounts of spirituality. Between 1209 and 1229, the crusade waged against this group of people within the confines of Europe was the first of its kind to guarante

On the 15th of July, 1099, over ten thousand Christian soldiers forced their way into the Holy City of Jerusalem. What was to follow was one of the most infamous massacres of the medieval period. Thirsty, hungry, and exhausted from 5 weeks of siege warfare, the Crusaders were utterly brutal in their treatment of the city’s Muslim population. The chronicler Raymond d'Aguilliers describes the sack which followed the Latin victory with nauseating piety and reverence: "Indeed, it

On 15 June 1381, Wat Tyler, the elected leader of the Peasants’ Revolt, was killed during attempted negotiations in an audience with King Richard II, signalling the downfall of a revolt that had been building since the mid-fourteenth century. From this perspective, the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 was an immediate failure in achieving its goals of equality and representation, but the long-term consequences tell a more complex story. Fourteenth century England was characterised by

Since the dawn of time, humanity always sought new ways to kill one another in war. The Medieval Era was no exception, having its fair share of military revolutions. The Hussite Wars of the early fifteenth century were one such instance of innovation. After attempts to swiftly deal with the growing Hussite heresy in Bohemia were metaphorically and physically thrown out the window in 1419, war was the only option left. Across Catholic Europe, many lords, knights and soldiers o

There is a bronze statue in a Suffolk town that most people will never visit. It stands among the ruins of what was once the largest Romanesque church ever built – a building whose footprint would have dwarfed Salisbury Cathedral, its west front reckoned amongst the most extraordinary architectural facades in all of Europe. The man in bronze is young, crowned, and his eyes are closed. He is St Edmund: ninth-century king of East Anglia, martyr, and – long before St George acqu

On the evening of Wednesday 6 September 1090, five years before the First Crusade was called, the Shi’a missionary Hasan-i Sabbah slipped unnoticed into the seemingly impregnable mountain fortress of Alamut. After peacefully converting the inhabitants of the Persian stronghold, and removing its Sunni master, he began to build a movement that would become shrouded in myth. The group that would come to be known as the ‘Assassins’ would play a significant role in the politics of

Cover Image: Odinus (Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/odlnus?igsh=MTN3ZXA4dDBxc2NuMQ== Artstation: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/nJ1anX) By the time Baldwin IV ascended the throne in 1174, the Latin East was already ensnared in a slow, irreversible decline. The Crusader states were marred by factionalism, ambiguous lines of succession, and increasing isolation from Western support. Externally, an increasingly unified Muslim front seemed to have sealed the Levant’s fa

It is 686 AD at the gates of the Northumbrian monastery of Monkwearmouth-Jarrow Abbey. Pushing one of the great oak doors ajar, we are confronted with an assault on the senses. Many of the abbey's monks lie strewn across the courtyard, their bodies motionless, cold, and pale. At the far end of the courtyard, a brother digs away at the soil. His body trembles as he sobs, praying under his breath that this pestilence may cease its relentless onslaught. Once a sanctuary on the C

Throughout its impressive longevity, the Byzantine Empire has had its fair share of terrible emperors who plunged Byzantium into chaos and ruin. While many of these candidates, such as Alexios IV Angelos and Phokas, are deserving of the moniker of ‘worst emperor’, one emperor has seemingly gone under the radar as being one of the, if not the worst, Byzantine emperors. This was Constantine IX Monomachos. He was arguably responsible for the major Byzantine collapse during the e

If you visit Warwick Castle, you will find countless placards and performances chronicling its history – chief among them, its significance in the Wars of the Roses. Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, also known as the ‘Kingmaker’, even has his own exhibition. Yet, on my visits, one figure has struck me as markedly absent from the Castle’s narrative: Anne Neville, daughter of the Kingmaker, wife to Edward, Prince of Wales, then King Richard III, and Queen of England from June

Noah Parsons By the time of the High Medieval Period, Western Europe remained firmly within the grasp of the omnipotent Catholic Church. Its traditions and beliefs were deeply entrenched in every facet of society, from the highest level of the feudal system to the lowest. Two of these beliefs were miracles and mysticism. Nowhere would these two beliefs become more profound than during the discovery of the Holy Lance at Antioch in the First Crusade. The First Crusade was no