When Alexander the Great died in Babylon in 323 BC, he was preparing ships, armies and supply networks for a new phase of ...

King Olaf Tryggvason’s dramatic fall at the battle of Svolder in around AD 1000 became one of the most famous episodes of the ...

Behaving well as a host or visitor wasn’t just a matter of etiquette for the ancient Greeks – it was a sacred duty. Hilary Mitchell explores xenia, the ancient code of hospitality at the heart of Chri ...

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The Roman empire was by no means the largest in history: in fact 25 others have occupied a larger land mass either before or since. Yet very few can boast as wide-reaching an influence and impact. At ...

In 1066, as everybody knows, the Normans invaded England. That most engaging of all medieval sources, the Bayeux Tapestry, shows them landing their horses at Pevensey in Sussex and racing to occupy ...

In the winter of 1386, a French noblewoman by the name of Marguerite de Carrouges found herself at the centre of a criminal case that electrified Paris, captivated the king and culminated in blood ...

There was no single, organised and institutional religion of the Vikings. As they did not comprise a distinct social entity to begin with, it stands to reason they would not have a distinct set of ...

John of Gaunt. “What name on the roll of English princes is more familiar?” wrote Sydney Armitage-Smith, Gaunt’s first biographer, in 1904. John of Gaunt is still as familiar in our collective ...

In 1069 William the Conqueror celebrated Christmas in York. It was exactly three years since his coronation as king of England, which had taken place in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day 1066, just a ...

Duke William of Normandy, who would become known as William the Conqueror, arguably changed the course of English history more profoundly than any ruler before or since. Despite beginning life as a ...