Early medieval

Dr Rory Naismith answers listener questions on Britain in the early Middle Ages. (Image from Getty Images)

Early Medieval Britain: everything you wanted to know

A 12th-century Celtic round tower at Clonmacnoise, County Offaly

“The power of the Irish over the Britons is great”: Fergal Keane on Britain’s Irish roots

King John hunting on horseback, 14th century. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Was King John murdered?

Newark Castle flanked by the river Trent. To say that King John's death here in 1216 was little-lamented is something of an understatement.

King John and the French invasion

Pod Judith Herrin WL

The Byzantine empire: everything you wanted to know

Edward Brooke-Hitching discusses some of history’s strangest literary curiosities. (Image by Getty Images)

Bizarre books and macabre manuscripts

The Varangian Guard as depicted in the illuminated 12th-century manuscript known as the Madrid Skylitzes. These Viking warriors became the Byzantine emperors' personal bodyguard

What was the Varangian Guard? A brief history of the Viking warriors of the Byzantine empire

An illustration depicting the deposition of the body of Edward the Confessor in the tomb at Westminster in 1066. (

Was the early medieval period a “golden age” for the elderly?

King Arthur and a hand holding the sword Excalibur.

The legends of King Arthur: everything you wanted to know

King Arthur addresses his knights in a 12th-century Arthurian manuscript now held in Rennes, France. (Photo by: Leemage/UIG via Getty Images)

King Arthur: five men who made up the legendary Dark Ages king

An illustration depicting King Arthur fighting the Saxons, from the Rochefoucauld Grail. The absence of a clear and present origin for King Arthur has created a ‘void’ which many are keen to fill, says Miles Russell. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

The real King Arthur: why are we so obsessed with trying to solve the mystery?

An illustration of King Arthur's coronation, from the 13th-century Flores Historiarum

King Arthur: 6 things you need to know about the warrior king and his legend

King Arthur and his knights return to Camelot (Photo by: Christophel Fine Art/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Q&A Where was Camelot?

St Swithin (or Swithun). (Image by Alamy)

Q&A Who was St Swithin?

Hamo Thornycroft's 1901 statue of King Alfred the Great in Winchester. (Photo by RDImages/Epics/Getty Images)

Blog Medieval(ish) matters #12: secrets of the famous Anglo-Saxon Chronicles