HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
date: 2025-10-30T09:01:09.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: Just how many Bayeux Tapestries were there?
items: The assassins' reign of terror: how these 12th-century killers spread fear in the Middle East
items: Michael Wood on women's contributions to the Bayeux Tapestry
items: The wrong moustache in the Battle of Hastings
items: The murder of James III: who killed the king of Scots?
items: England’s forgotten medieval hero: how John, Duke of Bedford carried on Henry V's fight
items: “The reverberations lasted for generations” | Matthew Gabriele and David M Perry on the civil war of Charlemagne's grandsons
items: Best medieval videogames for history enthusiasts in 2025
items: How the Plantagenets forged the English state
items: Medieval podcast episodes

Just how many Bayeux Tapestries were there?
type: item
date: 2025-10-30T09:00:37.000Z
creator: Dr David Musgrove, FSA
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Debate
subject: Medieval battles
description: As a new theory, put forward by Professor John Blair, questions whether the embroidery was unique, David Musgrove asks historians whether there could have been more than one ‘Bayeux Tapestry’
encoded: The Bayeux Tapestry is an amazing artefact – and it’s exceptional not least because of its very existence today. Precious few pieces of embroidery from the medieval period survive, let alone ones that are almost 70 metres long. And, of course, the story it tells – of the conquest of England by the Normans – is one of immense historical significance. So we rightly celebrate it, and excitement about its forthcoming loan from Bayeux to the British Museum is high. But what if this artefact wasn’t really so very exceptional at the time it was made? What if it was just one of several embroideries produced to commemorate the Norman victory over the English at the battle of Hastings in October 1066? Professor John Blair, an expert in the Anglo-Saxon period at the University of Oxford, believes that might be the case. “This is a reaction against the idea that the Tapestry had to be something extraordinary or unique, beyond the fact that it is an extraordinary and unique survival,” he says. “There are abundant references to decorative domestic hangings, but of course they had virtually zero chance of survival. The Tapestry is a wonderful piece of design, but the actual stitching isn’t particularly fine, and a big team of embroiderers in a workshop could have done it quite expeditiously.” Purported patron Why did the Tapestry survive when so few other embroideries did? Well, most scholars agree that it was probably made some time after the battle that it records, so in the mid-late 11th century, and likely on the orders of – or to curry favour with – Bishop Odo of Bayeux. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/Odo-blessing-the-feast4548webready-e50a4fb.jpg" width="1921" height="1281" alt="Bishop Odo, William’s half-brother, says grace before a feast. It’s thought that Odo commissioned the Tapestry to be displayed in his new cathedral in Bayeux (Image by Bayeux Museum)" title="Bishop Odo, William’s half-brother, says grace before a feast. I…

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The assassins' reign of terror: how these 12th-century killers spread fear in the Middle East
type: item
date: 2025-10-22T08:00:38.000Z
creator: Steve Tibble
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Death
subject: Historical people
subject: Medieval battles
description: In the 12th century, a sect of killers spread fear across the Middle East, executing a series of high-profile political murders. Steve Tibble introduces the original Assassins
encoded: There were 13 men: unlucky for someone. They were dressed to kill – but so was everyone else. In what was essentially an army camp, crammed with armed men, the assailants blended right in. Moving casually but intently through the bustling camp outside Aleppo in Syria, past stalls and shopkeepers, beggars and soldiers, they headed towards their target. Suddenly their progress was checked by a shout from behind: “What are you doing here?” Cover blown, their response was shocking: an explosion of violence, weapons flashing, blood splashing. The team of Assassins erupted into the tent where their victim sat unawares, surrounded by generals, lackeys and bodyguards. The attackers’ daggers and swords struck once more. The target that day in January 1175 was a Kurdish general, Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub – better known to us as Saladin. He had displaced the Fatimid dynasty to rule as sultan of Egypt, and was now muscling in on Syria. That vicious attack on his life failed – for now. But who were these men? And why had they launched such a murderous and seemingly suicidal assault? Power through murder Those brutal killers were Assassins. The upper case seems pedantic, but it is important. In the true medieval sense, that term was used for members of the Nizari Ismailis, a Shia Muslim sect who sought to defend themselves and to project power through political murder. The word ‘Assassin’ (or hashishin) was used as a pejorative by those on the receiving end of their remorseless hit squads in the 12th and 13th centuries. And the name stuck, becoming synonymous for premeditated murderers or contract killers – even though most of the broader Nizari Ismaili community were in fact peaceful peasants, scholars and merchants. The origins of this sect lay in the chaos of the Middle East in the late 11th century. Turkic tribes from the Eurasian steppes had stormed into the region and seized power from local Arab rulers, before starting to jockey among themselves for control of these new…

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Michael Wood on women's contributions to the Bayeux Tapestry
type: item
date: 2025-09-17T08:00:01.000Z
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Historical events
subject: Historical people
subject: Medieval battles
subject: Medieval kings and queens
description: "We should remember the unknown women who made the Tapestry", writes Michael Wood
encoded: Like all readers, I am sure, I was thrilled to hear the news that the Bayeux Tapestry is coming to England next year. 1066 is the most important date in British history, and the Tapestry is the greatest single source, taking the tale from the last days of Edward the Confessor through the drama of Harold and William, the Norman invasion, and the defeat and death of Harold at Hastings. The Tapestry has been in Bayeux since the Middle Ages and has never left, save briefly during the Franco-German War and under Napoleon and the Nazis, who both sought to weaponise it prior to their own invasion attempts. But it was made in England in the aftermath of the Conquest, probably at Canterbury by English needlewomen. Scholars think that it was commissioned by the Conqueror’s brother Odo, bishop of Bayeux, who features prominently on the Tapestry along with his followers. One of those, Vitalis, is singled out and named, shown mounted and in full armour, reporting to William the whereabouts of the English army. Perhaps he was the leader of a scouting detachment who had gone ahead of the Norman army. Read more | The Bayeux Tapestry is finally coming home to Britain – and you can see it next year The artistic inspiration was the English school of manuscript painting in Canterbury, but there may have been Roman models, too. Trajan’s Column, in particular, depicts the emperor’s Dacian campaigns in a similar manner – like a strip cartoon. Odo himself had been to Rome; so, too, had Scolland, abbot of St Augustine’s Abbey, who may have designed the Tapestry – perhaps using a sketch book from his travels? It’s a huge artwork, some 68.3 metres long, but damaged at the end: perhaps as much as 3 metres is missing. It is generally agreed that the Tapestry originally finished with William’s crowning at Westminster at Christmas 1066 – a mirror image to the opening panel of the enthroned Edward the Confessor. Based on that assumption, a brilliant full-scale reconstruction has been completed by …

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The wrong moustache in the Battle of Hastings
type: item
date: 2025-09-03T13:00:50.000Z
creator: Dr David Musgrove, FSA
subject: Anglo-Saxon
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Historical events
subject: Medieval battles
subject: Medieval kings and queens
subject: Trends-Entertainment
description: What's going on with the facial hair in King and Conqueror, have we been suckered in by an overly literal understanding of the Bayeux Tapestry, and what did a Viking beard really look like?
encoded: How and why did they get the facial hair so wrong in the new BBC 1066 drama King and Conqueror, and what did an actual Viking look like on the hair and beard front? Find out in my in-depth analysis of moustache-gate, framed, as is my wont, in the context of the Bayeux Tapestry. The new 1066 drama King and Conqueror has been accused by numerous commentators of playing fast and loose with the historical narrative of the Norman Conquest. That’s a reasonable criticism, but on my assessment of the critiques of the series, the deepest opprobrium has been reserved for the facial hair fantasy. Dad tache or bad tache? The problem is that Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, as Duke William of Normandy, sports a bristling tache (memorably described by Lucy Mangan in the Guardian as a ‘1970s dad tache’ and in the Daily Mail as an Asterix look), while the upper lip of James Norton’s Harold Godwinson is unequivocally hairless. That, as many experts have pointed out, is directly at odds with the Bayeux Tapestry. The famous 11th-century embroidery, which provides the earliest visual representation of the 1066 story, quite clearly shows a moustachioed Harold and a clean-shaven William. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/09/528361-7b9d210.jpg" width="6224" height="4672" alt="A man with shaggy hair and a moustache stands on a beach, dressed in a dark cloak and holding a sword. Behind him, a small group of people gather around a wooden boat on the shoreline" title="William bosses the beach with his 1970s dad tache in King and Conqueror (Image by BBC/CBS Studios)" /> Harold’s facial hair in the Tapestry is in line with that of his Anglo-Saxon compatriots: they tend to (but don’t always) boast moustaches, some of which are thin and straggly, while others are impressive handlebar efforts. The Normans, on the other hand, lack upper lip action. The embroiderers were clearly following a style guide to try to offer a visual prompt to the viewer about which side the r…

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The murder of James III: who killed the king of Scots?
type: item
date: 2025-03-05T09:49:55.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Tudor
subject: Death
subject: Medieval battles
description: A portentous witch, a sinister cleric, a blood-soaked shirt – Gordon McKelvie delves into the mysterious murder of a Scots king who had legions of enemies eager to see him dead
encoded: On 11 June 1488, a Scottish king gathered his army and marched to a field south of Stirling known as Sauchieburn. This man was James III – great-great-great-great grandson of Robert the Bruce, famed for his pivotal victory over the English at the battle of Bannockburn. James faced not a foreign invasion, but a rebellion by his own subjects. To counter this threat, and eager to be seen as a ‘new Bruce’, he wielded the sword of his famous ancestor. Rather than winning a heroic victory, though, by the end of the day James lay dead – killed by one of his own subjects as he fled the battlefield. But by whom? The answer is a mystery that’s endured for more than five centuries. James III was a divisive figure. He alienated many Scots with his determination to secure a marriage alliance with England, and his familial relations were little better: he fell out with one brother, Alexander, Duke of Albany, who then joined an English invasion of Scotland in 1482. He was also accused of ordering the death of his other brother, the Earl of Mar, and of being behind the alleged poisoning of his wife, Margaret of Denmark, in 1486. As ruler, James proved unable to control feuds between rival noble families and debased the Scottish coinage, causing economic problems. In summary, he fell short in almost every way imaginable. Writing perhaps three-quarters of a century later in The Historie and Chronicles of Scotland, Robert Lindsay said that James, standing on the field of battle in 1488, had “remembered the words of the witch that said to him before that he should be destroyed and put down by his nearest of kin” – a dramatic image reminiscent of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. The witch was not real, but the drama certainly was. The army that toppled James III had as its figurehead none other than the king’s eldest son who, on his father’s death, became James IV. Then just 14 years old, Prince James had left his residence in Stirling Castle in February 1488 and joined a group of individ…

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England’s forgotten medieval hero: how John, Duke of Bedford carried on Henry V's fight
type: item
date: 2025-02-20T16:52:50.000Z
creator: Joanna Arman
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Hundred Years War
subject: Joan of Arc
subject: Medieval battles
subject: Medieval kings and queens
description: When the Hundred Years’ War was reaching a climax, one man was fighting tenaciously to secure the English claim to the French crown. So why, asks Joanna Arman, is Henry V’s formidable brother, John, Duke of Bedford, not better known?
encoded: As black skies faded to grey, and dawn broke on that fateful day in the early 15th century, an English army gazed across a field in northern France. What their eyes encountered was a vastly superior force: some 15,000 French-led troops glared back – their numbers nearly double those of England’s men-at-arms and archers. The English had faced seemingly insuperable odds before, and emerged victorious. But could they really triumph over this well-armed force bolstered by fearsome international allies? The Hundred Years’ War had been raging for close to a century already, with negotiations between England and France coming and going – but all ultimately failing to decisively end the conflict. The balance of military success had swung one way and then the other in clashes on land and, occasionally, at sea. Read more | Jonathan Sumpton on the Hundred Years’ War: “It was Joan of Arc who persuaded the French that they could win” Many confrontations had ended with English longbowmen proving decisive. But as morning ebbed and the afternoon rolled on, the outcome remained uncertain. Finally, battle commenced – and the English won a great and memorable victory against the odds. Sounds familiar? No, this is not a description of the battle of Agincourt, Henry V’s famous victory of 1415. Instead, it’s the story of the clash fought on 17 August 1424 – nearly nine years after Agincourt, and two after Henry’s death – outside the town of Verneuil-sur-Avre in Normandy. Here, the English army led by Henry’s younger brother John, Duke of Bedford, hammered a combined force of French and Scottish solders plus 2,000 Milanese heavy cavalry, killing perhaps 6,000 enemy troops while suffering minimal losses. Historians refer to the battle of Verneuil as ‘the second Agincourt’ – yet that clash, like John himself, is largely forgotten today. Why has such a heroic victory faded from memory? And what part did John play in that tumultuous period of English and French history? Born to battle We’ll r…

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“The reverberations lasted for generations” | Matthew Gabriele and David M Perry on the civil war of Charlemagne's grandsons
type: item
date: 2025-01-23T12:18:07.000Z
creator: Dr David Musgrove, FSA
subject: Early medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Medieval battles
description: David Musgrove talks to Matthew Gabriele and David M Perry about the ninth-century civil war among Charlemagne’s grandsons, which shook the empire to its core and reshaped Europe
encoded: David Musgrove: Let’s begin with the battle of Fontenoy in AD 841. What happened there and why was it so important? Matthew Gabriele: Fontenoy is nowadays just a small village lying a little south-west of the city of Auxerre in central France. Even in the 840s, it wasn’t particularly significant. But it was there that a civil war erupted between the grandsons of Charlemagne, who were fighting about the fate of the Carolingian empire. After the death of their father, Louis the Pious, on 20 June 840, the three surviving brothers gathered at Fontenoy. Lothar, the eldest and the Frankish co-emperor, was trying to stitch the partitioned empire back together; his younger brothers, Louis the German and Charles the Bald, had their own claims. Lothar was joined by his nephew, Pepin II of Aquitaine, the son of another brother, also Pepin, who had died in 838. The three brothers and their nephew basically argued about the form that the empire should take. Should it be coherent and unified under Lothar, or would Charles and Louis be able to function as independent kings in their own domains? This dispute boiled over into a massive, bloody battle fought on 25 June 841. For most medieval battles, we have just a sense of where and when they were fought. For this clash, though, we have very specific details of the day and the time when the battle started, as well as the location. That’s because – as we argue at the start of our new book – it was so horrifying for everybody involved. It shook the empire and its participants to their core, creating reverberations that lasted for generations. What’s the backstory to the dispute? Matthew Gabriele: The Franks rose to power in the fifth and sixth centuries when, after interacting with the Romans for a long time, they were finally able to establish their own realm. The resulting empire was ruled for several centuries by a dynasty called the Merovingians. They were supplanted in 751 in a coup d’état by high nobles who started a new dynasty…

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Best medieval videogames for history enthusiasts in 2025
type: item
date: 2024-10-11T09:18:42.000Z
creator: James Osborne
subject: Medieval
subject: Period
subject: Evergreen
subject: Medieval battles
description: Do you want to build a settlement or manage a feudal estate? Maybe you want to explore a richly detailed historic landscape? Or are you all about charging into battle and leading armies? Whatever you want as a player, here are 12 of the best medieval games to keep the history lovers entertained
encoded: The medieval period had big battles fought with swords and axes between knights in suits of armour; it had political intrigue, dealing and double-dealing; it had seismic change after seismic change, where kings came and went while peasants got caught in the middle; it had sex and violence, castles and war. It should therefore come as no surprise that the era – roughly a millennium from the fall of the Western Roman empire to the Renaissance – is of endless fascination, of course to historians but also avid videogame players. Throw in the popularity of the medieval fantasy genre, and you’ve got a cornerstone of modern gaming culture. To that end, we’ve curated a list of the best medieval videogames for those who are passionate about history and want to immerse themselves in the Middle Ages. Whether you want historical accuracy, or are looking to see what you’re made of in a medieval melee, these 12 games will provide hours of insight and entertainment. The best medieval videogames ● A Plague Tale: Innocence ● Chivalry 2 ● Crusader Kings III ● Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen ● Kingdom Come: Deliverance ● Manor Lords ● Medieval 2: Total War ● Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord ● Pentiment ● Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia ● Wartales ● Yes, Your Grace A Plague Tale: Innocence PC, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, Switch | Action-Adventure Stealth | 2019 Set in France in 1348, when both the Hundred Years’ War and the Black Death are ravaging the land, A Plague Tale: Innocence follows two orphaned siblings, Amicia and Hugo de Rune, as they desperately attempt to navigate their way through a bleak, unforgiving landscape. Playing as the young Amicia, the goal is straightforward: survive. Through a combination of stealth and wit, all the while protecting Amicia’s sickly little brother, the gameplay blends puzzle-solving, action-adventure and facets of survival horror games. Read more | Black Death quarantine: how did we try to contain the most deadly disease in history? It can feel…

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How the Plantagenets forged the English state
type: item
date: 2024-07-10T06:12:36.000Z
creator: Emily Briffett
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Medieval battles
subject: Medieval kings and queens
description: Caroline Burt and Richard Partington consider how the reigns of six Plantagenet kings altered the face of English governance
encoded: Between 1199 and 1399, English politics was packed full of high drama, as the Plantagenet monarchs reacted - and adapted - to plague, warfare, uprisings and economic crises. But, according to medieval historians Caroline Burt and Richard Partington in their new book Arise, England, the Plantagenet age is also one that shines a light on England's emerging statehood. Speaking to Emily Briffett, and drawing on some listener questions, Caroline and Richard consider how the reigns of six Plantagenet kings altered the face of English governance. Caroline Burt and Richard Partington is the author of Arise, England: Six Kings and the Making of the English State (Faber & Faber, 2024) Buy now on Bookshop.org Buy now on Amazon <a href="https://www.awin1.com/cread.php?id=489797&clickref=historyextra-269496&awinmid=3787&p=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.waterstones.com%2Fbook%2Farise-england%2Fcaroline-burt%2Frichard-partington%2F9780571311989%23%3A%7E%3Atext%3DArise%252C%2520England%253A%2520Six%2520Kings%2520and%2Cof%2520the%2520English%2520State%2520%28Hardback%29%26text%3DZooming%2520in%2520on%2520England%27s%2520emergent%2CEnglish%2520politics%2520was%2520high%2520drama.#:~:text=Arise%2C%20England%3A%20Six%20Kings%20and,of%20the%20English%20State%20(Hardback)&text=Zooming%20in%20on%20England's%20emergent,English%20politics%20was%20high%20drama." rel="sponsored" target="_blank">Buy now on Waterstones

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Medieval podcast episodes
type: item
subject: Medieval
subject: Period
subject: Medieval battles
subject: Medieval kings and queens
subject: Medieval life
description: Browse our archive of HistoryExtra podcasts on the Medieval period, from travel to religion...

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