HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
date: 2026-02-20T15:31:03.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: 10 children and 12,000 pieces of art: the remarkable life of Lady Charlotte Schreiber
items: Was Homer a real person? Michael Wood on the surprising origins of The Iliad
items: Shakespeare didn't love his wife and he abandoned his family to move to London: are these 13 rumours about the playwright true?
items: Why did Maggie O'Farrell write about Shakespeare's son?
items: What happened to Shakespeare's daughters? A guide to the playwright's family life and descendants
items: Find wonder in the world around you
items: The Book of Kells: "a masterpiece of medieval calligraphy and painting"
items: Best history books 2025: BBC History Magazine’s Books of the Year
items: The REAL history behind Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and more
items: 9 things you might not know about Sherlock Holmes

10 children and 12,000 pieces of art: the remarkable life of Lady Charlotte Schreiber
type: item
date: 2026-02-20T15:30:55.000Z
subject: Georgian
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
subject: Amazing lives
description: She was a headstrong scholar who contributed hugely to the study of medieval literature and challenged the societal norms of the 19th century. So why isn’t she better known? Caroline McCaffrey-Howarth traces the adventures of an unsung heroine
encoded: While hunting for antiques in the Netherlands in the 1880s, the esteemed art dealer Joseph Joel Duveen received a tip-off that some “wonderful pieces of china” had come up for sale in a remote village. Getting there would involve a tediously long journey but, undeterred, Duveen set out. Several hours later, however, he spotted a carriage speeding past in the opposite direction, and was able to make out its passenger. Recognising the face of his great rival, Duveen promptly turned around, empty-handed, ruefully realising that she had beaten him to the village and “snatched the prize”. The victor on this occasion was Lady Charlotte Schreiber. Surprisingly, given her long life – she was 82 when she died, in 1895 – which included two marriages, 10 children, scandalous affairs and a celebrated translation of the medieval Welsh Mabinogion, Lady Charlotte remains relatively unknown today. Often erroneously dismissed as a mere magpie obsessed with trinkets, for decades her second husband and sons were credited for accumulating her great collection. Yet, shortly before her death, she donated a trove of some 5,000 pieces to the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A) and the British Museum. Defiance and scandal Charlotte endured a difficult childhood. Born Lady Charlotte Elizabeth Bertie in 1812, she lost her father, the 9th Earl of Lindsey, when she was only six years old. Her mother remarried, and her new stepfather, the Reverend Peter Pegus, turned out to be a violent alcoholic; he once drank a whole mug of lamp oil, mistaking it for beer. Read more | 5 things you (probably) didn't know about Victorian Britain At the age of 10, Charlotte started keeping a diary, in which she wrote almost every day until she lost her eyesight in her late seventies. A true polymath, she gave herself “a man’s education”, studying history and literature, and learning Arabic and Farsi (Persian) as well as Greek, Latin, French, German, Italian and even Hebrew. She dedicated hours to her “oriental …

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Was Homer a real person? Michael Wood on the surprising origins of The Iliad
type: item
date: 2026-02-04T15:30:02.000Z
creator: Michael Wood
subject: General History
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Column
subject: Historical people
description: " Scholars have applied models used in genetic research to Homer’s Iliad", writes Michael Wood
encoded: Proust’s famous novel is called In Search of Lost Time, and isn’t that the key to why we love history? It’s the urge to recover the lost past. Can we get beyond the mysterious veil to real events and people? Can we even feel how they felt? And as historians, we always hope to find new sources and new ways of seeing. In our time, many new paths have been opened up by science. For example, scientists have adopted techniques used for decoding the genetic history of humans, not only through their genes, but by tracking transformations in language. This form of historical linguistics, known as time depth linguistics, has helped establish the family tree of languages. One branch, the Indo-European languages, has been known since the 18th century, connecting Greek, Latin, Persian and Sanskrit in the east, and English, Welsh and Old Irish in the west. Now we can see when and where the branches on the family tree diverged. It’s been proved, for example, that, as tradition had always said, Sanskrit-speaking migrants – so called ‘Aryans’ – migrated from Afghanistan into north-west India in the late Bronze Age, the period of the earliest Sanskrit texts in the Rig Veda. Scholars have applied the same models used in genetic research to one of the most celebrated texts in western culture, Homer’s Iliad. As a tool kit, they used word lists invented by the linguist Morris Swadesh (1909–67) and other scholars. In this case the focus was key words shared among the Indo-European languages. With the Iliad, science came up with a likely date of composition: 762 BC (plus or minus 50 years). The exactness is perhaps illusory: but it corroborates the older ideas of Homeric scholars that the poem dates from the eighth century BC. Read more | National English: the language that would save England It has long been known that the Iliad is the product of oral composition, a tissue of repeat phrases that allowed the poet to improvise his story. In fact, the Homeric epics came out of centuries of …

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Shakespeare didn't love his wife and he abandoned his family to move to London: are these 13 rumours about the playwright true?
type: item
date: 2026-02-03T09:25:35.000Z
subject: Elizabethan
subject: Membership
subject: Period
description: With the help of Dr Paul Edmondson, we explore the historical evidence and plausibility behind 13 common statements about William Shakespeare – from his flight from Stratford to pursue his career, to the idea that his marriage to Anne Hathaway was loveless…
encoded: 1. Shakespeare was forced to leave Stratford-upon-Avon in a hurry after he was caught poaching deer at nearby Charlecote According to legend, young William Shakespeare was hauled up before local magistrate and owner of Charlecote Park, Sir Thomas Lucy, after he was caught poaching deer on the estate. It’s a popular tale, but is there any truth to it? “The deer-poaching story is a nice anecdote, but we don’t know if it actually happened,” says Paul Edmondson. “There is no documentary evidence of any local prosecutions for poaching during Shakespeare’s younger years, and there wasn’t even a deer park at Charlecote at this time. That doesn’t prove that Shakespeare wasn’t found poaching somewhere on the estate, though. The story dates back to at least the 1680s – within the lifetime of Sir Thomas Lucy’s great-nephews and great-nieces – so there could be a ring of truth to it somewhere.” 2. Anne Hathaway was an ‘old maid’ when she married Shakespeare Anne Hathaway was 26 when she wed the 18-year-old William Shakespeare, but she was far from being left on the shelf, says Paul Edmondson. “Men were definitely marrying women of Anne’s age during this period – she was certainly still considered to be of marriageable age. What is unusual about their union, though, is Shakespeare’s youth. He was technically underage when they married (men came of age at 21) and had to ask his father’s permission to wed, so it was a pretty unusual set of circumstances. “Historian Jeanne Jones has identified that between 1570 and 1630, the average age for men to marry was 26, and only three married under the age of 20 – of those three, Shakespeare was the youngest, and the only man whose wife-to-be was already pregnant.” “Anne’s pregnancy before marriage and Shakespeare’s youth would have been something of a scandal,” continues Edmondson, “and certainly not something anyone would have planned. The marriage meant that Shakespeare was forced to give up whatever apprenticeship he had [married men we…

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Why did Maggie O'Farrell write about Shakespeare's son?
type: item
date: 2026-01-26T12:37:41.000Z
subject: Elizabethan
subject: Membership
subject: Period
description: The life of young Hamnet and the effect that his premature death had on his parents is reimagined by Maggie O’Farrell in her 2020 historical fiction Hamnet, which has since been made into a major film starring Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal. What inspired the writer to focus on such a moment?
encoded: Very little is known about the only son of playwright William Shakespeare, except that he died at the age of 11. The life of young Hamnet and the effect that his premature death had on his father is reimagined by Maggie O’Farrell in an emotional departure from her previous works. Did the young boy’s death influence the bard’s later writing? And is the name of one of his most famous plays, Hamlet, a coincidence – was Shakespeare trying to tell us something? What inspired you to focus on Hamnet Shakespeare, and how much do we actually know about his life? We know he was born, and we know he died but apart from that, pretty much nothing. I have always been struck by how little space Hamnet was given in biographies. There's usually a paragraph about how common child mortality was in the late-16th century, but the implication was that it wasn’t that upsetting to lose a child because it happened a lot. It seemed preposterous to me because it must have been devastating to lose your only son, at age 11. Hamnet’s mother [Anne Hathaway] has also been unfairly maligned as an older woman who tricked a younger man into marriage. I think we need to look at her with fresh eyes which is why I gave her back her actual name. Her father named her Agnes, which raises a question: why all these years do we refer to her as Anne? I wanted to write a novel that gave voice to these people who've been silenced by history. Read more | What happened to Shakespeare's daughters? This is quite a departure from your previous novels. How different did you find writing this book? When writing historically there's a lot of library-based research you can do, but the author has to inhabit the lives of these people. For example, when writing the first chapter, I had this young boy falling on the floor. I stopped because I had no idea what the floor of a Tudor kitchen would be made of. I went to Stratford-upon-Avon and saw the flagstone Tudor floors for myself. I cultivated my own Elizabethan garden and l…

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What happened to Shakespeare's daughters? A guide to the playwright's family life and descendants
type: item
date: 2026-01-26T12:32:00.000Z
subject: Elizabethan
subject: Period
subject: Stuart
subject: Tudor
description: The story of the Shakespeares was one of social advancement, says Stanley Wells, reflected in dwellings that rose from rural farmstead to manorial splendour. Along the way were some family upsets: pregnant brides, lawsuits and excommunication. As a film adaptation of Maggie O'Farrell's novel Hamnet arrives on cinema screens, find out more about when William married Anne (Agnes) Hathaway, when their children were born, and what became of the Shakespeare family after the playwright's death…
encoded: He is one of the greatest writers of all time, and our longing to know as much as we can about him continues. We know that William Shakespeare was born in 1564 to John and Mary Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, and that he was their first child to survive past infancy. During the Elizabethan period, infant mortality was very high, and his parents had already lost two daughters before young William was born. The exact date of his birth is unknown, but his baptismal record survives, showing that Gulielmus filius Johannes Shakespeare (William, son of John Shakespeare) was baptised in Stratford-upon-Avon’s Holy Trinity Church on 26 April 1564. His birthday is now celebrated on 23 April, since it was common for baptisms to be held three days after a birth. As a film adaptation of Maggie O'Farrell's historical novel, Hamnet, starring Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal, is released, find out more about the playwright's home life and how his family influences shaped him – plus what happened to his daughters after the story of Hamnet concludes. William Shakespeare's birth family: who were his parents? The story of Shakespeare’s family – one of upward social mobility – is reflected in their homes. Start in the small village of Wilmcote, three miles north of Stratford-upon-Avon, where the playwright’s mother, Mary Arden, grew up in a small farmhouse built around 1514 by her father, Robert. Mary was the youngest of eight daughters by his first wife; his second, Agnes Hill, brought with her two sons and two daughters. When Robert made his will in 1556, he named young Mary as one of his two executors and left her a substantial amount of land and money, which suggests that she was a woman of exceptional ability. Mary Arden married the up-and-coming glover (and later wool dealer and money-lender) John Shakespeare, probably in 1557. Before long they moved into his substantial double-house in Henley Street, Stratford-upon-Avon, now known as Shakespeare’s Birthplace. Mary …

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Find wonder in the world around you
type: item
date: 2025-12-23T13:48:14.000Z
creator: Dr David Musgrove, FSA
subject: Anglo-Saxon
subject: Membership
subject: Period
description: Eleanor Parker’s Life Lesson from History is that we should seek out wonder in the world around us
encoded: The Anglo-Saxons had a deep sense of wonder – they saw magic in the mundane, and expressed it through riddles. Eleanor Parker’s Life Lesson from History is that we, too, should seek out wonder in the world around us, and that a little bit of riddle-writing might help us find it.

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The Book of Kells: "a masterpiece of medieval calligraphy and painting"
type: item
date: 2025-12-12T08:55:00.000Z
creator: Michael Wood
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Celts
subject: Column
subject: Medieval life
description: "The Book of Kells is a masterwork of medieval calligraphy and painting", writes Michael Wood
encoded: The Book of Kells, one of the greatest pieces of medieval art, is today displayed in the library of Trinity College Dublin. This illuminated gospel book is named after the monastery in County Meath where it was kept in the Middle Ages. It’s a masterwork of medieval calligraphy and painting, with its Celtic knot patterns, scintillating colour, and the staggering intricacies of the display pages and canon tables – all smoky golden magnificence. An Irish annalist called the book “the great Gospel of Columcille [Columba], the chief relic of the western world”. It may be the work described by the historian Gerald of Wales in the 1180s, in his book on Ireland. “Look more keenly at it and you will penetrate to the very shrine of art,” he wrote. “You will make out intricacies so delicate and so subtle… that you might say that all this were the work of an angel, and not of a man.” The book survived war, plunder and the English – Cromwell’s troops were once billeted in Kells. In the 19th century, it was a huge influence on the Celtic revival movement in the arts, and today is seen as the pinnacle of the western tradition of illuminated manuscripts. Read more | Michael Wood on amazing insights into medieval daily life The book was produced around the end of the eighth century, just at the moment Britain and Ireland were about to be changed forever by the arrival of the Vikings. It was long believed to have been created on Iona. But in The Book of Kells: Unlocking the Enigma, published in October, Victoria Whitworth suggests that it was actually written at the Pictish monastery of Portmahomack on the Moray Firth in north-east Scotland. This is one of the least known areas of the medieval British Isles. The Pictish monasteries were destroyed in the Viking age, and with them virtually all written records. The kingdom of the Picts became part of the Scottish kingdom of Alba in the ninth century, and gradually the memory of the Picts faded, leaving many unsolved mysteries. One key …

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Best history books 2025: BBC History Magazine’s Books of the Year
type: item
date: 2025-11-20T15:13:49.000Z
subject: Magazine
subject: Period
subject: Trends-Entertainment
description: In the roster of laudable history books published in 2025, authors tackled topics as diverse as Gaza, Indian partition, extinction, medieval and Stuart monarchs – even historians themselves. Here, a panel of experts recommend the titles they most enjoyed
encoded: Summer of Fire and Blood: The German Peasants' War (Basic Books) Lyndal Roper Hannah Skoda: Did you know that Thomas Müntzer, leader of the German Peasants’ War in 1525, used a rainbow flag to rally his followers? It’s an aptly exuberant image for the radical charisma of Müntzer, and for the hope and vision of the peasants. Religious change seemed to open up new ways of thinking about oppression and exploitation for those rebellious upstarts. In Summer of Fire and Blood: The German Peasants’ War (Basic Books), Lyndal Roper works with sources mostly hostile to the peasants, but the result reads with nuance and acuity. We get a real sense of ordinary people longing for justice and a fairer set of relations to the land, alongside the sheer terrors of this war, which was put down with great ferocity. Buy now on Amazon, Waterstones or Bookshop.org A Short History of the Gaza Strip (Simon & Schuster) Anne Irfan Hannah Skoda: Anne Irfan’s A Short History of the Gaza Strip (Simon & Schuster) is a wonderfully informative account of the complexities of the situation. Beginning in 1948, she guides us through these tangled events with great clarity, drawing on a vast array of sources. The text is nuanced, humane and critical at a time when too many assumptions and untruths are floating around. It might helpfully be read alongside the new podcast series Empire: The History of Gaza, presented by William Dalrymple and Anita Anand, which explores Gaza’s deep history stretching back more than 4,000 years. Buy now on Amazon, Waterstones or Bookshop.org The Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz: A Story of Survival (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) Anne Sebba Hannah Skoda: The Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz: A Story of Survival (Weidenfeld & Nicolson), by Anne Sebba, is an intensely moving book. At one point, the women’s orchestra at the Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp was led by Alma Rosé, niece of Gustav Mahler and an extraordinary musician in her own right. This music-making saved the lives of around 40…

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The REAL history behind Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and more
type: item
date: 2025-11-20T13:17:18.000Z
creator: James Osborne
subject: Anglo-Saxon
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: TV interest
description: If you thought Lord of the Rings, Rings of Power or The Hobbit was pure fairytale, you would be way off. HistoryExtra's James Osborne explains more
encoded: From the epic battles of Beowulf to the myths of Old Norse sagas and the real-world struggles of the Anglo-Saxons, Tolkien’s legendary world was deeply rooted in the past. But how exactly did these influences weave their way into The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit? In this video, we explore the sources that helped Tolkien forge his fantasy masterpiece, uncovering the warriors, monsters, and lost kingdoms that made Middle-Earth feel so real. View Green Video on the source website

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9 things you might not know about Sherlock Holmes
type: item
date: 2025-09-04T08:35:03.000Z
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
subject: TV interest
description: The fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, created by Arthur Conan Doyle, has for more than 130 years been a star of stage and screen, played by actors including Benedict Cumberbatch and Ian McKellen and serialised in countless books. But how much do you know about this famous crime-buster, who made his first appearance in 1887 in Beeton's Christmas Annual? Here, author Martin Davies shares 11 lesser-known facts about Sherlock Holmes...
encoded: 1. The first actor to play Sherlock Holmes was American… The first actor to take on the role of Sherlock Holmes in any official capacity was the American William Gillette. His 1899 stage play was adapted from a script by Arthur Conan Doyle himself. Opening six years after the author had attempted to kill off his creation at the Reichenbach Falls, the play was a huge success on both sides of the Atlantic: between 1899 and 1932, Gillette performed the role more than 1,000 times. Gillette is also credited with introducing the curved briar pipe that was to become synonymous with the great detective – possibly because a straight pipe obscured the actor’s face when he delivered his lines. On the podcast | Sherlock Holmes: the real history that inspired the detective stories On first meeting Sherlock Holmes’ creator, Gillette is said to have appeared in character, complete with deerstalker, and after examining Conan Doyle most minutely, to have opined: “Unquestionably an author!” 2. … who introduced a love interest Gillette was also one of the first to annoy the purists by introducing a love interest for Holmes. When he telegraphed Conan Doyle with the question “May I marry him?” the author is said to have replied: “You may marry him, or murder or do what you like with him!” It’s impossible to count the number of writers who, since then, have taken Doyle at his word. Read more | Real-life Sherlocks: the detectives of Scotland Yard and their curious cases 3. He defied death Holmes, having survived the Reichenbach Falls, refused to die with his creator. By the time of Conan Doyle’s death on 7 July 1930, Holmes was already a star of stage and screen. His film debut, Sherlock Holmes Baffled, came as early as 1900. Just a few seconds long, the film used stop-motion camerawork to show Holmes attempting to grapple with a burglar who repeatedly disappears, then reappears in a different part of the room. 4. A 1940s duo cemented Holmes and Watson's on screen personas One of the olde…

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