Religion

Dr Benjamin Pohl explores the role of monks and abbots in the Middle Ages, and asks: why did they write histories?

Why did medieval monks write histories?

A stone bust of the Greek god Dionysius

The gods and their whims: your guide to ancient Greek religion

Neil Faulkner reveals how the Anglo-Arab Wars of 1870-1920 helped give rise to the first modern jihad

Jihad and the British empire

An Anglo-Saxon cross from the church of St Michael

Anglo-Saxon conversion: the coming of the cross (at the point of a sword)

A bust of Ashoka the Great

General ancient history

History hero Nihal Arthanayake chooses Ashoka the Great (c304–c232 BC)

Illustration of German Dominican preacher Johann Tetzel selling indulgences inside a church

Q&A What are indulgences, how were they abused in medieval times, and what do they have to do with the Reformation?

An architectural grotesque of a woman displaying her vulva

How naughty was the past? The hidden depths of the medieval church

Portrait Of Edward Seymour (Colorized)

Edward Seymour: the fall of the dithering dictator

How was it administered and by whom was it carried out? (Image from Getty Images)

Q&A: What was the punishment of being ‘burnt in the hand’?

Everything you wanted to know about the church in medieval England – Nicholas Orme podcast

The church in medieval England: everything you wanted to know

From Roman emperors and medieval saints to enslaved people, Olivette Otele charts the long history of Africans in Europe

African Europeans

Barry Cunliffe considers the story of Brittany from prehistory to today, and explores the region’s connections with Britain. (Image by Getty Images)

General prehistory

Bretons, Britons, Celts & King Arthur

Men from Bethlehem in Jerusalem in 1894, when the territory identified as Palestine was part of the Ottoman empire. At the start of the 19th century Palestine's population was mostly Arab, with a small Jewish minority, but from the 1880s waves of settlers rapidly augmented the Jewish population (Culture Club/Getty Images)

Israel and the Palestinians: a history of conflict in 8 key episodes

Verena Krebs reveals what diplomatic missions sent by the Christian leaders of Ethiopia can tell us about the kingdom’s place in the medieval world

Medieval Ethiopia’s diplomatic missions

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