The Last Supper

Religion

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

Q&AWhat 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

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.

African Europeans.

Bretons, Britons, Celts & King Arthur.

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.

Bloodied feet, outrageous breasts and the sinister power of a hair cut: a history of the body.

Muslim-Crusader interactions: a clash of civilisations?.

Four knights hack Thomas Becket to death

Europe's greatest martyr: how Thomas Becket rose from the dead.

Excerpt from the Textus Roffensis showing Christ and a dragon

The Textus Roffensis: a medieval manuscript to rival Magna Carta

The Clifford’s Tower massacre & medieval anti-Semitism.

The Dissolution: everything you wanted to know.

A c1520–40 portrait of Henry VI

The miraculous afterlife of Henry VI.

Medieval forgeries.

Novelist Kate Mosse on The City of Tears.

This image from the Nibelungenlied manuscript shows Pilgrim welcoming Kriemhild, a fictional character described as his neice in the text (Photo by Alamy)

The forged texts of the Middle Ages: why Europe's holy men turned to counterfeiting.

The ruins of the once magnificent Roche Abbey

The dissolution of the monasteries: mindless violence or planned precision?

A fanciful engraving imagines Peter the Hermit presenting Pope Urban II (centre) with a letter from Simeon II

Launching the First Crusade

Canossa: a medieval clash between church and state.

Illustration of a mummy with mask

How to make an Egyptian mummy in 6 steps.

A composite image of Joseph Stalin (left) and Adolf Hitler

Second World War

Hitler and Stalin’s utopian dreams

Félix Kir in 1947, when he was the mayor of Dijon

Second World War

History heroSimon Farnaby chooses Félix Kir (1876–1968)

Thomas Becket: from murder to martyrdom.

Monument to Prince Vladimir the Great in Moscow

Q&AWho were the Kievan Rus and what do they have to do with the Vikings?

Vahalla is depicted as a round-topped building in this funerary stone from 8th-century Sweden

Valhalla: fighting and feasting in the Viking warrior afterlife

A helmet from a chieftain's grave in 10th-century Norway. (Images by Getty)

Inside the Viking mind: the view of the Vikings' world from 5 perspectives.

Rushton Triangular Lodge was ostensibly a warrener's lodge but the biblical references that adorn its three exterior walls tell a different story. (Photo English Heritage/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

History explorer: Catholic resistance to Elizabeth I.