The Last Supper

Religion

Illustration showing Roman Saturnalia banquet. (Photo by Alamy)

Saturnalia: the origins of the debauched Roman 'Christmas'

Thomas Cromwell, Tudor statesman and 'alter rex'.

Your guide to Cardinal Wolsey, Tudor statesman and prince of the church

Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin vs God: did the 'Origin of Species' cause a clash between church and science?

Oswald, the many-headed medieval saint

Thomas More: saint or sinner?

A painting of 1616 depicts the Moriscos boarding ships to sail from the port of Valencia

The 17th-century expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain: what happened?

The battle of Dover, 24 August 1217, (image c1880). (Photo by Print Collector/Getty Images)

Eustace the Monk: one of medieval Europe's unholiest holy men

In 802 Charlemagne took delivery of an elephant, sent to him by Harun al-Rashid, the caliph in Baghdad. Here, a manuscript illumination from a late 12th century English Latin bestiary. (Image by Alamy)

8 turning points in medieval European history

The storming of Beziers

Medieval turning points

Q&A: Why and how did the Aztecs practise human sacrifice?

Empire builder Maharajah Ranjit Singh sits astride a horse as an attendant holds a parasol over him. Singh is historically credited with growing his ancestral warrior-clan, the Sukerchakia misl, into a grand imperial dynasty. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images via Getty Images)

A Sikh tragedy: the Indian kingdom that fell foul of the British empire

The African who transformed Anglo-Saxon England

A reconstruction of an extract from the Book of the Dead depicting an embalming scene. (Photo by De Agostini Picture Library via Getty Images)

Guidebook to the Ancient Egyptian afterlife

The Mayflower

A sign of the devil or a miracle cure? How people felt about spiders in the Middle Ages

Illustration by Joey Guidone

The big question: has terrorism ever achieved its aims?

Selim I

The extraordinary life of Sultan Selim I

The Pilgrim fathers arrive at Plymouth, Massachusetts on board the Mayflower. (Photo by Harold M. Lambert/Kean Collection/Archive Photos/Getty Images)

"They decided that God must be leading them to North America": the Puritans journey to the Mayflower

The pilgrim fathers

Your guide to the Pilgrim Fathers, plus 6 interesting facts

Painting of Martin Luther translating the New Testament into German vernacular in 1521 (Photo by Fine Art Photographic Library/Corbis via Getty Images)

Your guide to Martin Luther, the theologian who launched the Reformation

A replica of Jesus' tomb. (Photo by Alamy)

History’s greatest mysteriesThe fate of Jesus's body

The capture of Jerusalem in 1099

How the First Crusade captured Jerusalem in 1099

Q&AWho was St Swithin?

Stained glass window of King Alfred the Great

Exclusive podcastThe Anglo-Saxon Chronicles

Taking of Jerusalem by the Crusaders, Painting by Emile Signol (1804–1892), (Photo by Leemage/Corbis via Getty Images)

BlogMedieval(ish) matters 11: Did women fight in the crusades? And why did people follow a goose to the Holy Land?

Women and the crusades

Illustration from Dante's ‘Inferno', depicting thieves tormented in hell by serpents.

General ancient history

A brief history of the afterlife

Thomas Becket murder

7 controversial saints in history

Two girls are tried for witchcraft in a courtroom scene

What were the Salem Witch Trials?

The history of the Bible