Daily Medieval

Imagine being a toddler, being raised by your mother in a convent, and then discovering that you are a royal princess. I cannot imagine how ...

Ælfthryth was the first wife of a king of England ( Edgar the Peaceable ) to be crowned queen herself. She was the third woman (that we know...

Richard II, Duke of Normandy, was the eldest surviving son of Richard I and Gunnor . We don't know his birth date, but when his father d...

In 1037, Harold Harefoot was declared king in England. The next year he expelled Emma of Normandy , mother of his half-brother Harthacnut wh...

Æthelred the Unready had several children by two wives. His seventh son (and first by his second wife, Emma of Normandy ), was named Edward...

Olaf Haraldsson was the son of a petty king of Vestfold (a district in eastern Norway), Harald Grenske, and Åsta Gudbrandsdatter, who we le...

Svein Forkbeard was King of Denmark and King of England, but when he died in 1014, his son Cnut (c.990 - 1035) was denied succeeding him in...

The Danish Prince Cnut (also spelled Canute) put together what was called the North Sea Empire: England, Denmark, and Norway. This was a rem...

So...Sandwich. Most people just think about the food item that shares its name, but it has had more history than that, and not just as a Cin...

Statue of Olaf in Trondheim King Olaf Tryggvason is the subject of far more stories than we have facts to support them. (He was implica...

Ælfgifu on the Bayeaux Tapestry Ælfgifu of Northampton was once mentioned here as the wife of King Cnut. When King Svein Forkbeard of ...

From a 14th century manuscript Since Æthelred keeps getting mentioned here (most notably the past two days, due to the contested inherit...

Edward's murder at Corfe Castle The death of the 16-year-old Edward the Martyr in 978 was not one of England's finest moments. T...

One of the shortest reigns in the history of England was that of Edward the Martyr, from 975 until 978. Edward, who was born c. 962, was...

[For earlier history, see here .] Finding the origin of nursery rhymes can be unreliable, since one never knows how long a rhyme was circu...

London Bridge—the first of which was built in 80 CE—has, indeed, fallen down. In fact, for the first millennium of the Common Era, the wood...

Early Anglo-Saxon England was filled with clans and communities that made policies and laws and settled disputes during a regular gathering ...