Daily Medieval

The Roman Colosseum was begun under Emperor Vespasian in 72 CE and finished in 80 by his son, Emperor Titus. Stories of its use as a gladiat...

The Avignon Papacy, when the French Pope Clement V decided to move the papal headquarters from Rome to Avignon, was not a simple change in ...

There are a number of families in the 21st century who have become wealthy through commerce and use that wealth to exert their influence on ...

Simon of Sudbury, or just Simon Sudbury, was one of those people who shows up here and there, for instance during the Peasants' Revolt w...

To understand where this story begins, you should see this post first, and check out the map to the left. There were two series of popes, o...

When Pope Clement V decided he wanted to live in his home country, France, he moved the papal offices from the Vatican in Rome to Avignon  ...

Catherine of Siena (25 March 1347 - 29 April 1380) wanted to join the Dominicans and retire from the world. This was not only discouraged b...

I like to link items in each post to previous posts that offer more info on those items. I have frequently referred to the time when the po...

Pope Gregory XI arriving in Rome in 1377 Fresco by Giorgio Vasari Pope Gregory XI wanted land. He was the last pope to reside in Avigno...

Thomas Arundel, Lambeth Palace Collection Let us talk about the "Worst Briton" of the 15th century, according to a 2005 poll o...

While other history sites were celebrating the anniversary of the coronation of King Henry II yesterday, I was thinking about the anniversar...

The goal of Daily Medieval is to present a sampling of the infinite array of information about the Middle Ages in small, digestible amoun...

I have written about the Oxford Calculators , four men at Oxford University in the second quarter of the 14th century who made great strid...

The history of medicine includes many brave and progressive thinkers who were not willing to follow the herd or be content with what was alr...

A church reformer gets his start. We don't know a lot about the early years of John Wycliffe (c.1324-1384). There were likely a few ...