Daily Medieval

Ranulf de Blondeville died in October 1232 without leaving an heir to the title Earl of Chester , so King Henry III needed to choose one. Fo...

The Joust was a specific kind of tournament , and was one of the few types of military contests that had to be on horseback and involved on...

Despite Hubert de Burgh's support of Henry III at the start of his minority reign, the two had fallen out and Hubert was in danger. Ul...

When King John of England died on the night of 18/19 October 1216, he was in the middle of warring with his barons, who wanted more control ...

Things seemed to be going well for Ralph Neville , the Bishop of Chichester and Lord Chancellor for life. He had a nice new manor on New Str...

Ralph Neville is an example of a powerful figure in Medieval English administration whose personal details are little known. He was ordained...

Bread was so important to daily life, as food and even as tableware . Not every household had the time and resources to make its own bread,...

The murder of a child is a particularly heinous act that tugs at the heart strings. In the eyes of society, the murderer of a child must be ...

When Simon de Montfort wanted to kick off the Second Barons War , he needed funding. One of the easiest ways for most medieval Europeans to ...

By the early 1260s, Oxford had become a place where scholars went to teach and learn . Violence was not unknown, as conflicts between studen...

St. Augustine of Hippo (354 - 430) was one of the most influential writers in Christianity in its first few centuries. He believed that Jews...

Matthew Paris (c.1200 - 1259) was a Benedictine monk at the Abbey of St. Albans, known to us for his numerous illustrated written works. We ...

Henry III's most loyal and powerful supporter was William Marshal , but William's son was not of the same mind. Richard Marshal (119...

When King John died, his son Henry (1207 - 1272) was only nine years old. It was 1216 and in the middle of the First Barons' War. Even ...

There was an actual medieval profession of lime burner, who burned calcium-rich minerals such as limestone, chalk, marble, or even sea shell...

...are the hands of a healer." This line from The Lord of the Rings  sounds fantastical, but as a first-rate historian and medievalist,...

The future King Edward I (pictured here with his wife Eleanor and showing his reported blepharoptosis , drooping left eye) did not always su...

When Henry III's eldest son was born on 18 June 1239, he gave him an unusual name. Edward was an Anglo-Saxon name, in a court that spoke...

North of the Pyrenees in what we now think of as southwestern France is an area the Romans called Aquitania from the Latin aqua , "wate...

The martyrdom and subsequent popularity of Thomas Becket  inspired several legends, which is not unusual. Since pilgrimages were popular i...