Daily Medieval

The First Crusade founded several Christian territories in the East. In order of their founding, they were the County of Edessa, the Princip...

Prince John (24 December 1166 - 19 October 1216) had been made Lord of Ireland by his father, Henry II, in the 1177 Council of Oxford. He to...

It was perfectly acceptable in the Middle Ages for kings to father children outside of wedlock. Although these illegitimate children were un...

It's a rare medieval post that starts with a Star Wars reference, but here it is (spoilers!): when Obi Wan confronts Darth Vader, he war...

Thomas Becket rose from decent middle-class origins to the highest non-royal position in England. As Archbishop of Canterbury, however, hi...

The first thing you'll notice is quotation marks around the "Peter" in the title. That is because Peter was likely not his nam...

Peter Lombard (c.1096 - July 1160) was the Bishop of Paris and the author of Four Books of Sentences  which became the standard theological ...

For some reason, a 12th century Norman knight named Jocelin did not want his son to follow in his footsteps. We do not know why, but a commo...

That "inaccessible area" in Asia mentioned in the Finding Paradise entry fascinated Europeans. Knowledge of the lands to the ea...

One of the decrees that came out of the Fourth Lateran Council of Pope Innocent III was that "every cathedral or other church of suffi...