Daily Medieval

At the end of yesterday's post on the Auld Alliance I mentioned that France (or the Franks) had formed earlier alliances, some of them ...

Constantine's father, Constans II , died in 668 while in Sicily, and immediately some Sicilian bishops wanted someone else to take over,...

When the First Crusade captured Jerusalem, they took over the Dome of the Rock, a temple built on the site where tradition said God created...

Many Viking coin hoards included coins from far afield, especially Islamic dirhams , such as in the Spillings Hoard . The Spillings Hoard al...

Isidore of Seville (c.560 - 636) wrote Historia de regibus Gothorum, Vandalorum et Suevorum ("History of the Kings of the Goths, Vanda...

We in the West often think of African slaves in North America when the topic of slavery comes up, as if it were a facet of the Industrial Ag...

I have mentioned before the disagreements, after the death of Muhammad, over which direction the faith should go. The Rashidun Caliphate wa...

Long before the Crusades in the late 11th century decided to take control of the Holy Land, Christians and Muslims were clashing in the west...

During the Battle of Toulouse in 721 and the defeat of the Muslim attempt to make inroads to Aquitaine and Gaul, the Muslim general was kil...

As the army of the Umayyad Caliphate, led by Abd-al-Rahman al-Ghafiqi, moved north into Gaul from Aquitaine in 732, their progress was slowe...

On 10 October 732, the next attempt by the Umayyad Caliphate to invade Gaul was stopped at the Battle of Tours. This was the second attempt...

The expansion by the Umayyad Caliphate brought Muslims into the first major conflict with Western Europe in 721 CE. The Umayyads had alread...

After the Rashidun Caliphate came the Umayyad Caliphate in 661 CE, with a dynastic rule starting with Muawiya ibn Abi Sufyan, the governor ...

After the death of Muhammad in June 632, his followers discussed who should carry on his message to all parts of the world. Muhammad's c...