Daily Medieval

The Burghers of Calais, by Rodin The story of the Burghers of Calais is one of those that "everyone knows" and no one bothers...

Philippa of Hainault, finally becoming Queen of England Philippa of Hainault has been mentioned as a minor part of the story of the Bat...

Lower classes revolting against taxation and economic unfairness is as old as taxation itself. In 14th century France, a situation arose th...

The defeat of Eustace the Black at the Battle of Sandwich, from Matthew Paris Eustace Busket was born about 1170 near Boulogne on the n...

Icon of St. Genesius, commissioned by the Fraternity of St. Genesius There are several saints named Genesius in early Christian history...

Window at Cathedral of St. Michael in Veszprém, Hungary, where Gisela is buried Gisela (985 - 1065) was mentioned as the wife of King (...

A 19th century depiction of Geert Groote's Brethren of the Common Life In Latin he was called Gerardus Magnus, but when he was born...

St. Stephen I, King of Hungary Today's date is important in the history of medieval Hungary for two separate events decades apart. ...

Page from the Alphonso Psalter (BL 24686) depicting King David playing his harp; at the bottom are David (left)  preparing to sling a sto...

Diagram of the layout of a  bastide . [ source ] Say you are a king who has conquered a wide territory. Most of it is uncultivated, unu...

Walafrid Strabo (c.808 - 849) was born in Swabia to a poor family. He studied under Hrabanus Maurus , and became a monk. He entered the c...

These are often passed off as the Three Sacred Treasures, the Imperial Regalia of Japan, but they are a collection of items brought toget...

Pope Paschal II speaking to Anselm of Canterbury On 13 August 1099, a Cluniac monk from northwest of Rome named Ranierius was named Pop...

The Concordat of Worms that ended the Investiture Controversy There was a recent mention that Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV was best kno...

Among the western Europeans who traveled eastward and wrote of the wonders of "The Orient," we have mentioned William Rubruck  ...

The Peacock Angel, Melek Taus The news is full of the tragedy of the Yazidi, trapped on a mountain to which they fled from the group I...

Henry IV (center), with his sons Henry V & Conrad Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV is best known for the Investiture Controversy and the...

The Dominicans have been mentioned many times, and their founder has been mentioned as a friend of Simon de Montfort, but his life deser...

The crypt of St. Nicholas in Bari The city of Bari is located in southern Italy, right at the "Achilles Heel" so to speak. Th...

de lacy Coat of Arms de Clare Coat of Arms Maud de Lacy was an "independent-minded" woman of the 13th century. (To be fai...

Marco Polo was not the only, or the first, western European to travel to the East. When Pope Innocent IV wanted to send a letter to the G...

Ögedei Khan, who never got the letter Relations between the East and West have always been strained, generally because of radically dif...

The red pin is Kufa, the purple pin is Baghdad, about 170 km north. The Abbasids had taken over from the Umayyads, and in order to make...

The Abbasid Caliphate has only been mentioned so far as a target of the Assassins , but deserves more attention. Descended from Muhammad...

Gebhard, the Count of Calw, was born about 1018 into an illustrious family. Holy Roman Emperor Henry III (1017 - 1056) recognized him as ...

Alexios Comnenos Strategopoulos Recently, DailyMedieval covered the 4th Crusade and its misguided conquest of Constantinople. ( This po...

Scotland was not always a unified country. Like most countries, it was a collection of tribes with their own loyalties and mutual enmity....

King Henry II of England had problems. The period known as The Anarchy was over, but the mercenaries employed during it were causing tro...

An "eyre" (Middle English, from Old French eire from Latin iter , "journey") was "a circuit court held in medie...