Daily Medieval

Marco Polo didn't get to China on his own; he was taken there as a young man by his father and uncle, who had been there before. Why? B...

When Marco Polo returned to Venice after two decades of traveling in the east, he signed up to join the war between Venice and Genoa. Impris...

Marco Polo was not the first European to visit China—far from it—but he was the first to write a detailed account of his time there. And he ...

Now we approach the part that everyone knows about Kublai Khan even if they don't know anything about Kublai Khan. Kublai was emperor o...

With the Toluid Civil War concluded, Kublai Khan still had troubles dealing with the other khanates descended from Genghis, but I'm go...

In the lead up to the Toluid Civil War , Kublai Khan had the upper hand. He controlled most of the supply lines that would have helped his ...

When Kublai found out that his younger brother Ariq Böke was making plans to become Grand Khan while Kublai was off subduing the Song Dynas...

Probably the best-known Khan to modern audiences after Genghis Khan is Kublai Khan, the one we hear about because of Marco Polo. Kublai was ...

Güyük Khan was making plans to conquer Europe. He had been part of the invasion of Eastern and Central Europe, and wished to continue. The M...

Genghis Khan had many, many children. There were four sons (Jochi, Chagatai, Ögedei, and Tolui) from whom the future rulers of the Mongol Em...

When Güyük Khan died, Batu Khan started making decisions toward the election of the next Grand Khan. He didn't want the position himse...

After the death of Güyük Khan,  Batu Khan saw an opportunity to take the overlordship away from the Ögedei clan and bring it to his own lin...

Batu Khan's military successes inspired Ögedei Khan to have him invade Europe. He had already conquered the Crimean Peninsula. Spies we...

History tells stories of Genghis Khan and his Mongol hordes and Kublai Khan meeting Marco Polo, but Batu Khan is a name that is less-known b...

Sorghaghtani Beki stood firm after the death of her husband: she would not re-marry into the family (as was often Mongol custom), even at t...

The youngest son of Geghis Khan, Tolui, married a Christian woman named Sorghaghtani Beki. They had similarly noble backgrounds. Sorghaghtan...

In the earliest days of Christianity, there were three languages that were an important part of its development and spread: Greek, Latin, an...

The title of gaon  (plural geonim ) was used for the deans of Talmudic academies . Modern Hebrew defines it as "genius." Geonim w...

In southern Iraq, in an area referred to as Babylonia in Jewish lore, there were two Talmudic academies ( yeshiva ) that for a time were the...

One of the men who studied the world and the Torah to make sure the Jewish calendar was accurate was Nahshon ben Zadok. He flourished in th...

One of the oldest calendars in continuous use is the Hebrew Calendar. It was not just a way of counting days to get through a solar cycle, h...

We've been looking at the origins of the terms Anno Domini and Before Christ to mark the passing of years. Those were Christian-centri...

After Dionysius Exiguus used the phrase anno Domini  to describe the year (525) in which he was writing a table of dates for Easter, the co...

When Pope John I in 525 asked Dionysius Exiguus to write a chronology to tabulate future dates of Easter, Dionysius looked at how years wer...

We learned a lot about St. Pachomius and his development of the Eastern Coptic Christian monasteries from a biography written over a hundre...

After the death of St. Pachomius , the popular Theodorus of Tabannese was passed over as a successor for Petronius, who died three months l...

When St. Pachomius was dying, his followers at the monastery were concerned because he had not yet chosen a successor. Many of them wanted ...

St. Anthony the Great is credited with being the first monk in that he did not just live an ascetic life, but also he removed himself from ...

Just jumping in for a post that is personal as well as related to this blog. To the right of these words you can see the advertisements to t...