Daily Medieval

The conversion of Mindaugas, Grand Duke of Lithuania  (ruled 1253-1263), was largely a political move to gain allies, and did not extend to ...

As the western world was turned to Christianity from paganism, there was one area that did not rush to baptism. In 1009CE, there is a refere...

When Alaric and the Goths sacked Rome in the first years of the 5th century, the empire was shocked out of complacency. St. Jerome said “the...

The Emperor Theodosius I (347 - 395) embraced Christianity, so much so that he was ruled by Bishop Ambrose over the Massacre at Thessalonica...

Paganism is a catch-all term to refer to countless religions that existed during the Classical Era and the Middle Ages (and experiencing a r...

When Vladimir the Great converted from Slavic paganism to Christianity, he used the occasion to try to unify a wide heterogeneous culture. ...

Vladimir the Great (c.958 - 1015) was Prince of Novgorod and Grand Prince of Kyiv. Although originally a pagan, he converted himself, and t...

The modern Christian—any modern reader, in fact—might never have thought of vegetarianism as a practice with a Biblical or Classical history...

Ramon Llull (1232 - 1315) has been mentioned before . Born in Majorca, he married but lived what he later called a licentious life until, at...

Vladimir the Great's mass conversion plan for the Kievan Rus was not acceptable to everyone. Less than a decade earlier he hd built a t...

Although his grandmother, the cruel and vicious Olga , is considered by some to be the reason the Kievan Rus became Christian, Vladimir the ...

Vladimir the Great (also Vladimir I, also St. Vladimir/Volodymyr) was Grand Prince of Kyiv and ruler of Kievan Rus from 980 to 1015. He was ...

The Venerable Bede tells a story of Pope Gregory I in the Roman slave market, seeing some fair-haired and light-skinned slaves from Britain ...

Christianity came to Britain early. Tertullian and Origen, writing in the early 3rd century, mention Christian figures there. What is now Ch...

There were two significant designations for kings in Ireland. Of the several different kingdoms on the Emerald Isle, only one of them had po...

While explaining oblates I mentioned that there was a group called "Third Orders." "Third Order" signifies a lay member...

Alfred the Great (848 - 26 October 899) was not the King of England, because at the time there was no unified England. He was king of the We...

Finnian of Clonard was an Irish cleric who built schools, monasteries, and churches to spread Christianity. His schools thrived for centurie...

The Poetic Edda  (author[s] unknown) is our name for a collection of narrative poems in Old Norse. It is distinct from the Prose Edda whose...

The Saga of Erik the Red  is not about Erik the Red. Erik is in  it, as well as his son Leif Ericsson, but it focuses more on the actions of...