Daily Medieval

Others may dispute it, but I call Nicholas V the Last Medieval Pope because he saw the Fall of Constantinople to the Turks and the end of th...

As the eldest son of Emperor Alexios I Comnenos , John had the status of Porphyrogenitus , "born to the purple." He had an older a...

Nikephoros Bryennios the Younger (1062 - 1137) was a Byzantine noble. As a general, he defended Constantinople when the army of Godfrey of B...

Alexios I Comnenos (1057 - 1118) was the Byzantine emperor during the start of the Crusades. Since the Byzantines were a part of the old Rom...

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 Varangian Guard  were personal bodyguards for Byzantine emperors from the 10th to 14th centuries. The guards were primarily hired from N...

Although the early popes had no temporal power or property, as the Roman Catholic Church grew in popularity and influence, they accrued terr...

"Volcanic winter" is a frightening phrase. It is the result of a volcanic eruption that spews so much ash and dust into the atmosp...

This is the story of Philip of Courtenay (1243 - 15 December 1283). He was one of the Latin Emperors of Constantinople—the empire was establ...

Godfrey (c.1060 - 18 July, 1100) was the second son of Eustace II, Count of Boulogne, and therefore was not in line for much inheritance. Hi...

Historic periods rarely have well-defined dates, unless they can point to a specific event that created definitive change. One can say there...

Among the groups in history that have long since disappeared, there are the Pechenegs. They were a semi-nomadic group that spoke a Turkic l...

Even if women were not allowed to ascend to the  throne, they were often the link to a throne for someone else. The rulership might not be...

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

An 11th-century depiction of Varangian Guards. In recent posts on the 4th Crusade and the Siege of Constantinople, I mentioned the Vara...

[see Part 1 here and Part 2 here , the intermezzo , and Part 3 here ] With former Emperor Isaac II Angelos dead at the end of January ...

[see Part 1 here and Part 2 here , and the preface to today's here ] So the Crusade left in spring of 1203 to sail to Constanbti...

This past Saturday, the 21st of June, was the anniversary of the death of Enrico Dandolo, the 42nd Doge of Venice. His tenure as Doge had...

Explanation of cross-in-square from this  fascinating site. Today is May Day, and the anniversary of the consecration of the Nea Ekklesi...