Daily Medieval

In 1037, Harold Harefoot was declared king in England. The next year he expelled Emma of Normandy , mother of his half-brother Harthacnut wh...

Æthelred the Unready had several children by two wives. His seventh son (and first by his second wife, Emma of Normandy ), was named Edward...

Magnus Olafsson became king of Norway at the age of 11. He originally talked about getting revenge on those who were his father's enemie...

When Olaf II Haraldsson was driven out of Norway in 1028, his family fled with him. This included a concubine, Alfhild, and their young son...

Olaf Haraldsson (c.995 - 29 July 1030) started out the son of a petty king in a Norway district but rose to become King of Norway by uniting...

Olaf Haraldsson was the son of a petty king of Vestfold (a district in eastern Norway), Harald Grenske, and Åsta Gudbrandsdatter, who we le...

King Cnut of England and Denmark saw a chance to expand his rule to more of Scandinavia. King Olaf II Haraldsson of Norway had hassled Denma...

The death of Svein Forkbeard in 1014 made his youngest son into King Harald II of Denmark. He had been left as regent when his Svein and Har...

Once Cnut was firmly established as king, he set about ensuring his power. He first executed or drove away (if they were wise) potential ri...

After over a year of fighting for control of England, Cnut of Denmark and Edmund Ironside made an agreement: Edmund would have London and e...

Svein Forkbeard was King of Denmark and King of England, but when he died in 1014, his son Cnut (c.990 - 1035) was denied succeeding him in...

The Danish Prince Cnut (also spelled Canute) put together what was called the North Sea Empire: England, Denmark, and Norway. This was a rem...

So...Sandwich. Most people just think about the food item that shares its name, but it has had more history than that, and not just as a Cin...

The Cinque Ports were, initially, five port towns on the southeast coast of England. Over the centuries, the rights and privileges granted ...

The Cinque Ports (Old French: "Five Harbors") were five towns on the southeast coast of England where the distance to the continen...

We've been looking lately at catastrophic floods of the Middle Ages, like those that took place on the feast days of St. Marcellus and ...

St. Lucia's Day, commemorating a 4th century martyr, is 13 December. On that date in 1287, one of the largest floods in recorded history...

A year ago, in May 2023, a survey in the Wadden Sea off North Frisia discovered the remains of the sunken church of Rungholt. The town of Ru...

Despite the potentially reputation-damaging error in calculation made by al-Farghani in the case of a canal, he is better known for other a...

While expanding the urban settlements along the Tigris, the 9th century Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil needed a canal to bring water to a ne...

During the reign of the Abbasid caliph  al-Mutawakkil  (822 - 861), he commissioned several building projects. Up to 20 palaces are listed ...

The 10th Abbasid caliph was not intended to rise to that position. Ja'far ibn Muhammad ibn Harun was born in 822 to an Abbasid prince a...

Despite Muhammad's treatment of the Jewish tribe the Banu Qurayza , he was not opposed to tolerance of the Jewish religion. He felt the ...

Once the Confederacy gave up the Battle of the Trench because of discord and mistrust in the alliance, Muhammad turned his attention to th...

During the Battle of the Trench between the Quraysh of Mecca with their Confederacy and Muhammad and the Muslims who had headquartered in M...

While the Battle of the Trench was happening, the outnumbered Muhammad in Medina looked to break up the attacking Confederacy by sending me...

After the Battle of Badr and the Battle of Uhud , the next encounter between the Quraysh of Mecca and the Muslims who followed Muhammad was...

After the Battle of Badr  and the deaths of some of the Quraysh leaders, the leader of the large caravan involved, Abu Sufyan, became leader...

Mecca was occupied largely by the Arab Quraysh tribe—a grouping of many clans. Muhammad was born into one of these clans, the Hashim. Muhamm...