Daily Medieval

In 947/948, the folk of Northumbria decided to oust Amlaib Cuarán, the Viking ruler who came from Dublin with his cousin, Olaf Guthfrithson,...

I mentioned yesterday that the control of northern England passed in and out of Anglo-Saxon and Viking hands until finally the inhabitants ...

King Æthelstan (c.890s - 27 October 939) united England under a single ruler, prevented invasion, reformed the law, and donated to the Churc...

Like his grandfather Alfred the Great (and to a lesser extent his father, Edward the Elder), Æthelstan had close ties to the Church. He no...

Because of the Battle of Brunanburh , historians hale King Æthelstan as first of the true kings of the English in that the country was unite...

We saw yesterday how in 937 an alliance of former enemies came together to attack King Æthelstan, who had in the past proven superior in ba...

Yesterday's post mentioned Saint Nectan appearing in a vision ages after his death to give advice about the Battle of Brunanburh. The t...

Yesterday's post on Saint Endellion alluded to her siblings also being saints. One of them, her brother Nectan (c.468 - 510), had a lif...

In 5th-century southern Wales we find the Kingdom of Brycheiniog (circled red on the map), ruled by King Brychan. Brychan had many children,...

How would you like to be given a stipend based on a job whose duties you would never have to perform? How about receiving the revenue from a...

In a more detailed discussion of the " origin " of the Shroud of Turin yesterday I mentioned that the place where it was originall...

Geoffroi de Charny would probably be almost completely unknown to modern audiences but for this strange bit of trivia: he gave us the Shroud...

Yesterday's post introduced Geoffroi de Charny , a third son with no prospects from his family who set out to make a name for himself. H...

Geoffroi de Charny (c.1306 - 19 September 1356) was an extremely accomplished and well-known French knight. He was a third son, which meant ...

I mentioned yesterday how Robert de Clari claimed, in his account of the Fourth Crusade, to be aware of, in the Church of St. Mary in Const...

Robert de Clari, a knight from Picardy, was a member of the Fourth Crusade, and wrote an account [ link ] of what he saw. Although his knowl...

Yesterday we looked at Geoffrey de Villehardouin's account of the Fourth Crusade and how he managed to obscure any culpability of his i...

Remember Geoffrey de Villehardouin ? He was one of the leaders of the Fourth Crusade who negotiated with Venice to get the Crusaders across ...

We saw yesterday that hostility between Byzantines and the Fourth Crusade came to a head when the new(est) emperor, Alexios V, ejected all ...

We saw yesterday that very early in 1204 Isaac and Alexios were holed up in the Palace of Blachernae against the upset citizenry, who held ...

(It would be best to ready yesterday's post to understand where we are.) So the Fourth Crusade was now in Constantinople, waiting to ge...

After attacking Zara at the request of the Doge of Venice, Enrico Dandolo , the members of the Fourth Crusade headed toward Constantinople....

As we saw in yesterday's post, Venice was able to coerce the members of the Fourth Crusade to winter over in Zara (a Dalmatian city now ...

I wrote about Enrico Dandolo, the Doge of Venice, 10 years ago here , but let's look at the man who "imprisoned" the Fourth Cr...

The influence of Byzantine art and culture on Italy (especially in the 13th century) was discussed yesterday , and I referred obliquely to a...

Yesterday I introduced the Florentine artist Coppo di Marcovaldo (c. 1225 – c. 1276), who painted in the Italo-Byzantine style, which becam...