Medieval

The Mongol army led by Genghis Khan subjugated more lands and people in 25 years than the Romans did in 400....

The first Plantagenet king inherited a blood-soaked kingdom from the Normans and transformed it into an empire stretched at its peak from Scotland to Jerusalem. In this epic history, Dan Jones vividly resurrects this fierce and seductive royal dynasty and its mythic world....

The 14th century reflects two contradictory images: on the one hand, a glittering time of crusades and castles, cathedrals and chivalry; and on the other, a time of ferocity and spiritual agony, a world of chaos and the plague....

When the once-mighty city of Rome was sacked by barbarians in 410 and lay in ruins, it signaled the end of an era—and the beginning of a thousand years of profound transformation....

This is the story of a thousand years, a must-listen narrative history of ambitious aristocrats, family dysfunction, treachery, savage battles, luxury, and madness....

Imagine: it’s the year 1600 and you’ve lost your precious silver spoons, or maybe they’ve been stolen. Perhaps your child has a fever. Or you’re facing a trial. Maybe you’re looking for love or escaping a husband. What do you do?

Professor Jennifer McNabb and a panel of experts in medieval history and literature will take you back to the period between the fall of Rome and the rise of the Renaissance to explore the ideals and realities of sex and sexuality....

A riveting and authoritative history of the single most important event in English history: The Norman Conquest....

A major new history of the Crusades with an unprecedented wide scope, told in a tableau of portraits of people on all sides of the wars, from the New York Times best-selling author of The Templars....

Using previously untranslated contemporaneous documents from a colorful range of travelers, A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages is a witty and unforgettable exploration of how Europeans understood—and often misunderstood—the larger world.

Tom Holland describes how the Arabs emerged to carve out a stupefyingly vast dominion in a matter of decades, overcoming seemingly insuperable odds....

We tend to think of the Middle Ages as a dark, backward, and unchanging time characterized by violence, ignorance, and superstition. We couldn't be more wrong.

Medieval queens were seen as mere dynastic trophies, yet many of the Plantagenet queens of the High Middle Ages dramatically broke away from the restrictions imposed on their sex, as Alison Weir shows in this gripping group biography of England's fourteenth-century consorts....

Central Europe has long been infamous as a region beset by war, a place where empires clashed and world wars began. In The Middle Kingdoms, Martyn Rady offers the definitive history of the region....

The remarkable, little-known story of two trailblazing women in the Early Middle Ages who wielded immense power, only to be vilified for daring to rule....

In Search of the Dark Ages is an unrivalled exploration of the origins of English identity, and the best-selling book that established Michael Wood as one of Britain's leading historians....

From a leading expert in Japanese history, this is one of the first full histories of the art and culture of the Samurai warrior....

The Magna Carta is revered around the world as the founding document of Western liberty. Its principles - even its language - can be found in our Bill of Rights and in the Constitution. But what was this strange document and how did it gain such legendary status? Listen to find out more....

Historian Chris Wickham defies the conventional view of the Dark Ages in European history with a work of remarkable scope and rigorous yet accessible scholarship. The Inheritance of Rome presents a fresh understanding of the crucible in which Europe would ultimately be created....

Winters in the World is a beautifully observed journey through the cycle of the year in Anglo-Saxon England, exploring the festivals, customs, and traditions linked to the different seasons....

The Great Plague is one of the most compelling events in human history—even more so now, when the notion of plague has never loomed larger as a contemporary public concern....

For centuries, the Crusades have been central to the story of the medieval Near East, but these religious wars are only part of the region's complex history. As The Mongol Storm reveals, during the same era the Near East was utterly remade by another series of wars: the Mongol invasions....

In this unique illustrated presentation, Gregory and her fellow historians describe the extraordinary lives of the heroines of her Cousins’ War books....

A handy guide for time-travelers with tips and suggestions to make your visit to the Middle Ages much more fun, How to Survive in Medieval England will help the listener deal with the new experiences they may encounter and the problems that might occur....

As Peter Heather shows in this compelling new history, there was nothing inevitable about Christendom's rise to Europe-wide dominance....

Venture back to the golden age of Vikings and experience Norse Myths retold as they were, by warriors and raiders of the era, on a bold journey to secure a Danegeld unmatched by any seen before. This is Norse Mythology and Viking history intertwined into an adventure not to miss.

In the vibrant era of the Renaissance, a hidden world of ancient wisdom and profound magic stirred within the hearts of philosophers, scholars, and audacious thinkers. Whispered teachings attributed to the legendary Hermes Trismegistus promised to unlock the secrets of the cosmos, the power hidden within the human spirit, and the pathways to divine transformation. Journey back to the dazzling age of the Renaissance and delve into the minds of brilliant figures like Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola. Explore the Hermetic revival of Plato, a philosophy intertwined with the belief in a ...

Embark on an enthralling journey through the heart of Medieval England in this captivating exploration of one of history's most dynamic periods. Delve into the lives of kings and queens, knights and peasants, as the story of England unfolds against the backdrop of feudalism, chivalry, and religious upheaval. Experience the turbulence of the Magna Carta, the devastation of the Black Death, and the intrigue of the Wars of the Roses, all of which shaped the destiny of England.

In historian Tabitha Stanmore’s beguiling account, we meet lovelorn widows, dissolute nobles, selfless healers, and renegade monks. We listen in on Queen Elizabeth I’s astrology readings and track treasure hunters trying to unearth buried gold without upsetting the fairies that guard it. Much like us, premodern people lived in a bewildering world, buffeted by forces beyond their control. As Stanmore reveals, their faith in magic has much to teach about how to accommodate the irrational in our allegedly enlightened lives today.

Ever wonder what makes Europe so special? Imagine stepping into a time machine to explore both ancient cities and modern marvels. This book is your golden ticket to do just that!

Trafficking with Demons explores how magic was perceived, practiced, and prohibited in western Europe during the first millennium CE. Through the overlapping frameworks of religion, ritual, and gender, Martha Rampton connects early Christian reckonings with pagan magic to later doctrines and dogmas. Challenging established views on the role of women in ritual magic during this period, Rampton provides a new narrative of the ways in which magic was embedded within the foundational assumptions of western European society.

One of the great epics of Europe's history, the story of the rise and rise of the Capetian dynasty, dominates the Middle Ages. Starting in the tenth century from an insecure foothold around Paris, the Capetians built a nation that stretched from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean and from the Rhône to the Pyrenees. They founded practices and institutions that endured until the Revolution, transformed Paris from a muddy backwater to a splendid metropole, and popularized the fleur-de-lys, the lily, as the emblem of France.

A brief history of Khazaria.

What is a royal family?

We tend to think of the Middle Ages as a dark, backward, and unchanging time characterized by violence, ignorance, and superstition. By contrast, we believe progress arose from science and technological innovation, and that inventions of recent centuries created the modern world. We couldn't be more wrong.

Are you intrigued by the monumental path Christianity carved through history? This masterful narrative weaves through 1,600 years of history, from Christianity’s origins in the 1st century AD to the transformative Counter-Reformation in 1700.

In AD 843, the three surviving grandsons of the great Emperor Charlemagne met at Verdun. After years of bitter squabbles over who would inherit the family land, they finally decided to divide the territory and go their separate ways. In a moment of staggering significance, one grandson inherited what became France, another Germany and the third Lotharingia: the chunk that initially divided the other two. The dynamic between these three great zones has dictated much of our subsequent fate.

In 1494, there were five sovereign regional powers in Italy: Milan, Venice, Florence, the Papal States and Naples. In 1536, only one remained: Venice. These decades of conflict precipitated great anxiety among Western thinkers, and Italians responded to the fragmentation, forevermore, of Latin Christendom, the end of self-governance for Italians, and the beginning of the early modern era in a myriad of ways. They were always heavily influenced by the lived experience of warfare between large Christian armies on the peninsula.

While music has always been an integral part of the lives of the people of the British Isles and the diaspora around the world, an exploration of why this is so has seldom been explored. Celtic Song will take listeners on a journey to the past through a medium that uplifts the spirit and speaks to the heart.

With hindsight, the victory of Parliamentarian forces over the Royalists in the English Civil War may seem inevitable, but this outcome was not a foregone conclusion. Timothy Venning explores many of the turning points and discusses how they might so easily have played out differently.