Medieval History

Nordic or Scottish? For the residents of Shetland, the nearest train station is in Bergen, Norway. In Orkney, they speak Norn, derived from Old Norse.

Pope Clement V’s decision to give in to the demands of King Philip IV led to the betrayal and destruction of the Knights Templar.

In medieval England, the line between the natural and supernatural was not defined. The weird, wonderful, and unexplained were ever-present.

The Seljuks, a steppe nomadic Turkic people, laid the foundations of Turkish rule in Anatolia long before the Ottoman principality rose to power.

The marvels of ancient Greek knowledge, preserved by learned Islamic scholars and the Byzantine Empire, were reintroduced to the West during the Crusades.

Was Robin Hood real or a figure of legend? We’ll never know for sure, but the myth may originate with two notorious criminal gangs.

Despite the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 CE, Justinian I made a concerted effort to save the city in the 6th century.

The 13th-century Icelandic author Snorri Sturluson is our most important source for Norse mythology. But who was he and why did he write his books?