Interestingly, the medieval period in Britain begins with a battle. In 1066 CE, the Battle of Hastings marked the beginning of Norman rule and a new era in Britain. Medieval warfare in Britain was often used as a tool to implement feudalism and maintain centralized power.

The period from 1066 to 1485 CE was a dynamic era of medieval warfare, marked by a number of important battles that were instrumental in political and territorial affairs. The Medieval Period in Britain both began and ended with a battle: the Battle of Bosworth Field, which marked the rise of the Tudor Dynasty.

1. The Battle of Hastings (1066)

• Date: October 14, 1066
• Combatants: Normans vs. Anglo-Saxons
• Key leaders: William, Duke of Normandy vs. Harold Godwinson
• Location: East Sussex, England
• Outcome: Norman victory; Harold Godwinson was killed

October 14, 1066 CE, marked the start of Norman rule over England after they ousted the Anglo-Saxons. The Battle of Hastings involved the forces of William, Duke of Normandy, often referred to as William the Conqueror, and the army of Harold Godwinson, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England.

King Edward the Confessor left no clear heir when he died in January 1066. You will see throughout history that this was a common problem in England. While Harold Godwinson was crowned king, he immediately faced a contesting claim from William of Normandy. William claimed that Edward had promised him the throne as far back as 1051. This dispute set the stage for the subsequent Norman invasion.

The battle took place near the present-day town of Battle, East Sussex. The fighting lasted from morning until dusk. William used innovative tactics, new to the English Saxons, which included feigned retreats that drew out and broke the English shield wall. This tactic has been attributed as the leading factor in the Norman victory. The end of the battle was signaled by Harold’s death. The famous Bayeux Tapestry depicts his death as an arrow to the eye. Despite this artistic representation of events, historians regularly debate the details of his death.

William’s victory fundamentally altered England and its aristocracy. Anglo-Saxon lords were replaced with Norman ones, and a new system of governance was introduced. Norman-French started to replace Old English as William was crowned King of England on Christmas Day 1066.

2. The Battle of Stirling Bridge (1297)

• Date: September 11, 1297
• Combatants: Scottish vs. English
• Key leaders: William Wallace & Andrew Murray vs. John de Warrene & Hugh de Cressingham
• Location: River Forth in Stirling, Scotland
• Outcome: Decisive Scottish victory

A battle made famous by Hollywood in the film Braveheart, the Battle of Stirling Bridge was fought on September 11, 1297 CE. This was one of the largest battles during the First War of Scottish Independence. William Wallace and Andrew Murray led Scottish forces to a decisive victory against English forces led by John de Warrene, the Earl of Surrey, and Hugh de Cressingham.

Edward I of England wanted to assert control over Scotland after the death of the Scottish queen in 1290. The people of Scotland disagreed, and this disagreement culminated in the battle at Stirling Bridge.

The English were at a disadvantage. They were forced to cross a narrow bridge over the River Forth, and the Scots made sure to capitalize on this moment. This narrow path limited how much the English troops could move. The Scots could then hold back their forces until most of the English had crossed the river. Once they crossed, Wallace and Murray launched a surprise attack, cutting off the English’s access to the bridge. The English were left vulnerable and disorganized, resulting in a Scottish victory.

This victory boosted Scottish morale and cemented Wallace’s reputation as a symbol of the resistance. This eventually made him a great target for the English crown. However, this defeat forced Edward I to reconsider his strategies in Scotland, and Scottish resistance only grew.

3. The Battle of Bannockburn (1314)

• Date: June 23–24, 1314
• Combatants: Scottish vs. English
• Key leaders: Robert the Bruce vs. Edward II
• Location: Bannock Burn near Stirling, Scotland
• Outcome: Decisive Scottish victory, confirming their independence

The Battle of Bannockburn was fought from June 23 to 24, 1314. While the Battle of Stirling Bridge was a decisive victory, the Battle of Bannockburn finally confirmed Scottish independence and solidified Robert the Bruce’s place as a legendary figure of national pride in Scotland.

By 1314, the tensions between Scotland and England had escalated considerably. Edward II now controlled England and wanted to assert control over Scotland. The siege of Stirling Castle became a focal point of these tensions and set the stage for a great battle. The Scots were led by Robert the Bruce, who aimed to lift the siege and simultaneously assert their independence. They faced an English army that was significantly larger and better equipped than their own.

Yet again, the Scots employed the terrain to their advantage and forced the English into a cramped and marshy battlefield at Bannockburn near Stirling. This tactical advantage hampered the English forces’ movement and effectiveness.

The Scottish forces were organized into schiltrons. This special formation moved infantry into dense groups with outward-facing spears. They were highly effective against cavalry. With these tactical formations and their expert use of the terrain, the Scots could decisively defeat the English.

The victory at Bannockburn ended English claims over Scotland and established Robert the Bruce as the uncontested ruler of an independent Scotland. The legacy of this battle extends beyond the immediate victory. The Battle of Bannockburn became a symbol of Scottish resilience and a classic example of tactical ingenuity in medieval warfare.

4. The Battle of Crécy (1346)

• Date: August 26, 1346
• Combatants: English vs. French
• Key leaders: King Edward III vs. King Philip VI
• Location: Crécy-en-Ponthieu, France
• Outcome: Overwhelming English victory

The Battle of Crécy, on August 26th, 1346, was a rather significant conflict during the Hundred Years’ War, a series of conflicts in which the English monarchs sought to assert their claims to French territories. In this case, King Edward III of England landed his army in Normandy. From here, he launched a campaign of rapid movement and scorched-earth tactics across northern France. This campaign culminated in the Battle of Crécy at Crécy-en-Ponthieu. It was here that Edward held a strong defensive position against the French army led by King Philip VI.

Edward’s army was very good at using their longbows to their benefit, and the longbowmen formed the backbone of his tactical approach. Edward positioned his archers in a place that would capitalize on their long range and rapid fire.

The French were hampered by muddy terrain and were never able to break through the English defensive formations. The English won an overwhelming victory here. The Battle of Crécy also marked a pivotal evolution in medieval warfare. From this point forward, you can see the decline in the dominance of heavy cavalry in medieval warfare and a move toward the heavy use of infantry, especially those with longbows. Medieval warfare shifted from melee combat to a greater emphasis on ranged weaponry.

5. The Battle of Neville’s Cross (1346)

• Date: October 17, 1346
• Combatants: English vs. Scottish
• Key leaders: English defensive force (under Edward III’s orders) vs. King David II
• Location: Near Durham, England
• Outcome: Conclusive English victory; the Scottish king was captured

While deeply involved in the Hundred Years’ War, England was also facing the Second War of Scottish Independence. The Battle of Neville’s Cross, fought on October 17, 1346, occurred near Durham, England.

Because of the conflict between England and France in the Hundred Years’ War, France allied with Scotland. Through the Auld Alliance, France encouraged the Scottish King David II to open up a northern front against England. France wanted English resources diverted to the Scottish border so that they would focus less on the siege of Calais.

The Scottish army began by rampaging through Northumberland but was eventually caught by an English force near Durham. The English army was smaller but still held the advantage of higher ground. The English forces were to disperse the Scottish forces through fierce attacks by English longbowmen.

Not only did England win a conclusive victory, but the Scottish king was captured. Scottish power was weakened, and the English very quickly exploited this. After Neville’s Cross, England gained stronger control over southern Scotland.

6. The Battle of Agincourt (1415)

• Date: October 25, 1415
• Combatants: English vs. French
• Key leaders: Henry V vs. Charles d’Albret
• Location: Near Agincourt, France
• Outcome: English victory

The Hundred Years’ War was a constant back-and-forth between England and France, very typical of medieval warfare. On October 25, 1415, Henry V of England was campaigning to assert his claim over the French throne and invaded Normandy. However, the English army had been greatly weakened by battle and disease. Henry still decided to push forward and march for Calais, where he was intercepted by a larger French force near Agincourt. The French forces were led by Charles d’Albret, the Constable of France.

This is another one of those moments in history where, despite the French having the numbers, they were ill-suited for this particular battle. Their heavy cavalry and knights could not perform properly on the muddy, enclosed battlefield. This limited their movement and their effectiveness. The English were weakened, but they were able to exploit their longbowmen’s reach and mobility, which meant they could inflict severe losses on the French forces. Henry had his archers flanked by stakes and positioned them to maximize their impact, which played a central role in the English victory.

Agincourt was devastating for the French. They suffered significant losses, including many of their nobility. So, they not only lost this battle, but it also weakened their feudal military structure. For England, this victory once again showcased the power of their longbowmen, a defining element of English medieval warfare, and simultaneously boosted national morale. The loss at Agincourt could be directly linked to Henry’s success in France, which led to the Treaty of Troyes recognizing him as heir to the French throne.

7. The Battle of Towton (1461)

• Date: March 29, 1461
• Combatants: Yorkists vs. Lancastrians
• Key leaders: Edward IV (Yorkist) vs. Loyalists of Henry VI (Lancastrian)
• Location: Towton, North Yorkshire, England
• Outcome: A crushing victory for the Yorkists

The War of the Roses was a continuous, prolonged affair between the houses of York and Lancaster, who disagreed over who should rightfully rule England. The Battle of Towton on March 29, 1461, represents a brutal high point in British medieval warfare and is said to be the largest and deadliest battle ever fought on English ground. The combatants encountered each other in the midst of a vicious snowstorm, which added to the battle’s carnage.

Yorkist leader Edward IV confronted the Lancastrians, the loyalists of Henry VI. The nobles had been agitated by major players like Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick (the Kingmaker).

The Yorkists came back to the successful deployment of longbowmen. Lord Falkenburg, a Yorkist leader, used the storm’s wind and snow to his advantage. He instructed his archers not to shoot a single arrow until he gave the command, which came after the Lancastrians had spent the majority of their shots. After a long period of long-range combat, the battle came down to short, fierce hand-to-hand fighting.

The Yorkists achieved a crushing victory, which immediately led to Edward IV’s ascension to the throne. The Lancastrian cause was virtually wiped out when their leader, Henry VI, went into hiding, and many Lancastrian nobles were lost on the field. The Battle of Towton took the lives of more Englishmen than any other battle during the War of the Roses, and perhaps in all of English history.

8. The Siege of Orleans (1428–1429)

• Date: 1428–1429
• Combatants: English & Burgundian troops vs. French
• Key leaders: Earl of Salisbury (English) vs. Charles VII & Joan of Arc (French)
• Location: Orleans, France
• Outcome: French victory; the siege was lifted

In 1428, the English could boast of their alliances with Burgundian troops, and they controlled most of northern France, including Paris. The city of Orleans represented a vital crossroads leading to the South of France.

The Earl of Salisbury, later Duke of Suffolk, mobilized his English troops and besieged Orleans, the last important stronghold held by Charles VII of France. Then Joan of Arc arrived in April 1429. She brought fresh inspiration and led several assaults against strategic English positions. Her presence was said to have revitalized the French forces, empowering them to overrun key English fortifications.

The siege of Orleans lasted almost a year, from October 12, 1428, to May 8, 1429. It ended in a decisive French victory, forcing the English to retreat and marking a crucial turning point in the Hundred Years’ War.

9. The Battle of Bosworth Field (1485)

• Date: August 22nd, 1485
• Combatants: House of Lancaster vs. House of York
• Key leaders: Henry Tudor vs. King Richard III
• Location: Near Ambion Hill, Leicestershire, England
• Outcome: Tudor victory; Richard III killed in battle

The Battle of Bosworth Field was the final important engagement of the War of the Roses. It marked a shift in the control of the throne from the House of York to the House of Lancaster. Henry Tudor, who would become Henry VII, ended the reign of Richard III and the Plantagenet Dynasty’s centuries-long hold on the English crown.

When Richard III controversially took the throne in 1483, he plunged England into instability—creating an opening for the unlikely Lancastrian claimant Henry Tudor to rise.

Henry Tudor landed in Wales in 1485, gathered the forces he needed, and marched to London. His forces were outnumbered, but Henry Tudor was intelligent and strategic. Richard III either drew great courage from his greater numbers or was incredibly bold in general. He led a direct charge aiming to kill Henry Tudor himself, effectively ending the civil war once and for all. His charge ultimately failed when one of his largest supporters, the Stanleys, declared for Henry mid-battle. Richard was killed in the fray.

With Richard’s death, Henry Tudor ascended the English throne as Henry VII and united the warring factions through his marriage to Elizabeth of York. Together, they founded the Tudor Dynasty under a combined Lancastrian and York flag. This rise of the Tudor Dynasty and Henry’s marriage is seen as the end of the Medieval Period in England.

There is a story that makes the rounds online that several soldiers from the city of Modena snuck into the city of Bologna and made off with a wooden bucket used by the Bolognese to draw water from a well. When the theft was discovered, the enraged Bolognese declared war on the Modenese. Around 2,000 people died, and many thousands more were injured before the war was over. It’s a nice, tidy story of some medieval madness. The only problem is, almost none of that story is true.

The Guelphs and Ghibellines

The concept of Italy as a unified country is a modern one. In the Medieval Period, Italy was divided among several kingdoms and empires.

Northern Italy was a hodgepodge of city-states that fought incessantly with each other. Caught between the Holy Roman Empire to the north and the Papal States to the south, these cities would have to choose to align politically with the emperor or the pope.

The pro-Papacy faction was known as the Guelphs, and the pro-emperor faction was known as the Ghibellines.

And this was not just a division between the cities. There were militias of both factions present in various cities, which would occasionally erupt into what were essentially gang wars. The Guelph and Ghibelline conflict dominated local and regional politics for centuries, seeing peaks and valleys over the years.

Bologna was a staunch Guelph city, while neighboring Modena was pledged to the Ghibellines.

Border Conflict

Differing factional allegiances exacerbated the border tensions between Bologna and Modena. In 1296, Bologna, with the support of the pope, seized the fortified towns of Bazzano and Savigno from Modena. After Modena chose to continue the conflict to try to regain its lost territory, Pope John XXII declared the leader of Modena, Passerino Bonacolsi, a rebel against the Church and granted an indulgence for the remission of the temporal punishment for all sins committed on Earth to anyone who harmed him or his possessions.

That type of indulgence was normally granted to Crusaders.

By the summer of 1325, the long-running conflict was still simmering. In July, Bolognese forces ravaged the Modenese side of the border, raiding and burning deep into their territory. In August, a Bolognese mob crossed the border. However, in September, the Modenese struck back.

The fortress of Monteveglio, held by Bologna, was taken by Modena after two soldiers garrisoning it opened the gate and allowed them in. Bologna could not let this stand and raised an army to retake it.

The Battle of Zappolino

The Bolognese army numbered around 30,000 men, which was an enormous force for the Medieval Period. Modena, on the other hand, was only able to muster around 5,000 men. The lopsided numbers made the Bolognese think that this would be an easy victory.

The Modenese, however, had a plan to counteract Bologna’s superior force.

When the Bolognese set out to retake Monteveglio, Modena’s small force made itself appear much larger than it actually was. Using tried and true deception tactics like fake campfires, they were able to get Bologna to spread out its force over a much larger area than they should have.

When battle was joined at Zappolino, Modena was able to rout the Bolognese force, resulting in approximately 2,000 casualties for the Bolognese army.

The Bucket

Modena pursued the broken army all the way back to the city of Bologna. While Modena did not have the force or the desire to commit to a lengthy and costly siege of Bologna itself, they wanted to humiliate their long-time rivals. They essentially held a party outside Bologna’s walls for days to rub salt in the wound.

During this time, some Modenese soldiers, possibly drunk, decided to take a wooden bucket from a well near the city as a trophy. When the Modenese army left Bologna, they took the bucket with them.

The bucket was put on display in Modena to commemorate the victory at Zappolino. First, it was displayed in the Torre della Ghirlandina in Modena’s cathedral complex, but then it was moved to the Camerino dei Confirmati at the Palazzo Comunale, where it can still be seen to this day.

The Legend

So, if that is the truth, then where did the story of the war being started over the stolen bucket come from?

The culprit is a Modenese poet named Alessandro Tassoni.

In 1622, Tassoni published La Secchia Rapita, a satirical poem about the war between Bologna and Modena. Being satire, the poem took place in a heightened version of reality where all the players were more absurd than their real-life counterparts. The conflict is deliberately designed to reference Homer, with the bucket playing the role of Helen of Troy, whose kidnapping caused a great war to break out.

Notably, Tassoni never intended for his poem to be read literally. However, when the story left northern Italy, it began to take on a life of its own.

The Opera

In 1772, Antonio Salieri, perhaps best known for his (mythical) rivalry with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, adapted La Secchia Rapita into an opera of the same name. The opera itself, much like the poem it was based on, was a comedic satire, this time of the popular opera seria that were all the rage in Vienna, where Salieri was composing.

The parallels to The Iliad were played up, with several arias being sung about the bucket. The opera ended with a song celebrating that the War of the Bucket would be more famous than the Rape of the Sabine Women, the Abduction of Helen of Troy, and the Kidnapping of Persephone.

Again, this opera was not meant to be a work of history. However, by this point in history, there was over a century between the opera and the poem, and three centuries between the poem and the events that it satirized. This historical distance and the multiple layers of irony and parody found in the opera and the poem began to obscure the historical truth.

Conclusion

The age of the internet supercharged the legend of the War of the Bucket. Driven by sensationalism and clickbait, the story of two cities going to war over a stolen bucket is more immediately eye-catching than having to explain the conflict between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines.

There is also a general cultural sense that the Medieval Period was probably strange enough to have a war over a stolen bucket. After all, the Medieval Period was filled with some strange events like a pope putting his dead predecessor on trial, so is it really that much of a stretch to believe that two city-states went to war over something as trivial as a stolen bucket?

While there were, and still are, many instances of the truth being stranger than fiction, this is not one of them. The conflict between Bologna and Modena says more about the political division and factionalism of Italy in the Medieval Period than either city’s feelings about buckets.

Stephen of Blois is one of the most unlikely individuals to become King of England. He was never in direct line to the throne, and only a series of fortunate (for him) events had to take place, along with his individual drive, for him to become King of England.

An Unlikely Crown for Stephen of Blois

Stephen of Blois, who became King of England in 1135, came to the throne after a long series of convoluted events and circumstances. The succession to the English throne following William the Conqueror’s (William I) invasion in 1066 was contentious for many generations.

While William I solidified his right to the throne after defeating Harold II at the Battle of Hastings, the rules regarding succession were not settled. A single heir did not clearly inherit the full right to all the lands held by his predecessor, particularly because varying titles and authority were held by the English ruler both in France (particularly Normandy) and England. What often occurred was that the English ruler was continuously at war to defend or recover land in England or France.

The Complex Line of Succession After the Norman Conquest 

William I’s son, William Rufus (William II), did inherit much of his father’s lands as well as the crown of England (including the treasury). However, William II died relatively young, and his brother Henry (Henry I) was able to consolidate power over their other brother, the crusader Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy and William I’s eldest son.

Henry I was the uncle of Stephen (Henry’s sister was Adela of Normandy, daughter of William I), and Stephen grew up with favor in Henry I’s court. Henry I’s son William Adelin was heir apparent to the English throne, but died in the White Ship tragedy in November 1120.

The White Ship Tragedy That Left England Without an Heir

On November 25, 1120, the White Ship set out from Barfleur, France, carrying Henry’s children on a return trip to England. Henry himself had departed on another ship earlier, and the travelers on the White Ship turned it into a drunken voyage, pushing the captain to try to catch up to Henry. However, night had fallen, and they did not see the Quilleboeuf Rock formation off the coast of Barfleur.

The White Ship struck the rock and quickly sank, with only a single survivor of over 300 passengers. As most of Henry I’s children died in the disaster, the sinking of the White Ship left Henry I with no clear heir to the throne, resulting in what became known as the Anarchy.

The Anarchy and the War Between Stephen and Matilda

The Anarchy was the resulting war of succession that followed the White Ship disaster. From 1138 to 1153, Stephen and Matilda fought over the right to succeed Henry I to the throne of England. Henry I’s initial choice was his sole surviving (and oldest) legitimate child, Matilda of England, the former Holy Roman Empress. However, Henry I was unable to gain support from other nobility for Matilda, and when he died in 1135, her claim to the throne was not well supported. Stephen was able to reach England first and gain the crown, but was unable to consolidate his rule across England. Matilda would raise an army and invade in 1138, and the two would fight over territory for the next 15 years.

The End of Stephen’s Reign and the Plantagenet Succession

Stephen’s son, Eustace, whom Stephen wanted to inherit the throne, died from an illness in 1153. Matilda’s son, Henry FitzEmpress, had been continuously fighting with Stephen until Eustace died. Not long after, Stephen and Henry brokered a peace where Henry would inherit the English throne and become Henry II. He married Eleanor of Aquitaine and fathered King Richard I and King John.

For many nations, significant moments in history are forged in the heat of battle and by the bloody outcomes of such events. For England, the Battle of Hastings is often thought of as the defining moment that birthed the nation, but this is quite inaccurate. England was born before the Normans wet their toes in the English Channel and decided to sail across to the fair isles of Britain.

More than a century before they fought the Anglo-Saxons, the latter had already forged the nation of England, defeating many of their enemies at Brunanburh, leading to victory and great prestige for King Æthelstan, who united the fractured English kingdoms.

The Road to One England

In the 9th century, England played host to a number of political entities. By 871, at the start of King Alfred’s reign, much of England had been conquered by the Vikings, who had invaded with the Great Heathen Army in 865. They defeated the Northumbrians, installing a puppet ruler immediately after killing the Northumbrian kings, Osberht and Ælla. The southern part of Northumbria became the Kingdom of York, under direct Viking control. The Vikings also conquered East Anglia, killing King Edmund, who became known as King Edmund the Martyr for his refusal to convert to paganism and his execution by the Vikings, potentially led by Ivar the Boneless, a son of Ragnar Lodbrok.

Mercia was greatly weakened by the Vikings on its eastern border, and only Wessex stood any real chance against the Viking threat. Alfred of Wessex was an effective king, and ruled from 871 to 899, as King of the West Saxons, and then as a unifying force, as the King of the Anglo-Saxons from 886.

Several years after defeating the Vikings at Edington in 878, Alfred unified Wessex and Mercia by marrying his daughter Æthelflæd to Æthelred, the Mercian ruler, in an agreement that made Alfred effectively the suzerain of Mercia. This was the first political step towards a unified England.

Throughout his reign, Alfred consolidated the power of the Anglo-Saxons, and his son, Edward the Elder, continued his father’s legacy. Under his rule, a West Saxon and Mercian army dealt a crushing blow to an invading Northumbrian army in 910, reducing the threat from the Vikings to the north. With the help of his sister, Æthelflæd, who ruled Mercia after her husband’s death, Edward liberated southern England from the Vikings in the years that followed.

The process of unification wasn’t a straightforward event with no obstacles, however. At the end of Edward’s reign, there was growing discontent among the Mercians over Wessex rule. Edward had exercised direct control over Mercia after his sister’s death in 918. The Welsh, who also had to recognize Edward as an overlord above their own king, grew weary of Anglo-Saxon dominance. Welsh-Mercian discontent was assuaged shortly before Edward’s death. Whether this constituted widespread violent revolt is still a point of contention. Nevertheless, by the end of his rule in 924, only Northumbria was under Viking control.

Edward’s son, Æthelstan, still had treacherous political waters to navigate, and his rule would involve significant dealings with the Scots of Scotland (or Alba, as the Scots called it), the Britons of Strathclyde, and the Norse-Gaels of the Kingdom of Dublin as they grew wary of Anglo-Saxon expansion.

Æthelstan and the Making of a Kingdom

Æthelstan followed an aggressive and expansionist policy that was a cause for alarm among his Viking, British, and other Celtic neighbors. In 927, he marched against the Vikings at York and took the city. This was the end of the last Viking kingdom in England, and the first time all of England was ruled by an Anglo-Saxon king. In 927, he styled himself “King of the English.”

In 934, he invaded Scotland and forced its king, Constantine II, as well as Owain, the ruler of the kingdom of Strathclyde, to submit to his suzerainty. Despite the success of his campaigns, there were still sizable elements of Viking, Celtic, and British power that resented his rule and were powerful enough to challenge it.

Thus began the formation of the Great Army, an unlikely alliance between the Kingdom of the Scots, Strathclyde, and the Vikings. Owain of Strathclyde and Constantine II of Scotland made a pact with Olaf Guthfrithson (also called “Anlaf”), the Viking king of Dublin, who sailed his fleet east in 937 to retake York. The fleet was large and contained, according to early 12th-century historian Symeon of Durham, 615 ships, although this number is likely an exaggeration.

There is scant knowledge of the lead-up to the Battle of Brunanburh, and it is likely there would have been a short window of opportunity for the Viking and Celtic armies to meet up. Well aware of the military situation, Æthelstan had assembled a large army of West Saxons and Mercians and then headed north to confront the enemy. The size of the armies is unknown, but the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states that, “never yet as many people killed before this with sword’s edge… since the east Angles and Saxons came up over the broad sea,” likely indicating that the opposing armies were of considerable size for the time.

The Savage Battle That Shaped England

Like the events leading up to the battle, much of what is known about the Battle of Brunanburh comes from poetry and sources that cannot be relied upon as being completely truthful. One of the major mysteries is where exactly the battle was fought. Over 40 places have been suggested!

Many medieval sources suggest somewhere in York, while the Wirral Peninsula opposite the present-day city of Bromborough near Liverpool is also a popular option. Bromborough is thought to be a derivation of Brunanburh, and medieval weaponry from both the Norse and the English have been found in the area, although it is argued that this is not conclusive, given the fact that metalwork from the era was all over England, and there were many places that could have been named “Brunanburh.” The case for Wirral is supported by the fact that it is also a very short distance to sail from Dublin. To get to York, the Norse and their allies would have had to sail to the other side of England. Given  Viking sailing skills, however, this was not too difficult a proposition. It just would have taken longer.

The Annals of Ulster describe the battle as “A great, lamentable and horrible battle,” and “savagely fought.” Much of our knowledge about the event today is derived from the Old English poem, The Battle of Brunanburh, found in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. It was written shortly after the battle in 937. The poem claims the battle lasted throughout the entire day, from sunrise to sunset, and that the fields “grew slickened with the blood of men.” At the end of the day, the ground was littered with corpses, left for the carrion birds, and the Anglo-Saxons were victorious.

“There lay many warriors, seized by the spear,
the northern men, over their arrowed shields,
likewise the Scottish also were weary, saddened by war.
The West-Saxons in their ranks rode down
the long long day the hateful people,
chopping down the battle-fleers from behind
so sorely with sharply ground swords.”

(Click here for full text of the poem)

The poem states that “Anlaf” escaped to his ships, while both he and “Constantinus” lost a great deal of their men, with the latter losing his son to the slaughter. The poem also mentions that five kings were slain, as well as seven of Olaf’s earls. Their identities are not known. If these casualties are to be believed, it is highly likely that the Scottish and Viking losses were immense. The fate of Owain is not mentioned in the poem, but he is mentioned in other works as being alive after 937.

Victory—and What It Really Changed

Forged in blood and steel, this was a victory that proved the united purpose of the Anglo-Saxon peoples, whether from Wessex, Mercia, or any other Anglo-Saxon region. Æthelstan’s power was consolidated, and he became more widely accepted as the king of all Anglo-Saxons, thus preventing any chance of the dissolution of the single Anglo-Saxon polity. Their various enemies, although significantly weakened, would recover over the decades and continue to pose a threat to the Anglo-Saxons for several centuries.

There are, however, detractors to this narrative. Historian Alfred Smyth argues that while the battle was the most important battle in England before Hastings, its relevance has been overstated. Historian Alex Woolf argues that the outcome was actually pyrrhic and that this is proven by the fact that after Æthelstan died in 939, Olaf took Northumbria. The Northumbrians only accepted southern rule after expelling their leader, Erik Bloodaxe, in 954.

Whatever the outcome and its importance may have been, Brunanburh lives on as an epic tale in the long story of England and is part of a narrative, true or not, that formed the foundation of the English nation.

Traditional foods are home comforts. A cottage pie with a layer of mashed potatoes, an Italian pizza full of cheese and tomatoes, a hearty beef stew with potatoes, carrots, and thick gravy.

These dishes are assumed to have existed unchanged for hundreds, and possibly even thousands, of years, but the surprising reality is that many of these “traditional” dishes are relatively new inventions. Simply due to the fact that half the ingredients hadn’t been discovered yet!

The Isolation of the Pre-Columbian World

From a European perspective in the Middle Ages, there was a lot of geographical significance that was unknown. Most people never thought about the fact that there was another vast continent (or two) across the Atlantic to the west.

The Americas had very different food on the menu, all because it had completely different plants and animals. It wasn’t until 1492 that these two worlds collided. And even then, it took centuries for all the ingredients of two worlds to merge and become accepted. Until then, Europe relied on foodstuffs from home, with the most exotic delicacies coming from the Near East and North Africa. Occasionally something from the Far East ended up in European hands. It wasn’t until the late 15th century that sweet oranges first appeared in Europe!

From the perspective of the people of the Americas, the Old World was similarly unknown, and none knew of the massive clash of civilizations that would occur. Wheat was unknown, as were barley, apples, cabbages, turnips, pork and beef, among many other things.

Everyday Staples That Medieval European Cooking Completely Lacked

It’s hard to picture a stew without potatoes. But these delightful stem tubers, now a staple across much of the world, originated in Peru. And they didn’t reach European shores until the latter half of the 16th century. And even then it took two centuries for the humble spud to catch on. It was regarded with suspicion and thought to be poisonous.

Instead, Europeans relied on turnips, parsnips and skirrets, the latter being a root vegetable in the same family as carrots and parsnips.

Meanwhile, another staple in stews, carrots, were present, but they weren’t the bright orange vegetables we know today. It wasn’t until the 16th and 17th centuries that orange carrots were documented, while the stable “Long Orange” was formally documented in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 18th century and was, according to legend, created in honor of William of Orange. Before this, most carrots in medieval stews were pale yellow or purple. Only after the Middle Ages did orange varieties slowly take over to become the iconic vegetables we know and love today.

Other foods absent from Europe that came from the Americas included corn or maize, bell peppers and chilies, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, pineapples, blueberries, avocados, peanuts, chocolate, and of course, tomatoes.

How Medieval Chefs Achieved Tartness Without Tomatoes

Like potatoes, tomatoes were believed to be poisonous, and it took centuries for this fruit to catch on. It only became popular in the 18th century. So the idea of tomato-laden Italian food is actually a relatively recent invention.

Before this, the tart profile of dishes was achieved mainly with vinegar, generally wine or cider varieties. Verjuice (from unripe grapes) was also popular, as were sorrel leaves and gooseberries.

How the Columbian Exchange Permanently Transformed European Cuisine

The 16th century saw a whole new world (literally) of ingredients open up to European chefs, but the gastronomic shift was certainly not immediate. The introduction of food from the New World took a long time to take root in European culinary tradition.

In time, these new foods transformed Europe. Tomatoes ended up characterizing Italian food, while potatoes built the Prussian Empire and came to be associated with Ireland and Russia. Reliance on potatoes became so important that when the crop failed, whole nations starved. Meanwhile, paprika transformed Spanish and Hungarian cuisine, adding levels of flavor that had not been tasted before.

And of course, the love affair with chocolate began, first as a drink, and then as solid bars and decadent desserts, while vanilla became a standard flavor the world over. In the 17th century, coffee and tea also swept through the continent, having been introduced from the Middle East (originally from Africa) and the Far East, respectively.

When tourists visit a castle in Europe, they encounter a vision of monolithic proportions. Cold grey stone stands, defiant to the elements, channeling cold breezes through empty halls where footsteps echo, amplifying every movement in a stronghold long past its days of yore.

As is often the case, the reality of what is seen and portrayed now is quite different to how it actually was.

Gleaming White Walls and Plastered Exteriors

Modern cinema often portrays castles as either bare, grey monoliths or fantastical wonderland palaces. The reality of medieval castles in their prime was somewhere in between.

A widely used feature in Europe was whitewashing, with the facades of many castles also plastered before whitewashing. This helped protect the stone and mortar joints from the cumulative effects of the weather. This was not a particularly new idea either. Evidence suggests Hadrian’s Wall in Roman Britain was (at least in sections) both plastered and whitewashed with lime.

Not only did these layers protect the stone, but they turned castles into shining beacons, reflecting the sunlight and standing visible from large distances.

Some castles aimed to preserve the stone aesthetic and had plaster scored or painted with lines to create an imitation stonework effect.

Of course, plastering and whitewashing wasn’t universal. A notable example is the spectacular Caernarfon Castle in Wales, which had (and still has) a bare stone exterior that proudly displayed layered effects from different stones. Whitewashing would have obscured an already beautiful aesthetic which was intentional, possibly to mimic the walls of Constantinople.

The gleaming white walls weren’t always beautiful. The exit point for some garderobes jutted out directly over the outside of the castle walls, likely breaking up the pristine white facade with an unsightly vertical brown streak.

If there was a moat, it would have been a reeking cesspool, stagnant and full of disease.

Vivid Colors and Elaborate Interior Tapestries

Castles provided various functions. Some were dedicated military fortifications while others served as homes. The interior of the latter would likely have been sumptuously decorated to cover bare stone and to make life as comfortable as possible. Those who lived in them were the richest people who were no strangers to luxury.

Walls were plastered and painted, and not just in solid color, but in decorative motifs. Tapestries were hung on the walls, and floors could be covered with carpets, which were especially common in the Middle East and considered extreme luxury items in Europe. Wood paneling and wainscoting were also features, and evidence shows they could also have been painted. Bright colors covered walls and fabrics, while heraldic designs and paintings hung as decoration, in contrast to the drab grey of stereotypical representations.

Bustling Communities Filled With Wooden Structures

What is left of once-proud castles are ruins devoid of many of the trappings that made them what they were. Of note is wood, which generally doesn’t withstand the test of time. Castles also had wooden sections for interior aesthetics and pragmatic functions, as well as external defense.

For the latter, hoardings were wooden walkways that were attached to the ramparts. They were detachable and only deployed for defensive purposes.

Inside the outer walls, the courtyard was filled, not with open space, as is seen today, but with wooden buildings forming a compact village of industry. There were halls, accommodations, chapels, kitchens, stables, smithies, and everything else the castle needed to be a self-sufficient community.

Long since gone, these structures have been dismantled or have become victims of weather or fire.

How Centuries of Decay Created the Modern Stone Myth

Many castles today are little more than piles of ruins, while others have been turned into museums—quiet, lonely reminders of what once was. The sterility of these presentations fails to capture their atmosphere of activity.

As the need for castles declined, most were abandoned and left to decay, while others were straight up destroyed and never rebuilt. Oliver Cromwell famously did this after the English Civil War.

In the Romantic period of the late 18th century onwards, castles were considered retroactively beautiful. They weren’t restored, but left to be overgrown with ivy and moss, beautifying a long-lost past.

Today, people often see silent monoliths rather than the bustling, noisy, lived-in buildings of the medieval era, and that’s where the modern stereotype begins.

After the fall of Rome in AD 476, the Eastern Roman Empire, also called the Byzantine Empire, continued to endure. It managed to weather foreign threats, internal divisions, and the natural entropy all empires experience. It survived as the last vestige of Roman glory well into the Middle Ages, right until the cusp of the modern era. Still, through a long series of events, the empire would eventually fall. Unlike the Western Roman Empire, which died with a whimper, the Byzantine Empire ended with a bang, fighting tooth and nail for survival to the bitter end.

When Rome Moved East

While we might call them the Byzantines, the citizens of the Eastern Roman Empire would have considered themselves Romans, the heirs of Augustus and the tribes who built their homes on the banks of the Tiber River. The name “Byzantine” was invented by modern scholars to differentiate the Eastern empire from the ancient empire.

After the rise of Augustus starting in 27 BC, the Roman Empire reached its greatest extent in the early 2nd century AD under the reign of the emperor Trajan. Subsequent emperors would consolidate territory rather than expand further. Even with this consolidation, the nature of the Roman government caused nearly a century of constant civil wars, social upheavals, and economic crises.

In the late 4th century, the emperor Diocletian split the empire into east and west to facilitate administration. He created the Tetrachy, with a senior “Augustus” and a junior “Caesar” ruling in the eastern half of the empire, and another pair ruling in the west. Following more political, economic, and social upheavals, and now with the added problem of ever-increasing barbarian invasions, the empire was more definitively divided. In 395, with the death of Theodosius I, the Eastern and Western Roman Empires were split for good, under his son Arcadius in the east and his other son Honorius in the west.

The Empire That Refused to Die

In 476, the Germanic chieftain Odoacer forced the last Western Roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus, to abdicate. Though this event is considered to have been the fall of the Western Roman Empire, by this point, there was virtually nothing left to fall. Most of Rome’s territory in the west had been abandoned, partitioned out, or outright conquered by Germanic tribes that were migrating westward. The emperor’s deposition put the dead empire out of its misery. In Constantinople, however, things were different.

The Eastern Roman Empire continued to exist, keeping the spark of Roman civilization alive. In the 530s, the Emperor Justinian began a major series of military campaigns to reconquer the lost western territories. Under the command of highly competent generals such as Belisarius, the Eastern Roman Empire managed to retake parts of North Africa, including Carthage, as well as parts of the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily, and Italy. It seemed as if Rome might regain its former glory.

Surrounded by Enemies

Unfortunately, for all of their successes, the Byzantine Empire was built on shaky ground. The first problem was political instability. Though they were united under a single emperor, civil wars, revolts, and insurrections were commonplace. Court politics was a nightmare of intrigue, backstabbing, and manipulation. The system was so complex that the word “Byzantine” is still used today to describe anything overly complicated, convoluted, and hard to follow. With each civil war, the empire became weaker, less wealthy, and less able to protect itself against outside forces.

The Eastern Romans were also in a geographically difficult position. There were some advantages, such as the capital of Constantinople being protected by the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, but otherwise, they found themselves surrounded by hostile powers. The eastern frontier was constantly threatened by the Persians, who had plagued Rome since the time of Marcus Licinius Crassus. From the north, Kyivan Rus’ raiders menaced Byzantine holdings; Bulgaria was a constant thorn in their side, and the Normans descended on Sicily and southern Italy, wresting control of those regions from Constantinople.

The most troubling enemy the Byzantines faced, however, was a new threat that emerged from the Arabian Peninsula. In the 7th century, the meteoric rise of Islam carved off large territories in the eastern frontier.

From Manzikert to Disaster

The Byzantines started steadily losing territory, first the gains made under Justinian, and then the eastern provinces. The armies of Islam swept over much of the Levant and North Africa, taking these vital possessions that provided tax income and manpower to support the empire.

In 1071, the Battle of Manzikert happened. At this battle, the Byzantine Empire fought against the forces of the Seljuk Turks and was crushed. They not only lost the emperor, who was captured in the fighting, but more importantly, lost control over large parts of Anatolia, which provided the bulk of Byzantine manpower. With this defeat, the once mighty Byzantine Empire was mostly reduced to its European holdings around the Balkans.

According to Anna Comnena, a Byzantine princess who recorded the events of the late 11th and early 12th centuries:

In response, the emperor was forced to ask the pope in Rome for aid, an action that directly led to the First Crusade. With the help of the crusaders, they were able to regain some of their lost territories, but were never again able to fully recover.

The Byzantines limped on for another century, when they would be dealt another crippling blow. In 1204, during the poorly planned Fourth Crusade, the crusaders attacked Constantinople itself, capturing the city and driving the Imperial court into exile. They established the Latin Empire of Constantinople, while the legitimate Roman Empire now existed only in fragments in Anatolia and Greece. This new state would exist until 1261, when the Nicaean Empire, the rump state formed after the city was captured, managed to retake Constantinople, destroying the Latin Empire and re-establishing the Eastern Roman Empire, though in a much weaker form.

Mehmed II Closes in

By the 15th century, the Eastern Roman Empire was a shadow of its former self, little more than a city-state. Many of their vital ports and coastal territories on the Adriatic were taken by Venice and other Italian city-states, but by far the greatest existential threat came from the Ottoman Empire.

Since their rise in the 13th century, the Ottomans had been gaining ground, carving off huge chunks of the Byzantine Empire. By the mid-15th century, the emperor in Constantinople controlled the city itself, some coastline on the Black Sea, and the Peloponnese in southern Greece. Even this is an idealized look at the situation, with the government in Greece only paying lip service to the emperor. The city itself was in a state of disrepair, and the population had plummeted from nearly 500,000 at its height to less than 40,000. Huge districts of the city were abandoned and decaying. In 1453, the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II decided to finish the floundering Byzantine state off, once and for all.

Starting in early spring, the Ottomans began a blockade of Constantinople, setting up forts along the Bosporus to disrupt shipping. Mehmed also commissioned a Hungarian cannon maker to produce a gigantic cannon that would be able to simply blast apart the Theodosian Walls that protected the city. Knowing the siege was about to begin, the last Roman Emperor Constantine XI begged Europe for aid, but only around 1,500 soldiers from Venice and Genoa, and a few hundred others, were willing or able to arrive to help.

In spite of their dire situation, they refused to give in. With the legacy of both Roman and Greek history as a motivator, the defenders prepared themselves to fight to the bitter end. On April 2, the Ottomans arrived. Their plan was simple: besiege the city by land and sea, then use their 69 cannons, including the titanic siege gun, to blast the city into submission or create a breach in the walls to send the infantry through. In response, the Byzantines raised a great chain across the Bosporus to cut off Ottoman ships.

The Last Stand of Constantine XI

On April 6, the Ottoman cannons opened fire on the city. The biggest city-buster cannon could fire a 1,500-pound stone cannonball over a mile. This and the other cannons pounded the city, tearing chunks out of the walls. The defenders could only fire back with their much smaller guns and repair the damage during lulls in the barrage. Through their efforts, the Byzantines managed to keep the double walls intact.

Over the next six weeks, the Ottomans tried everything in their playbook, bombarding the city, launching infantry assaults, and undermining the walls. The defenders fought bitterly, and each attempt was repulsed. With Ottoman morale hanging by a thread, Mehmed ordered one final assault on the city. Knowing the end was approaching, the defenders performed a joint Catholic-Orthodox service at the Hagia Sophia.

On May 29, the Ottoman besiegers launched a massive coordinated assault from several directions, hoping to spread the defenders thin. One section of the walls, the Gate of St. Romanus, was defended by Genoese mercenaries under the command of the legendary Giovanni Giustiniani. Two waves were sent against the city, but were thrown back. The third wave was spearheaded by the Janissaries, the elite shock troops of the Ottoman military. During the fighting, Giustiniani was mortally wounded and carried through a small postern gate called the Kirkoporta. In the confusion, the gate was left open, and a group of Janissaries rushed into the opening. Soon, the Romanus Gate fell, and the Ottoman army was able to pour into the city.

According to tradition, when he saw the city falling, Emperor Constantine XI refused to flee the city, stating:

According to legend, he then took off his Imperial regalia and, along with his remaining bodyguards, charged at the onrushing Ottomans. He was killed in the fighting, though his body was never identified. His death marks the end of the line of Roman emperors that stretched back to Augustus. The Ottomans captured the city, mopped up the pockets of resistance, and moved their capital to Constantinople.

Thus, with the death of Constantine XI and the fall of Constantinople, the Roman Empire, which could trace its history back to a small village on the Tiber, came to an end.

In the early medieval era of the 700s AD, between Charles Martel, who halted the Islamic surge from Spain into Europe, and the first Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne, sits Pepin le Bref (“the short”), first King of the Carolingian dynasty. While his rule sits between his father, one of the greatest generals of the era following the fall of Rome, and his son, one of the greatest European leaders of all time, Pepin’s accomplishments stand on their own as significant in European history.

Why Pepin Might Not Have Been Short at All

Pepin’s description as “the short” was not necessarily due to his physical stature, but may have been due to misunderstandings of language combined with the necessity of distinguishing him from others with similar names. 

Pepin the Short is actually Pippin III of his family, after his grandfather Pippin of Herstal and ancestor Pippin of Landin. Before the Carolingians, they belonged to the Pippinid and Arnulfing families, which consistently produced competent leaders under the Merovingian rulers, and eventually supplanted the Merovingians as the Carolingians. 

Pippin’s description as “the short” does not appear until 300 years after his rule, and may have come from some language shifts around the word “minor” or “younger” rather than his physical height.

How Pepin Deposed the Merovingians to Become King

When his father, Charles Martel, died, Pepin was given the western part of the Frankish kingdom to rule, while his brother Carloman ruled the eastern portion. They considered their half-brother, Grifo, illegitimate, and the two pushed him out of any inheritance. While it is really unknown whether or not Grifo was to inherit anything beyond a few land holdings, he had ambitions to seize the full kingdom and was besieged by Pepin and Carloman at Laon in 741 AD, where Grifo was captured.  

Pepin and Carloman cooperated until 747 AD, when Carloman retired to a monastery. Pepin was left in practical control of the Frankish kingdom under the final Merovingian King Childeric III. At this time, Pepin the Short’s titles were Mayor of the Palace and Duke and Prince of the Franks, but the Kings at that time had little to no actual power, all of it now being vested in the mayor’s position.  

Pepin appealed to Pope Zachary regarding the issue of having the power of a king but not the title, and was given permission to depose Childeric. In 751 AD, Pepin did so, sending Childeric to a monastery, and crowned himself as King of the Franks. Grifo would escape and attempt to capture territory again, but Pepin would defeat him at the Battle of Saint-Jean de Maurienne in 753, where Grifo would be killed.

The Donation of Pepin and the Birth of the Papal States

Pepin continued the relationship his father had with Boniface, especially regarding church reforms. Boniface may actually be the one to have placed the crown upon Pepin’s head and anointed him at his coronation as well.

Probably the most significant matter between Pepin and the church was the Donation of Pepin in the 750s. Pepin had responded to the call for aid by Pope Stephen II when the Lombards under Aistulf threatened to invade the Duchy of Rome. Pepin responded by invading the area, forcing Aistulf out, and promised the land to the papacy, effectively establishing the papal states. The Donation resulted in giving the Pope temporal power as a sort of king over a larger region, a result that would have historical implications, particularly throughout the medieval era when the Pope controlled lands and armies through the Papal States.

At his death in 768 AD, Pepin left the kingdom to his sons Carolus (later known as Charlemagne) and Carloman. He had expanded the territory left by his father and strengthened the position of his family, laying the foundation for his son Charles’ greatness to come.

The classifications of languages are often simplified descriptions that omit vital parts of a language’s history. As such, the general description of English as being simply a Germanic language with French influence leaves out a massive and important part of its evolution.

The history of English is complex and includes a significant chapter that occurred as a result of the Viking invasions. The impact of this era on Anglo-Saxon society was marked by changes that shaped the development of culture and the English language we use today.

The hybridization was so intense that while English is described as a West Germanic language, and the lexicon certainly reflects this, its syntax resembles that of Norse. This is a dynamic that begs further interrogation as to the nature of how English should be described.

English Isn’t as Simple as West Germanic

The classification of languages is closely linked to the history of the peoples who spoke them. There is a diachronic relatedness between languages with a shared historical background, linked to the movement and the contact between the people who spoke them. Largely based on lexical factors, linguists are able to identify the evolution of a language and recognize relationships with other languages by looking at cognates (words with the same linguistic derivation), such as in brother (English), Bruder (German), bror (Norwegian), or even برادر (“baradar”—Persian).

Largely by this method, European languages are classified into several distinct groups, the largest of which are the Romance languages and the Germanic languages. The Romance languages are derived from Latin, and include French, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and Romanian, while those whose roots are Germanic include German, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Frisian, Icelandic, and English.

Germanic is further subdivided into West and North Germanic. West Germanic includes German, English, Frisian, Dutch, and Afrikaans, while North Germanic includes Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, and Icelandic. A third branch, East Germanic, contained the Gothic language and is now extinct.

The drawback of this classification system is that it does not holistically represent the combined sum of a language’s constituent parts. It omits grammatical variables such as syntax. Thus, classifying English as a West Germanic language does not address the fact that around 30 to 50 percent of the lexicon is from French, nor does it address the fact that English, as it is spoken today, has a grammatical structure more closely linked to Norwegian than Old English!

As such, some linguists contend that English should be reclassified as a North Germanic language, although this position is not widely followed and is contrary to the mainstream attitude.

The Anglo-Saxon Language Behind English

In the 5th century, after the departure of the Romans (AD 410), England played host to an increasing number of immigrants from the continent. The Angles, Saxons, and Jutes came from what is today Northern Germany and Denmark, and settled in England, warring with and displacing the Britons. With them came their cultures and languages, which ultimately merged into a single cultural-linguistic entity called “Anglo-Saxon,” also referred to as Old English.

It was an incredibly complex language. It was highly inflective, and words changed form to reflect their grammatical function regarding number and gender, case, and verb conjugation. While this aspect is much simpler in modern English, much of the core lexicon remains of West Germanic descent. Words such as “father,” “mother,” “house,” and “good” are all of West Germanic descent. However, many common words are of Old Norse descent, showing a strong influence from the Norse in England. They include words such as “they,” “knife,” “trust,” “leg,” “sky,” “skirt,” and “skull” amongst many others. The degree of common use of words from Old Norse was high enough that it altered Old English in a fundamental way.

The Viking Invasion of English

In AD 793, Viking raiders attacked the monastery of Lindisfarne off the northeast coast of Northumbria, marking a new and very influential era in English history. Over the next decades and centuries, England was a major focus for Norse settlement. The “Danes,” as they came to be known, set up their own kingdoms and challenged the Anglo-Saxons for dominance over the island. They established the Danelaw, a region of Norse control which covered roughly half of England.

Life wasn’t all about war and conflict, however. There were periods of peace, and people from both sides of the cultural divide interacted with one another, conducting trade, getting intimate, and, of prime relevance, talking to each other. This required a significant amount of mutual intelligibility, and speakers changed the way they spoke in order to accommodate others. Although there was already a significant amount of intelligibility, the main difficulty stemmed from all the inflections used in Anglo-Saxon as well as in Old Norse. Inflected endings were obscured and eventually abandoned in a process that could be regarded as simplification (or “inflectional decay” to be strictly academic). The gradual process of convergence was a natural result of these languages living together.

These inflections weren’t the only thing that changed. Languages can be classified typologically by word order, centering around the subject (S), object (O), and verb (V). English today exhibits the SVO syntactic format in contrast to Anglo-Saxon Old English, which often used the SOV format, although it must be noted that the word order in Old English was more flexible. Old Norse was an SVO language as well. This is a syntactic feature that was adopted by speakers of Old English, and as such, Old English evolved to have a more rigid structure, more in line with the word order exhibited by the Old Norse language, becoming an SVO language in the process.

Thus, English today exhibits not just a lexicon infused with a large proportion of words derived from Old Norse, but also a basic syntax and word order heavily influenced by the Viking language.

Is English Really a Hybrid Language?

The borrowing of syntactic structure from other languages is certainly unusual, and it has raised ideas as to whether English is actually a hybrid language that is neither a direct descendant of Old English nor Old Norse, and thus exists as a creole. This is, however, a fringe theory. Whether true or not, the existence of this theory speaks to the massive impact that Old Norse had on English.

The borrowing of syntax, however unusual, is not strictly unique to English. It has happened before, and English is just one of the examples. Romanian has lexical, morphological, and syntactic influence from Slavic languages. Other languages in this geographical area, such as Bulgarian, Macedonian, Greek, and Albanian, have also undergone syntactic convergence. These languages together are known as the Balkan Sprachbund.

Another example is Maltese, a Semitic language, which has undergone syntactic change due to its proximity to Romance languages such as Italian and Sicilian. Its core syntactic features remain Semitic, yet it has syntactic features that are influenced by neighboring Romance languages.

Meanwhile, creoles exist all over the world in abundance. This is the simplification and mixing of two languages, and it would not be unusual for English to potentially be rooted in this dynamic. Of course, admission of this would ruffle feathers in the English-speaking world, as it would mean a significant blow to the language’s perceived prestige.

English After the Vikings

Of course, English didn’t stop evolving after the Viking Era. Massive changes happened in the centuries that followed as well. Of major note was the Norman conquest in 1066. The Normans were originally of Scandinavian descent but mixed with the Franks and adopted their language to form their unique dialect of Norman French. This language held sway across the noble classes in England for some time and diffused into the English spoken by the common people of England. This is why English has so many words of French origin.

As a result, Germanic words and French words existed side by side, with the same meanings. Often, one word’s meaning would change slightly, given the context of its usage. Hence, the words “beef” and “pork,” both of French origin, are related to “cow” and “pig,” of Germanic origin. In French, “boeuf” (cognate with “beef”) and “porc” (cognate with “pork”) refer to the meat as well as the animal, a castrated ox or steer, and a pig, respectively. In England, the nobility, who spoke French, encountered the animal as meat on their plate, hence the slight differentiation in meaning.

As such, English evolved with incredible lexical diversity. England’s interest in the rest of the world (in a colonial fashion) also brought the language into close contact with other languages and increased lexical influences. Nevertheless, although debatable, it can be said that no language had as profound an effect on English as Old Norse.

Languages are extremely dynamic tools that do not and cannot operate without the human element. They exist for communication and are shaped by the communicative needs of their speakers. English is certainly a prime example of these claims. The massive shifts that happened as a result of its contact with Old Norse form an indelible and pronounced part of the language as it is spoken today.

In fact, the impact was so significant that Norwegian is widely regarded as the easiest language for a native English speaker to learn!

While movies and media often paint the Middle Ages as a dark era of quiet villages and muddy battlefields, the reality was radically different. Across Europe, Asia, and the Americas, sprawling medieval megacities thrived, some with over a million residents. To accommodate these vast populations, cities had advanced features such as paved boulevards, public hospitals, and sanitation systems. From hidden jungle megacities in Cambodia to floating island capitals in the Americas, these are ten of the largest cities from the Medieval world in terms of population, land area, and importance.

1. Angkor, Khmer Empire, Cambodia

Angkor was once the jewel of the Khmer Empire in present-day Cambodia. The city in the middle of the jungle was massive, both in land and population. In AD 1100, it was considered the largest city in the world. The metropolis sprawled over 1,000 square kilometers (390 square miles) and housed around one million people.

The only thing remaining from the grand city today is its central temple, Angkor Wat. But the capital city of the Khmer Empire was once a modern urban center, featuring roads as wide as airplane runways, canals, rice farms, the world’s largest hand-cut water reservoir, and an intricate system for utilizing the monsoon season to produce bountiful harvests. The city of Angkor was ruled by god-kings, who were believed to be the earthly incarnations of the Hindu God Shiva. The city’s population flourished, with schools and public hospitals

The “temple city,” as it is called today, was abandoned around the 1400s, due to a variety of factors, including military pressure from the neighboring Ayutthaya Kingdom, in modern-day Thailand, which captured the city in 1431. Climate change, shifts in trade routes, and the widespread adoption of Theravada Buddhism all weakened the city’s location and the power of its kings. Nevertheless, Angkor remains an incredibly popular tourist destination today. However, several conflicts over the past few hundred years have made the excavation and analysis of the site difficult, so archaeological work is still ongoing.

2. Baghdad, Abbasid Caliphate, Iraq

Baghdad, located in modern Iraq, was the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate from the early Middle Ages onwards. Construction began in AD 762, and by the end of the 8th century, the city was already home to half a million residents. It was the political and cultural center of the Middle East during its height, and between the 700s and 900s, approximately one million people lived in Baghdad or its suburbs.

It was constructed as two semi-circles on either side of the Tigris River. It had modern infrastructure including aqueducts and sewage systems, several public squares and gardens, and wide avenues. According to Yaqut, an Arabic scholar who lived a few centuries after the city’s heyday, the city’s avenues were built 40 cubits (60 feet) wide, and the city did not allow garbage or refuse to collect within its walls.

While Baghdad remained important throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern day, the Abbasid Caliphate was not what it once was after the 10th century, and the city declined. Two major attacks occurred during the Middle Ages, one in 1258 and one in 1401. Today, Baghdad is the capital of modern Iraq and is the second-largest city in the Arab world.

3. Gangaikonda Cholapuram, Chola Dynasty, India

The southern Indian city of Gangaikonda Cholapuram, which means the “city of the Chola who conquered the Ganges,” was founded by the emperor Rajendra Chola I in 1025 to commemorate his successful military expedition to the Ganges in North India. He established the city as his new imperial capital, and it thrived for the next 250 years.

The city was meticulously planned around the principles laid out in Tamil Vastu and Agama Sastra sacred texts. The central jewel of the city was the Brihadeeswarar Temple, dedicated to Shiva and renowned for its temple tower, intricate carvings, and impressive sculptures. It housed many treasures from the region conquered by the Chola dynasty. It also had a large artificial lake filled with water from the distant Ganges.

Thanks to Chola patronage, art, culture, and education thrived in the city, which grew to have a population of around one million people. But the city would decline with the declining power of the dynasty and was plundered of most of its riches. However, the Brihadeeswarar Temple continues to be an active center of worship and learning.

4. Constantinople, Byzantine Empire, Turkey

Constantinople served as the great epicenter of several empires. It was founded in AD 330by the Roman Emperor Constantine as the new capital of the Roman Empire, and the city reached its zenith in the early medieval period. The fall of the Western Roman Empire shifted global focus to the Eastern Roman Empire, with its Emperor, Justinian, ruling from Constantinople.

The large city was the capital of the Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman empires, often sitting at a population of around one million and acting as a major trade hub. Constantinople’s unique position straddling Europe and Asia poised the city to become a key player in international affairs and commerce. The Venetians, along with traders and merchants from the Middle and Far East, came to the city to do business.

However, Constantinople faced near-constant challenges, with sieges and battles often threatening to wipe it out. However, the city endured throughout the age of great medieval cities, becoming the capital of the Ottoman Empire in 1453. The city would remain a key player throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern period. Today, Constantinople is known as Istanbul in modern-day Turkey and is still a huge city with strategic importance in the international affairs of both Europe and Asia.

5. Cairo, Fatimid Dynasty, Egypt

Cairo, Egypt, was built in AD 969 by the Fatimid Dynasty to rival Baghdad as the largest city in the Islamic world. It was the capital of the dynasty and served as an example of power and enlightenment in Islam in the Middle Ages.

Cairo is known as “The City of a Thousand Minarets” for good reason. A truly Islamic city, the number is not fabricated, and some claim that there are even more than 1,000 mosques throughout the city. These places of worship, however, also served as places of administration and learning in the medieval city of Cairo. The Al-Hassan Mosque, Cairo’s first, was a center of education where thousands of young Egyptians and foreigners could learn, whether they were rich or poor.

When the city was taken over by the Mamluk Dynasty, mosques also served as hospitals and centers of community. The rulers, who had risen from slavery to power, cared for the lower classes and helped fortify the city as an Islamic stronghold against the Crusades. Cairo was also a key hub of commerce, as it sat at the confluence of European, African, and Asian trade. This position would make Cairo one of the world’s wealthiest medieval cities.

Today, Cairo is still the capital of Egypt and is the largest city in the Arab world. It is a center of Islamic power in Northern Africa, despite several modern conflicts.

6. Hangzhou, China

One of the seven ancient capitals of China, Hangzhou may have been one of the largest cities in the world in the 12th century. With a population of at least one million people and its position at the end of the Grand Canal, Hangzhou thrived as a capital for several Chinese dynasties.

Hangzhou’s location was paramount to its prosperity, as it sat directly within the Silk Road trade network. It flourished as a trading city, with archaeological evidence of products from Hangzhou being found as far away as Iran. It was the capital for both the Wuyue Kingdom and the Southern Song Dynasty. Even when it was not serving as a capital city, the strategic location of Hangzhou made it a powerful city.

Though it was well known for its wealth, Hangzhou was also a great center of Chinese culture, especially as it related to early literature and Buddhism. Its cultural and economic prowess attracted travelers like Marco Polo and Ibn Batuta, who wrote of the city in grandiose terms. Marco Polo declared that it was “without a doubt the finest and most splendid city in the world,” and he marveled at its paved streets and numerous bridges. Polo’s writings elucidate the splendor of Hangzhou in the 13th century, when it was still the largest city in the world.

Hangzhou is still an important economic and cultural center today, with thriving rice and silk production. Though it is no longer a capital, it is still a metropolis with a modern population of at least ten million people.

7. Kaifeng, China

Kaifeng, like Hangzhou, was another of the ancient capitals of China. It thrived during the Northern Song Dynasty of 960 and 1127, when it peaked with a population of around one million people. This was largely thanks to its strategic position connected to the mighty Yellow River, and later the Grand Canal, placing it on one of the country’s most important trade routes.

Kaifeng had an extensive canal system that facilitated transport around the city, and it was chosen as the capital by several other dynasties, including the Later Liang, Later Jin, Later Han, and Later Zhou dynasties. But even when it was not the official imperial capital, it remained a major regional hub in China’s northern plain. Its most striking architectural features were the Iron Pagoda and the Dragon Pavilion.

Like many other economic centers, Kaifeng also developed into a center for art, culture, science, and innovation as it attracted students and intellectuals, which led to it becoming an early hub for the printing industry. Kaifeng also attracted a well-documented Jewish community that brought unique artifacts, foods, and culture to the region.

Kaifeng waned after the fall of the Northern Song Dynasty and the Jurchen invasion in 1127. Today, it retains much of its ancient charm and is a popular tourist destination.

8. Paris, Capetian Kings, France

Still the capital of France today, Paris came out of relative obscurity and developed into the large, cosmopolitan city we know today, beginning in the Middle Ages. In the 10th century, Paris was considered little more than a provincial city that housed a cathedral and not much else. This changed, however, when the Capetian Kings decided to rule France from the Île de la Cité, not only making it the site of their royal palace, but also of the new Notre Dame Cathedral.

Under the Capetians, Paris became a city that was important on three fronts: religious, educational, and commercial. The Left Bank of the Seine was a hub for important French monasteries, as well as several colleges, which, at the time, became the leading educational institutions in Europe. On the Right Bank, the ports, merchants, and markets made the city into a commercial hub. Its prosperity, combined with a focus on religion and education, led to Paris becoming an important center of illuminated manuscripts and the first city to develop buildings in the Gothic style.

We have no concrete idea of the number of people living in Paris before 1328. However, the census of that year counted over 61,000 households within the city, making the population estimate anywhere from 210,000 to 270,000. Though the city faced several hardships, including sieges and the Bubonic plague, it recovered to become one of the most populous cities in the western world during the Middle Ages.

9. Tenochtitlan, Aztec Empire, Mexico

Perhaps the largest city in pre-Columbian America, Tenochtitlan was the capital of the expanding Aztec Empire from the 14th to the 15th century. It was built on an island in the middle of Lake Texcoco and was the site of royal palaces, temples, markets, and other public buildings that served the Aztec people well and contributed to the prosperity of the city and the empire.

The Aztec Empire, from Tenochtitlan, had vast trade networks from the Gulf of Mexico and possibly into the Inca Empire. The population was probably around 200,000 people and was split into complex social classes, the most complex in the Mesoamerican world.

When Spanish conquistadors arrived in the capital, they found a thriving city that was rivaled in population only by Paris or Venice in Europe. The palace of the emperor, Moctezuma II, was a sprawling complex that boasted zoos, botanical gardens, and aquariums. The city was, however, conquered by the Spanish, led by Hernán Cortés, and turned into a municipality of the Viceroyalty of New Spain.

While the city remained under Spanish rule for several hundred years, the capital of Mexico did not move and was built around the medieval capital. Tenochtitlan sits at the historic center of modern-day Mexico City and is still one of the most populous cities in the Americas, with a population of almost ten million people.

10. Venice, Republic of Venice, Italy

Considered by many to be the greatest maritime power of the Middle Ages, Venice began as a safe haven for refugees fleeing from the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. The marshy lagoon would serve as an important strategic location for what would become the Republic of Venice, as its access to the Mediterranean Sea allowed trade on a wider scope than the rest of Europe.

The city-state of Venice began conquering areas within the Eastern Mediterranean while it retained a high level of independence, both in religion and government, from Rome and other powers on the Italian peninsula. Venice was ruled by a doge, or a duke, who served for life and was elected by the Great Council of Venice. It was billed as a republic but was, in practice, ruled by oligarchs of the merchant classes.

The city-state of Venice grew steadily and became a great center of art, architecture, and publishing during the Middle Ages. Its Renaissance, considered to have begun before the general Italian Renaissance, was a direct result of its economic prowess and fostering of the arts in service to the maritime republic. Venice’s power was relatively unchecked until trade routes to the East Indies and the Americas opened in the 16th century, granting other European powers the same ability to foster effective trade as Venice.

Venice was incorporated into a unified Italy in the late 19th century, and though it is still a center of culture within Italy, it is not considered the power that it once was. Venice was a unique and completely maritime-focused power, thanks to its canals, which are now used for the likes of tourist gondola rides and water taxis rather than vast naval fleets.

While many of these medieval megacities eventually fell to ruin, plague, or conquest, their architectural and cultural legacies formed the foundation of the modern world. Would you like to read about some of the biggest and most sophisticated cities from the classical world?