Medieval

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

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....

Imagine you could travel back to the 14th century. What would you see? What would you smell? More to the point, where are you going to stay? And what are you going to eat....

What have a deaf nun, the mother of the first baby born to Europeans in North America, and a condemned heretic to do with one another? They are among the virtuous virgins, marvelous maidens, and fierce feminists of the Middle Ages who trail-blazed paths for women today....

Lost Enlightenment chronicles this forgotten age of achievement, seeks to explain its rise, and explores the competing theories about the cause of its eventual demise....

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

The Viking Age - from 750 to 1050 saw an unprecedented expansion of the Scandinavian peoples into the wider world. As traders and raiders, explorers and colonists, they ranged from eastern North America to the Asian steppe....

The fifteenth century was a turbulent age: the Hundred Years War between England and France, and the Wars of the Roses dominated the lives of people both inside and out of the royal courts.

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....

Valkyries: the female supernatural beings that choose who dies and who lives on the battlefield. They protect some, but guide spears, arrows, and sword blades into the bodies of others. Viking myths about valkyries attempt to elevate the banality of war....

A new and radically original account of the longest military conflict in European history, which challenges the conventional periodization of the 'Hundred Years War' to consider a much longer period of Anglo-French conflict.

The bulk of the audiobook will deal with what Vlad’s political career looked like, what wars he waged, and how his life eventually ended. But we’ll go one step beyond and cover some areas that historians don’t typically focus on....

The Middle Ages was a time of major historical shifts and transformations. This amazing era reverberates with discoveries, events, and processes integral to the world we know now. In these 24 lectures, Professor Salisbury leads you on a sumptuous tour of this incredible historical epoch....

This tenth anniversary revised edition of the authoritative text on Christianity's first thousand years of history features a new preface and an updated bibliography....

Through its characters, themes, and stories, The Canterbury Tales is a portal into medieval Europe and can thus be a useful tool in expanding our knowledge and challenging our assumptions about what life was truly like in plague times....

An unmissable collaboration between two comedy legends – an irresistible, family-friendly deep dive into the murky lives of the British monarchy.

Lancater and York is a riveting account of the Wars of the Roses, from the beloved and best-selling historian Alison Weir....

The millennium between the breakup of the western Roman Empire and the Reformation was a long and hugely transformative period....

Our capital city has always been a thriving and colorful place, full of diverse and determined individuals developing trade and finance, exchanging gossip and doing business....

This erudite book tells the fascinating, often violent story of kings, generals, and the peoples they ruled....

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....

In this groundbreaking intellectual biography, Robert Irwin provides the definitive account of the life and thought of the medieval Arab genius who wrote the Muqaddima....

The Viking Great Army landed in East Anglia in late 865 and over the following fifteen years it fought numerous battles in all four Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, made and broke peace treaties, and deposed or killed at least three Anglo-Saxon kings, replacing them with its own appointees.

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

These 24 lectures trace a journey from Scandinavia across central Europe to the farthest reaches of the Byzantine and Islamic empires, providing insight to this one-lost era....

Founded on Christmas Day 1119 in Jerusalem, the Knights Templar was a religious order dedicated to defending the Holy Land and its Christian pilgrims in the decades after the First Crusade. Legendary for their bravery and dedication, the Templars became one of the wealthiest and most powerful bodies of the medieval world—and the chief defenders of Christian society against growing Muslim forces.

Willie, Willie, Harry, Stee, Harry, Dick, John, Harry three. One, two, three Neds, Richard Two, Henries, four, five, six, then who? Charlie Higson has always been interested in the story of the fabled English monarchy: from the b*stardly to the benevolent, brilliant to the brutal. In this wonderful new book, with the famous rhyme he learned at school as his trusty guide, Charlie takes the plunge into the storied history of this most treasured of institutions – introducing listeners to every single ruler since poor Harold was shot in the eye at the Battle of Hastings.

Parker unlocks secrets that point to more complex motivations within the marauding army that in the late-9th century voyaged to the shores of eastern England in its sleek, dragon-prowed longships. Exploring legends from forgotten medieval texts, and across the varied Anglo-Saxon regions, she depicts Vikings who came not just to raid but also to settle personal feuds, intervene in English politics and find a place to call home. Native tales reveal the links to famous Vikings like Ragnar Lothbrok and his sons, Cnut, and Havelok the Dane.

Livingston argues that the English lens through which the war has been viewed has led historians to define it in terms of English interests (most famously, the claim of the English Plantagenet king Edward III to be the rightful king of France), and that the events collectively labelled the ‘Hundred Years War’ are best seen as a sequence of steps in France’s struggle to define itself as a nation. For much of the period, France’s primary rival was indeed England. But it was by no means the only combatant. Burgundy stood in its way, too, as did Brittany, Flanders, Navarre and other rival powers.

Featuring iterations of fairy tales and sinister descendants of Greek myths and bible stories, as well as a cast of lesser-known characters with names like Tam Lim, Child Wynd and Maisery, Old Songs threads a tapestry of Britain's landscape, history and cultures. At the base of hills we can visit to this day, elf queens kidnap hapless poets and carry them through rivers of blood; and at the foot of a tree whose offspring still stand in the forests of Northumberland, a girl mimes combing the hairless head of a dragon who was once her brother.