Medieval

Michael E. Martin recounts how Normans from Italy invaded the Byzantine Empire and Robert Guiscard sought to inherit the Imperial Crown.

M. Foster Farley describes how, during his five years in the Vatican, Nicholas Breakspear had important dealings with the Holy Roman Empire, England and Ireland, and the Norman kingdom of Sicily.

During the seventh century AD a Celestial Emperor’s concubine herself became Empress; in effect, she ruled China for 50 years.

J.P. Harthan describes The Salisbury Book of Hours; compiled in Rouen about 1425, the prayer-book owes its name to one of the best English commanders in France.

Stephen Clissold describes a world of Christian slaves and Moslem masters in North Africa, from the twelfth to the nineteenth centuries.

Philip E. Burnham Jr. describes how the court of Clement VI at Avignon became a model of humanism and scholarship for princely courts elsewhere in Europe.

Alan Haynes describes how, menaced by the Turks, the Emperor Manuel sought western help on his visits to Italy, France and England.

Simon de Montfort was an active commander in Gascony. William Seymour describes how, in 1264-5, the Anglo-Norman nobleman fought his two vital English battles at Lewes and Evesham.

J.J.N. McGurk profiles Roger Bacon; a 13-century Franciscan, with a reputation as a necromancer, who showed a remarkable combination at Oxford and in Paris of philosophic and scientific gifts.

J.J.N. McGurk describes the life and times of a controversial philosopher of the early twelfth century.