Medieval

J.J.N. McGurk describes how vanity and the ambitions of families and religious houses prompted the widespread invention of documents upon property and genealogy.

During the first half of the thirteenth century, Matthew Paris recorded in words and drawings the events of world history. W.N. Bryant tells his story.

G.W.S. Barrow tells the story of a twelfth-century London student in revolt.

Herman Ramm unearths the medieval roots of a Jorvik landmark.

A.L. Rowse analyses heraldry as an essential element in the social history of England in the later middle ages and early modern period.

John Fines introduces Thorpe, a follower of Wyclif for thirty years, who was tried for heresy in 1407.

G.V. Orange describes how, towards the end of the fifteenth century, Portuguese navigators rounded the Cape of Good Hope.

Elizabeth Linscott describes how English churches and cathedrals, from the twelfth to the seventeenth centuries, abound in memorial effigies to the distinguished dead.

A.D. Lacy describes how, under the leadership of Pierre d’Aubusson, the Knights Hospitallers at Rhodes withstood a ferocious attack by the Turks.

Bryan Waites describes how, both in the Mediterranean and in the Atlantic, the medieval powers of Europe found that the oared galley was a very effective weapon of war.