Religion

The complexities of Haitian Vodou were misunderstood and exploited by imperialists, with tales of human sacrifices and cannibalism a backdrop to the US invasion of 1915.

The bodies of Jan Bockelson, and two other leaders of the Anabaptist sect, were hung outside the church of St Lambert on 22 January 1536.

The medieval insistence on clerical celibacy had dangerous and long-lasting consequences. 

Muslims from Asia who wished to travel to Mecca on the Hajj were exploited by a trade in human cargo that grew with the opening of the Suez Canal.

We ask four historians to consider the reputation of Henry II’s Archbishop of Canterbury, who was murdered 850 years ago this month.

William Chester Jordan’s study of one of medieval Europe’s great monastic rivalries suggests that social mobility may have been more common in the Middle Ages than historians previously thought.

Kathryn Hadley examines the life and enduring influence of the French theologian 500 years after his birth.

Whether a museum or mosque, Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia has been a monument to selective readings of Turkey’s history.

Was Nero the Antichrist? The bestial image of the Roman emperor as the enemy of Christians persists, but the truth is more complex.

Views of the afterlife in early Christianity.