Religion

Michael Wood reveals how Hadrian, a little-known “man of Africa”, helped lay the foundations of English culture

The African who transformed Anglo-Saxon England

A reconstruction of an extract from the Book of the Dead depicting an embalming scene. (Photo by De Agostini Picture Library via Getty Images)

Guidebook to the Ancient Egyptian afterlife

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The ‘Pilgrims’ stride onto American soil in 1620 after crossing the Atlantic on the Mayflower, as shown in a 20th-century painting by WJ Aylward (Photo by Getty Images)

The Mayflower . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A spider on its web, woodcut, 1547. (Image courtesy of Wellcome Collection)

A sign of the devil or a miracle cure? How people felt about spiders in the Middle Ages

Illustration by Joey Guidone

The big question: has terrorism ever achieved its aims?

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Selim I

The extraordinary life of Sultan Selim I . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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The Pilgrim fathers arrive at Plymouth, Massachusetts on board the Mayflower. (Photo by Harold M. Lambert/Kean Collection/Archive Photos/Getty Images)

“They decided that God must be leading them to North America”: the Puritans journey to the Mayflower . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The pilgrim fathers

Your guide to the Pilgrim Fathers, plus 6 interesting facts

Painting of Martin Luther translating the New Testament into German vernacular in 1521 (Photo by Fine Art Photographic Library/Corbis via Getty Images)

Your guide to Martin Luther, the theologian who launched the Reformation

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A replica of Jesus' tomb. (Photo by Alamy)

History’s greatest mysteries The fate of Jesus's body . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The capture of Jerusalem in 1099

How the First Crusade captured Jerusalem in 1099

St Swithin (or Swithun). (Image by Alamy)

Q&A Who was St Swithin?

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Stained glass window of King Alfred the Great

Exclusive podcast The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Taking of Jerusalem by the Crusaders, Painting by Emile Signol (1804–1892), (Photo by Leemage/Corbis via Getty Images)

Blog Medieval(ish) matters 11: Did women fight in the crusades? And why did people follow a goose to the Holy Land?

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A 13th-century illumination showing the coronation of Foulques and Melisende. (Photo by Alamy)

Women and the crusades . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.