Religion

In the ninth century Pope Nicholas I decreed that St Peter’s symbol, the cockerel, should be displayed on all churches and many incorporated the design into weather vanes. Pictured here is the St Thomas church spire, Melbury Abbas in Dorset, United Kingdom. (Photo by Tim Graham/Getty Images)

Q&A What does Jesus have to do with cockerel weather vanes?

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Podcast Website large Antonia Fraser

Britain’s Catholic emancipation . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A group of men wearing togas assault Julius Caesar in this painting depicting his assassination.

Violence, rebellion and sexual exploitation: the darker side of Ancient Rome

A painting depicting the battle of the White Mountain

Europe’s apocalypse: the Thirty Years’ War

A scene from ’Othello’ by William Shakespeare, published in 1622. The play “seems to have been influenced by Anglo-Moroccan relations that reached their high point in the summer of 1600,” writes Brotton. (Culture Club/Getty Images)

Elizabethan England’s relationship with the Islamic world

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Illustation by Femke de Jong.

Michael Wood on Anglo-Saxon Christianity . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Historian Simon Schama.

Books interview: Simon Schama . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

General Edmund Allenby walks into Jerusalem on 11 December 1917

The Balfour Declaration: Britain’s unholy mess

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Living with the Gods . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Catherine Nixey and Edith Hall on the HistoryExtra podcast

Christianity and the classical world . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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

Travelling Mass set, c1535, consisting of a silver-gilt chalice; a paten (Communion plate) and a glass bottle for wine, with a leather box in which to carry them. (Photo by Museum of London/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Henry VIII’s savage Reformation

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Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Christopher de Bellaigue in conversation

The Islamic Enlightenment: Christopher de Bellaigue and Yasmin Alibhai-Brown in conversation . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Illustration of the capture of Jerusalem during the third crusade

Crusader, deserter and traitor: the life and legacy of Raymond III of Tripoli

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5 things you (probably) didn’t know about the Dark Ages