The Last Supper

Religion

Salem: Investigating the Witch Trials HistoryExtra podcast series title card

Salem witch trialsEpisode 9: conclusion. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Salem: Investigating the Witch Trials HistoryExtra podcast series title card

Salem witch trialsEpisode 8: Willful, weak-minded women?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Salem: Investigating the Witch Trials HistoryExtra podcast series title card

Salem witch trialsEpisode 7: Quarrelsome neighbours & family tensions. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Salem: Investigating the Witch Trials HistoryExtra podcast series title card

Salem witch trialsEpisode 6: Chaos in the courtroom. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Salem: Investigating the Witch Trials HistoryExtra podcast series title card

Salem witch trialsEpisode 5: Satanic sabbaths and supernatural sins. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A scene from the Salem witch trials, depicted in a 19th-century lithograph. How two girls’ accusations of witchcraft escalated into one of the darkest episodes in early American history has long puzzled historians. (Image by Alamy)

When the devil stalked Salem: the story of the Salem witch trials

Salem: Investigating the Witch Trials HistoryExtra podcast series title card

Salem witch trialsEpisode 4: The pervasive power of puritanism. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Salem: Investigating the Witch Trials HistoryExtra podcast series title card

Salem witch trialsEpisode 3: A ‘new Jerusalem’ on the edge of a wilderness. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Salem: Investigating the Witch Trials HistoryExtra podcast series title card

Salem witch trialsEpisode 2: How events spiralled out of control. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Salem: Investigating the Witch Trials HistoryExtra podcast series title card

Salem witch trialsEpisode 1: introduction. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Tourists at Stonehenge. We have no better idea today than 200 years ago what the people who erected these sarsens truly believed. (Getty Images)

Prehistoric religion: a pagan riddle we will never solve?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Dr Benjamin Pohl explores the role of monks and abbots in the Middle Ages, and asks: why did they write histories?

Why did medieval monks write histories?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A stone bust of the Greek god Dionysius

The gods and their whims: your guide to ancient Greek religion

Neil Faulkner reveals how the Anglo-Arab Wars of 1870-1920 helped give rise to the first modern jihad

Jihad and the British empire. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

An Anglo-Saxon cross from the church of St Michael

Anglo-Saxon conversion: the coming of the cross (at the point of a sword)

A bust of Ashoka the Great

History heroNihal Arthanayake chooses Ashoka the Great (c304–c232 BC). This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Illustration of German Dominican preacher Johann Tetzel selling indulgences inside a church

Q&AWhat are indulgences, how were they abused in medieval times, and what do they have to do with the Reformation?

An architectural grotesque of a woman displaying her vulva

How naughty was the past? The hidden depths of the medieval church

Portrait Of Edward Seymour (Colorized)

Edward Seymour: the fall of the dithering dictator

Q&A: What was the punishment of being ‘burnt in the hand’?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Everything you wanted to know about the church in medieval England – Nicholas Orme podcast

The church in medieval England: everything you wanted to know. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

African Europeans. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Bretons, Britons, Celts & King Arthur. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Medieval Ethiopia’s diplomatic missions. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A 12th-century Celtic round tower at Clonmacnoise, County Offaly

“The power of the Irish over the Britons is great”: Fergal Keane on Britain's Irish roots

Bloodied feet, outrageous breasts and the sinister power of a hair cut: a history of the body

Muslim-Crusader interactions: a clash of civilisations?

Four knights hack Thomas Becket to death

Europe's greatest martyr: how Thomas Becket rose from the dead

Excerpt from the Textus Roffensis showing Christ and a dragon

The Textus Roffensis: a medieval manuscript to rival Magna Carta

The Clifford’s Tower massacre & medieval anti-Semitism. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.