The Last Supper

Religion

Novelist Kate Mosse on The City of Tears. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

This image from the Nibelungenlied manuscript shows Pilgrim welcoming Kriemhild, a fictional character described as his neice in the text (Photo by Alamy)

The forged texts of the Middle Ages: why Europe's holy men turned to counterfeiting

The ruins of the once magnificent Roche Abbey

The dissolution of the monasteries: mindless violence or planned precision?

A fanciful engraving imagines Peter the Hermit presenting Pope Urban II (centre) with a letter from Simeon II

Launching the First Crusade

Canossa: a medieval clash between church and state

Illustration of a mummy with mask

How to make an Egyptian mummy in 6 steps

A composite image of Joseph Stalin (left) and Adolf Hitler

Second World War

Hitler and Stalin’s utopian dreams

Félix Kir in 1947, when he was the mayor of Dijon

Second World War

History heroSimon Farnaby chooses Félix Kir (1876–1968)

Thomas Becket: from murder to martyrdom. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Monument to Prince Vladimir the Great in Moscow

Q&AWho were the Kievan Rus and what do they have to do with the Vikings?

Vahalla is depicted as a round-topped building in this funerary stone from 8th-century Sweden

Valhalla: fighting and feasting in the Viking warrior afterlife

A helmet from a chieftain's grave in 10th-century Norway. (Images by Getty)

Inside the Viking mind: the view of the Vikings' world from 5 perspectives. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Rushton Triangular Lodge was ostensibly a warrener's lodge but the biblical references that adorn its three exterior walls tell a different story. (Photo English Heritage/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

History explorer: Catholic resistance to Elizabeth I. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The Huguenots vs France: who were the Huguenots and what did they believe?

How did the Reformation impact Jews?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Illustration showing Roman Saturnalia banquet. (Photo by Alamy)

Saturnalia: the origins of the debauched Roman 'Christmas'

Thomas Cromwell, Tudor statesman and 'alter rex'.

Your guide to Cardinal Wolsey, Tudor statesman and prince of the church

Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin vs God: did the 'Origin of Species' cause a clash between church and science?

Oswald, the many-headed medieval saint. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Thomas More: saint or sinner?

A painting of 1616 depicts the Moriscos boarding ships to sail from the port of Valencia

The 17th-century expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain: what happened?

The battle of Dover, 24 August 1217, (image c1880). (Photo by Print Collector/Getty Images)

Eustace the Monk: one of medieval Europe's unholiest holy men

In 802 Charlemagne took delivery of an elephant, sent to him by Harun al-Rashid, the caliph in Baghdad. Here, a manuscript illumination from a late 12th century English Latin bestiary. (Image by Alamy)

8 turning points in medieval European history

The storming of Beziers

Medieval turning points. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Q&A: Why and how did the Aztecs practise human sacrifice?

Empire builder Maharajah Ranjit Singh sits astride a horse as an attendant holds a parasol over him. Singh is historically credited with growing his ancestral warrior-clan, the Sukerchakia misl, into a grand imperial dynasty. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images via Getty Images)

A Sikh tragedy: the Indian kingdom that fell foul of the British empire

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

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

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