The Last Supper

Religion

Catholics in Elizabethan England. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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&AWhat does Jesus have to do with cockerel weather vanes?

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

Elizabethan England’s relationship with the Islamic world

Illustation by Femke de Jong.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The big questions of the Holocaust. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

What religion was practised by the people of Lithuania before their conversion to Christianity in the 14th century?

Medieval Albigensians: Bath’s reincarnated heretics

Wolfson History Prizes: Nazi camps and St Augustine. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The ruins of Fountains Abbey in North Yorkshire. Henry’s motives when dismantling such monasteries “were much more complex than pure revenge or pure avarice alone”, says Adam Morton. (Photo by Getty Images)

History explorer6 places to explore the dissolution of the monasteries. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The Dissolution and a forgotten colony. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

c1754: Siege of a town led by Godefroy de Bouillon (c1060-1100) 1st Crusade (1095-1099), showing Saracens firing arrows at Crusaders as they attempt to scale the walls. From manuscript of Roman de Godefroy de Bouillon. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

5 things you (probably) didn't know about the Crusades

Muslims and Jews in the 16th century. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Vulcan caught Venus and Mars in a net and shows them to the laughing Gods. (Photo by Imagno/Getty Images)

Religion in ancient Rome: what did they believe?

The tomb of the Crusader knight Richard de Crupes.

Books interview with Christopher Tyerman: "Religious war isn't an irrational act, and we shouldn't dismiss it as irrational". This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Anglo-Saxon saints and British slave-owners. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Terror in Elizabethan England. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The perils of piety in Tudor England

In pictures: medieval stained glass