On the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the Pilgrims in New England on the Mayflower, Martyn Whittock explores the reasons for migration to the New World in 1620 and later, and the significance of those migrants, both at the time and their impact on the evolution of the USA...

At the time of the First Crusade southern France was strongly Catholic: the army led by Raymond IV of Toulouse was the largest single force to take part in the expedition and was recruited from all classes. Yet eighty years later the Count's grandson, Raymond V, sent this appeal form...

Matthew Restall explores current ideas about the end of the Aztec Empire. For an empire that existed half a millennium ago in a hemisphere far away, we have a remarkably clear sense of what brought the Aztecs down. Or at least, we think we do. Our general assumption is that the very nature of...

For their meeting in September 2017 the Bolton Branch requested a talk on Renaissance Italy. What they heard dealt with the Italian portion of the Borgia family, led by Pope Alexander VI, though the topicality of Catalan nationalism meant that the principal figures were introduced with comment on the Italian,...

In the light of present-day concerns about the place, in a modern world, of statues commemorating figures whose roles in history are of debatable merit, Dr Gregory Gifford puts the British Empire on trial, presenting a balanced case both for and against. In June 2020 when the statue of slave-trader Edward Colston...

This resource is a pamphlet titled ‘The Byzantine Empire on the Eve of the Crusades’ and written by R. J. H. Jenkins in 1953. As such, some of the scholarship has been updated since then, although it can provide useful historiography. It is not strange that there should in recent...

Adam Simmons draws our attention to the need for further research into the relationship between the medieval Kingdoms of Ethiopia and Nubia – a fascinating time and place in African history which is neglected in the historical archive and about which, so far, there are only limited sources. The kingdoms of Ethiopia...

The Reformation which Queen Elizabeth and her ministers created was a series of acts of state, but if we consider it only at the level of official hopes and pronouncements, we will paint a picture of hopeless unreality. For the Reformation to success, the government needed to follow up its...

Nine centuries after enthusiasm for pope Urban's expedition to Jerusalem swept western Europe the phenomenon of the first crusade continues to fascinate. This pamphlet examines the nature of the crusades and the motives of those who joined it, describes the hardships of the long journey to the Holy Land and...

As Christianity had spread across Europe, Islam had spread across the Middle East. At the end of the eleventh century the relationship between the Muslim leader of Jerusalem and the Christian communities and travellers to the city fractured. Along with other key relationships across Europe, the Middle East and around...

This classic pamphlet takes you through the French reformation, the first, second and third war of religion, The St Bartholomew's Day massacre and the Fourth War, the later wars, the Catholic League, Henry IV, the nobility, the towns, confessional violence, social contexts and warfare and its costs.

Historical labels are dictated by a wayward fashion; and the name which is still most commonly associated with the first struggle of Empire and Papacy (1076-1122). "The Investiture Disputes," is neither lucid or appropriate. It has been commoner for historians to name the great wars of history after the issues...

The diversity of the history of the British Isles continues to be a subject of discussion in academic circles and in popular culture. Some communities have been around for hundreds of years, while others have been part of our societies and then disappeared or been eroded. One of the communities...

When Bernard of Clairvaux died in 1153, the Cistercian Order was faced with a problem. The self-proclaimed ‘chimera of his age’ had enjoyed an unusual and varied monastic career, as abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Clairvaux and papal confidante, making him remarkably well-known for a monk. At the funeral the...

The First Crusade may be considered the only really successful crusade in that it achieved its stated goal, but it demanded great courage and stamina of its participants in their journey to the Holy City of Jerusalem, fighting their way through an unforgiving hostile territory. But courage and stamina by...

Helen Rawlings reviews the recent literature which has prompted a fundamental reappraisal of the Spanish Inquisition. The Spanish Inquisition — first established in 1478 in Castile under Queen Isabella I and suppressed in 1834 by Queen Isabella II — has left its indelible mark on the whole course of Spain’s...

The English Reformation of the Sixteenth century had been a compromise, both politically and theologically. The administrative framework of the medieval church, with its system of church courts, private patronage, pluralism, the social and financial gulf between the lower and higher clergy, its inadequacy of clerical education and its hierarchical...

The eighth-century monk is renowned as the ‘Father of English History’, but recent scholarship has demonstrated how important he was as a scientist and theologian and how his writings on the Bible can illuminate his famous history.

The recent attacks on Karl Marx’s grave in Highgate Cemetery have added impetus to the public debate about how we memorialise the dead and the public and private costs of mourning.

Guy de la Bédoyère considers whether the Roman Empire ever really fell or simply went through endless processes of change that makes it an integral presence in our lives today. The fall of the Roman Empire is like the end of the dinosaurs. It’s one of the vast dramatic crisis moments we love...