We all know the Middle Ages was full of archers in warfare, bard’s songs, and castles with clockwise stairs. One aspect of medieval life we don’t usually picture, however, is the way society at the ...

The medieval period often gets painted as a thousand years of darkness, filth, and ignorance. Popular culture loves to show us dirty peasants wallowing in mud, superstitious fools who thought the ...

Medieval history holds surprises that most people never learn about. The era was governed by bizarre laws and unexpected traditions that shaped everything from fashion to justice. Popular ...

What was life like in the Middle Ages? If you believe what you’ve seen in movies—or maybe even what your history teacher told you—you might expect that people died young, never bathed, were ignorant ...

Since the dawn of humanity, dogs and humans have lived side by side as friends, companions, and fellow hunters. Pet dogs have been depicted in prehistoric cave paintings, on the walls of ancient ...

In the ninth and tenth centuries, castles were often built of wood and easily burned down by enemies. As unrest spread across Europe and warfare began to change, castle designs had to adapt. Looming ...

Olivia Swarthout has brought medieval art to the masses (460K Twitter followers and counting) but she’s not formally trained in medieval history or art. A self-described “proprietress of weird ...

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