Medieval Europe: Did you mean...?

Young English Heritage Members Emily and Sam visit Rievaulx Abbey in North Yorkshire to meet St Aelred, its most famous abbot, to discover what life was like in this Cistercian monastery. Find out what the monks used to eat, how they...

Europe during the most recent glacial, in which the ice sheets reached peak growth between c. 26.500 to c. 19,000 years ago. This is known as the Last Glacial Maximum. Sea levels were lower than today.

One of the major motivating factors in the European Age of Exploration was the search for direct access to the highly lucrative Eastern spice trade. In the 15th century, spices came to Europe via the Middle East land and sea routes, and spices...

The Peace of Westphalia (1648), concluded through treaties signed at Osnabrück and Münster (May-October 1648), marked the end of two major conflicts: the Thirty Years’ War and the Eighty Years’ War. What began as a religious and dynastic...

Batu Khan (l. 1205-1255 CE) was a grandson of Genghis Khan and the founder of the Golden Horde. Batu was a skilled Mongol military commander and won battles from China to Persia, although his most famous exploits involve the grand Mongol...

A map illustrating the growing instability in Europe in the lead-up to World War II, capturing the aggressive territorial expansion of Nazi Germany and the failure of appeasement. Between 1935 and 1939, a series of bold geopolitical moves...

Feudalism was the system in 10th-13th century European medieval societies where a social hierarchy was established based on local administrative control and the distribution of land into units (fiefs). A landowner (lord) gave a fief, along...

The Most Noble Order of the Garter is the highest order of knighthood in Britain and the most exclusive with traditionally only 24 knights as full members at any one time, along with the reigning monarch and the Prince of Wales. Created by...

Poetry is the first form of literary expression in the world as evidenced by The Epic of Gilgamesh, the oldest piece of world literature. For over 4,000 years, people have been writing poetry to express personal, communal, or global experiences...

This map illustrates the major religious divisions across Europe during the 16th century, a period marked by the sweeping changes of the Reformation. As Protestant movements challenged the authority of the Catholic Church, the religious landscape...