Norman Conquest: Did you mean...?

Works and Days is an epic poem written in dactylic hexameter, credited to the 8th-century BCE Greek poet Hesiod. Hesiod is generally remembered for two epic works, Theogony and Works and Days but, like his contemporary Homer, he...

Romanos IV Diogenes ruled the Byzantine Empire from 1068 to 1071 CE. He was a military emperor, and his policies and campaigns served to shore up Byzantine defenses against the Seljuk Turks. However, in the aftermath of the...

Bjorn Ironside (also spelt Björn Ironside; Old Norse Bjǫrn Járnsíða) is a legendary Viking who in the stories surrounding him raids alongside his brothers and his father, the Viking chieftain Ragnar Lothbrok. While the legends...

Alexander II of Scotland reigned from 1214 to 1249 CE. Succeeding his father William I of Scotland (r. 1165-1214 CE), Alexander supported the northern barons in England against the unpopular King John of England (r. 1199-1216...

Manuel I Komnenos was emperor of the Byzantine Empire from 1143 to 1180 CE. Manuel continued the ambitious campaigns of his grandfather Alexios I and father John II to aggressively expand the boundaries of his empire. Manuel...

Dover Castle, located in the southern county of Kent, is one of the largest castles in England and one of the first to have concentric defensive walls. First built in 1066 CE by William the Conqueror to help prevent anyone repeating...

Matilda of Canossa (c. 1046-1115), the Countess of Tuscany (r. 1055-1115) and Vice-Queen of Italy (r. 1111-1115), was the final head of the noble House of Canossa following the deaths of her father in 1052 and her elder brother...

King John of England (aka John Lackland) ruled from 1199 to 1216 CE and he has gone down in history as one of the very worst of English kings, both for his character and his failures. He lost the Angevin-Plantagenet...

King Stephen of England, often called Stephen of Blois, ruled from 1135 to 1154 CE. His predecessor Henry I of England (r. 1100-1135 CE) had left no male heir and his nominated successor, his daughter Empress Matilda, was...

Henry II of England ruled from 1154 to 1189 CE. He gained the throne by negotiation with his predecessor King Stephen of England (r. 1135-1154 CE) following the civil war that had raged between that monarch and Henry's mother...