Pope Urban II: Did you mean...?

The centurion (centurio in Latin) was an officer in the Roman army whose experience and valour were a crucial factor in maintaining order on the battlefield and ensuring Rome's military successes spanned over centuries. A centurion...

The Crusades were a series of military campaigns organised by popes and Christian western powers to take Jerusalem and the Holy Land back from Muslim control and then defend those gains. There were eight major official crusades between...

The Doctrine of Discovery is a policy enacted initially by the 15th-century Catholic Church proclaiming the right of Christian nations to take possession of the lands of non-Christians in the interest of saving their souls...

Antisemitism is a modern term that describes prejudice and hostility to Jews and Judaism. The origins of Christian antisemitism in the gospels are based on the story of a 1st-century itinerant...

The Magna Carta or 'Great Charter' was an agreement imposed on King John of England (r. 1199-1216) on 15 June 1215 by rebellious barons in order to limit his power and prevent arbitrary royal acts like land confiscation and unreasonable...

Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor (1459-1519), belonged to the imperial House of Habsburg, and the imperial electors made him King of the Romans in 1486 during his father's lifetime, thus establishing...

The Sixth Crusade (1228-1229 CE), which for many historians was merely the delayed final chapter of the unsuccessful Fifth Crusade (1217-1221 CE), finally saw the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II (r. 1220-1250 CE) arrive with his...

The Hussite Wars (1419 to c. 1434) were a series of conflicts fought in Bohemia (modern-day Czech Republic) between followers of the reformer Jan Hus and Catholic loyalists toward the end of the Bohemian Reformation (c. 1380 to c...

Johann Eck (l. 1486-1543) was a Catholic theologian and writer best known for his disputations with Martin Luther (l. 1483-1546) beginning in 1517 and continuing until his death in 1543. Eck maintained the position that, if anyone...

The Reconquista (Reconquest) or Iberian Crusades were military campaigns largely conducted between the 11th and 13th century CE to liberate southern Portuguese and Spanish territories, then known as al-Andalus, from the Muslim Moors...