Bede the venerable: Did you mean...?

Smasher of Napoleon's invasion dream, veteran of three major wars, and scene of the death of the Royal Navy's greatest hero, HMS Victory is one of Britain's most famous warships. Curiously, and despite being on permanent display as a tourist...

The Historia Augusta (Great History) is a Latin work of the 4th century CE that chronicles the lives of Roman emperors from 117-285 CE. Among the many stories related is the history of Zenobia of Palmyra and her challenge to Roman authority...

Drust I (also known as Drest I, Drest son of Irb, and Drest son of Erb) was an early king of the Picts known as "The King of One Hundred Battles" that he seems to have been victorious in. His reign is given as 406-451 CE, 413-451 CE, 424-451...

King Arthur is among the most famous literary characters of all time. The Arthurian legend of the Knights of the Round Table, Camelot, the Quest for the Holy Grail, the love affair of Lancelot and Guinevere, and the wizard Merlin have informed...

Vortigern was a 5th-century British ruler best known for inviting the Saxons to Britain to stop the incursions of the Picts and Scots and allowing them to take control of the land. 'Vortigern' is a title, not a given name, and means 'Great...

Ancient Britain was a landmass on the northwest of the continent of Europe first occupied by humans c. 800,000 years ago prior to it becoming an island c. 6000 BCE due to flooding which separated it from the mainland. Agriculture began to...

The Roman town of Pompeii was preserved in metres of volcanic material following the cataclysmic eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 CE. Often, we may experience the ancient past only through the second-hand interpretations of historians and archaeologists...

A medieval monastery was an enclosed and sometimes remote community of monks led by an abbot who shunned worldly goods to live a simple life of prayer and devotion. Christian monasteries first developed in the 4th century in Egypt and Syria...

The Dissolution of the Monasteries was a policy introduced in 1536 CE by Henry VIII of England (r. 1509-1547 CE) to close down and confiscate the lands and wealth of all monasteries in England and Wales. The plan was designed as a lucrative...

Aethelstan (also given as Athelstan) - the figure on the left - reigned as King of the Anglo-Saxons from 924–927 CE and as King of the English from 927-939 CE. He is here depicted in the frontispiece of Bede's Life of St Cuthbert as presenting...