Britain & Ireland

Women and social history can be overlooked themes in periods where records tended to focus on money, religion and Kings. While those latter themes are covered in this section so are features on individual women, their relationships with power and how they were able to influence politics and the people around them. Social history is also addressed through the stories of Hermits, soldiers, tax records and revolting peasantry with nobles. Read more

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  • Edward the Confessor and the Norman Conquest

    Article

    Nine hundred years have elapsed since the death of Edward the Confessor, the last English king descended directly from Cerdic, king of Wessex in the sixth century - and so from the pagan gods. Nine hundred years are a long time; and if Edward had been succeeded by a son,...

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  • Eleanor of Aquitaine’s journey

    Article

    Danielle E.A. Park takes us on a journey across the Pyrenees and Alps with a redoubtable woman. Eleanor of Aquitaine has acquired a reputation as something of a femme fatale. Her considerable inheritance of Aquitaine, marriages to two kings, the allegations of an affair with her uncle Raymond  of Poitiers,...

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  • Exploring local sources

    Article

    Tim Lomas was correct when he said, in his article in the Summer 2019 edition of The Historian, that historians can see much more in medieval documents than the scribes intended.  Lay manors in Bedfordshire are a good example. Eggington manor, in the south-west, was part of a larger estate and held...

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  • Film: A Jewish Divorce Case in Medieval England

    Article

    In 1242, the prominent thirteenth-century Jewish financier David of Oxford attempted to divorce his wife, Muriel. In the process, he met with a number of obstacles which seriously hampered his efforts and had far-reaching implications for the Jewish community as a whole. In the end, David had to appeal directly...

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  • Film: Building Anglo-Saxon England

    Article

    Building Anglo-Saxon England demonstrates how recent excavations enable us to grasp for the first time the diversity of the Anglo-Saxon built environment. The book explores how the natural landscape was modified for human activity, and how settlements were laid out with geometrical precision by specialist surveyors. It also shows how...

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  • Foreigners in England in the later Middle Ages

    Article

    In an era when there are great debates about immigration and what constitutes nationality, Mark Ormrod introduces us to a new research database which reveals that immigration was an important feature of economic, cultural and political debate in the period 1330-1550... In the Middle Ages, the political configuration of the...

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  • French chivalry in twelfth-century Britain?

    Article

    The year 1066 - the one universally remembered date in English history, so well-known that banks advise customers not to choose it as their PIN number - opened the country up to French influence in spectacular fashion. During the ‘long twelfth century' (up to King John's death in 1216) that...

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  • Gaming the medieval past

    Article

    Matthew Bennett and Ryan Lavelle explore how the devising, playing and discussion of war games can contribute to historical understanding. Games as tools for learning are engaging for teachers and students alike. Whether computer-driven, board games, miniatures, role-play or re-enactment, they all provide scenarios within which learners can use a...

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  • Harold Son of Godwin

    Article

    To lecture on Harold Godwinson, earl of Wessex, King Harold II of England, in the year 1966 at Hastings is a presumption. We appear to know much about him, and yet in fact there are many gaps in knowledge. Much information, so plausible at first sight, proves unreliable on closer...

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  • Henry V

    Article

    Christopher Allmand updates his earlier pamphlet on Henry V, taking into account research and ideas explored by historians over the last 50 years, to produce a much more rounded view of Henry V. The book is split into three parts - Henry V in history; Henry as he is viewed...

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  • Henry V in the cinema

    Article

    Public attitudes to Henry V are very much influenced by WilliamShakespeare's interpretation. Richard Inverne discusses howShakespeare's version has been translated into cinematic form byLaurence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh. Shakespeare indulges himself considerably with his own relatively recent history - Richards II and III, Henrys IV, V and VI, for example....

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  • Hidden histories: landscape spotting – a brief guide

    Article

    The art of landscape spotting – identifying and interpreting visible archaeological features in the countryside – is an accessible, enlightening and fun way to explore our past. By finding these clues in the fields, roads, hedges and hills around us, we can start to piece together the biography of a...

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  • History Abridged: Publishing

    Article

    History Abridged: This feature seeks to take a person, event or period and abridge, or focus on, an important event or detail that can get lost in the big picture. See all History Abridged articles For centuries the only way the written word could be communicated was by it being...

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  • History Abridged: The medieval origins of university

    Article

    History Abridged: In this feature we take a person, time, theme or event and tell you the vast rich history in small space. A long dip into history in a shortened form. See all History Abridged articles Medieval history can suffer from an image problem. Even a conventional name for the period...

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  • How hidden are ordinary people in later medieval England?

    Article

    Tim Lomas explores some documents from the Bishop and Priory of Durham that shed interesting light on the lives of ‘ordinary people’ in medieval England. It is largely a truism to state that the majority of documents from medieval Britain were not designed to shed much light on the lives...

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  • Jewish settlements in Medieval England

    Article

    The Jewish communities of medieval England lived in towns and cities directly connected to the crown, usually with a castle close at hand for protection. Due to the religious needs of the community, Jewish families stayed close to the key requirements of synagogue and butcher. However, they would live side by...

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  • Kilpeck Church: a window on medieval 'mentalite'

    Article

    In the village of Kilpeck, about eight miles south-west of Hereford, may be found the small parish church of St Mary and St David, justifiably described by Pevsner as ‘one of the most perfect Norman village churches in England’ (Pevsner 1963, 201). Seemingly remote today, in the twelfth century the...

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  • King John

    Article

    In the opinion of Stubbs King John was totally, not even competently, bad... Stubbs was the predominant, but no the sole voice of his generation. J.R. Green was already claiming that John was ‘the ablest and most ruthless of the Angevins... In the rapidity and breadth of this political combination...

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  • Late Medieval Taxation Records

    Article

    There are more than 23,000 medieval taxation records from England and Wales in the Public Record Office alone. For many years the vast majority of them have lain undisturbed in their archive boxes, but recent work is showing the true value of some of these as historical sources and making...

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  • Linking Law: Viking and medieval Scandinavian law in literature and history

    Article

    Ongoing interdisciplinary developments have cast light on the surprisingly sophisticated world of Viking-age and medieval Scandinavian law and its wide-ranging influence in these societies. In many ways, the Viking Age and its inhabitants are more familiar than ever before. From video games to television and films, new narrative frontiers and bigger...

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