Simon Kaner explores the fascinating parallels revealed by the international research project From Nara to Norwich between life and religious belief at the ends of the Silk Roads. Nara is the ancient capital region of Japan. The eighth century imperial treasury, the Shōsōin, with its treasures from China and central Asia, is...

As the value of music education is again a topic of societal debate, Tudor composer William Byrd, the four hundredth anniversary of whose death is celebrated this year, was a powerful advocate of singing in early modern England, writes Katherine Butler. Tudor composer William Byrd (c.1540–1623) is recognised today not only...

On 28 June 1098, the forces of the First Crusade marched out from the great north Syrian city of Antioch to do battle with Karbugha, the Muslim ruler of Mosul. The odds were not in their favour: not only was the Muslim army vastly superior in size, but the crusaders had...

Within the historic landscape it is frequently possible to identify the impact of deeply religious figures who have exercised very real and long-lasting spiritual influence on their communities and indeed on the very landscape itself.Often these are shadowy figures in a distant past where myth and history intertwine. Sometimes it is...

As Christianity had spread across Europe, Islam had spread across the Middle East. At the end of the eleventh century the relationship between the Muslim leader of Jerusalem and the Christian communities and travellers to the city fractured. Along with other key relationships across Europe, the Middle East and around...

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...

Joanne Allen reveals a fundamental structural and architectural development in Italian churches in the Renaissance era, demonstrating that careful observation of structures and archives can substantially inform our appreciation of all church buildings.  In the opening to The Decameron (c. 1350), Boccaccio described how the ten young people who would become storytellers...

We pay tribute to one of Britain’s finest poets, at the centenary of his birth, and celebrate his sensitive recognition of the spiritual tradition to be found in parish churches. There have been various tributes this year which have commemorated the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of the celebrated poet, Philip...

The diversity of the history of the British Isles continues to be a subject of discussion in academic circles and in popular culture. Some communities have been around for hundreds of years, while others have been part of our societies and then disappeared or been eroded. One of the communities...

Steve Illingworth highlights the importance of a remote Lancashire ruin which might have changed the course of history. Sawley Abbey in east Lancashire can appear to be an unassuming and insignificant place at first sight. Its main attraction appears to be aesthetic, with the Cistercian abbey being surrounded by fields and hills...

Since the first stirrings of religious reform in the sixteenth century, people have been writing the history of the Reformation, debating what happened and why it happened. John Foxe arguably became the first historian of the English Reformation when he published Actes and Monuments in 1563. Better known as ‘The...

John Coffey shows us what insights can be gained from the diaries of leading abolitionist, William Wilberforce. The diary is a distinctively modern genre... In English, the first diaries date from the Tudor era, but it is in the seventeenth century that the trickle becomes a flood. Alongside the famous...

Tiffany Igharoro, a Young Historian Award-winner, introduces us to the artwork of Revd John Louis Petit, showing that art not only reflects the times in which it is created, but can also be used to shape opinions. The Revd John Louis Petit (1801–68) created thousands of paintings in his lifetime, many of which...

Sara Read introduces us to a woman who challenged expectations during the turbulent years of the early seventeenth century. In 1622 a pious young woman with a highly unusual first name, Brilliana Conway, sat at her desk doodling her signature on her commonplace book. She had lofty ambitions for her self-development...

Alexander Collin examines the significance of cities within the Holy Roman Empire in early modern times. With a strong political identity of their own, cities were at the heart of the Empire’s economy and, also, centres of theological and social change. If you have ever read a description of a...

Nicolas Kinloch guides us round the fascinating city of Cairo. Cairo has always been a traveller’s destination. That indefatigable explorer, ibn Battuta, arrived there in 1326, and declared that it was ‘boundless in its multitude of buildings, peerless in beauty and splendour...extending a friendly welcome to strangers’. Most of this is...

Adam Simmons draws our attention to the need for further research into the relationship between the medieval Kingdoms of Ethiopia and Nubia – a fascinating time and place in African history which is neglected in the historical archive and about which, so far, there are only limited sources. The kingdoms of Ethiopia...

In the light of present-day concerns about the place, in a modern world, of statues commemorating figures whose roles in history are of debatable merit, Dr Gregory Gifford puts the British Empire on trial, presenting a balanced case both for and against. In June 2020 when the statue of slave-trader Edward Colston...

Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, is a well-to-do town in the Chilterns and a wealthy commuter dormitory for London. It also harbours what might be one of the most remarkable, under-appreciated churches of the mid-nineteenth century. St James, the parish church, was built for the ‘unruled and unruly’ agricultural labourers and traders who inhabited...

Queens of Jerusalem: The Women Who Dared to Rule, Katherine Pangonis, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2021, 250p, £20-00. ISBN 978-1-4746-1407-8. For many historians Outremer was the destination of the Crusades and our focus has been on what happened to the crusaders, both on their journeys and in their struggles at that...