Religion

In this section religions, religious belief and many elements of religiosity are explored and discussed. Early pagan beliefs in Britain and Ireland to the worship of gods across Europe are explored as are the religious changes that monotheism introduced. How religion affects themes of power, individuality and architecture are debated as are key historical movements such as the Reformation and the crusades.

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  • Podcast Series: The Rise of an Islamic Civilisation

    Multipage Article

    An HA Podcasted History of the Rise of an Islamic Civilisation featuring Dr Caroline Goodson of Birkbeck, University of London.

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  • Podcast Series: The Spanish Golden Age

    Multipage Article

    An HA Podcasted History of the Spanish Golden Age featuring Dr Glyn Redworth of Manchester University and Dr Francois Soyer of the University of Southampton.

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  • Podcast Series: The Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates

    Multipage Article

    In this set of podcasts Emeritus Professor Gerald Hawting of SOAS, University of London provides an introduction to the Umayyad (661-750) and Abbasid (750-1258) Caliphates.

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  • Podcast: Christianity in Imperial Rome

    Multipage Article

    In this podcast Dr Emma-Jayne Graham and Professor Helen King of the Open University discuss how Christianity became the dominant religion of the Roman world.

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  • Podcast: St Augustine of Hippo

    Multipage Article

    In this podcast Dr Conrad Leyser of Worcester College, University of Oxford, looks at the life, ideas and significance of St Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD).

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  • Prehistoric Scotland

    Article

    Prehistory is an attempt to reconstruct the story of human societies inhabiting a given region before the full historical record opens there. Its data, furnished by archaeology, are the constructions members of such societies erected and the durable objects they made. The events which should form its subject matter naturally...

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  • Protestantism and art in early modern England

    Article

    “I am greatly honoured to receive the Medlicott medal and I thank the President for his much-too-kind remarks. It is fifty years since I attended my first meeting of the Historical Association and heard a lecture by Professor Medlicott himself, no less. The Association does a wonderful job in encouraging...

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  • Puritan attitudes towards plays and pleasure in the Age of Shakespeare

    Article

    In Twelfth Night Shakespeare gently mocked the Puritans, who objected to stage plays and other entertainments. Yet within four decades, the Puritans had closed the London theatres and were about to seize power from Charles I. Among their many reforms were the banning of Christmas celebrations and of Twelfth Night itself....

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  • Regional Aspects of the Scottish Reformation

    Article

    Reformation Perspective In recent years studies of the Scottish Reformation have undergone a marked change. Religion is seldom advanced as the sole mainspring of the events of 1560 and explanations have been increasingly sought in political and economic terms. On the political side growing opposition to French influence within Scotland...

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  • Religion and Party in Late Stuart England

    Article

    The second English Revolution of the seventeenth century, the Revolution of 1688, ushered in during the next twenty-five years a series of changes which were to be profoundly important to the ultimate development of the country. Most conspicuously, the reigns of William III and Anne released Englishmen - though not...

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  • Religion and Politics 1559-1642

    Article

    It is a truism to say that religion and politics were inextricably mixed in the seventeenth century. "So natural" wrote Richard Hooker,"is the union of religion with Justice, that we may boldly deem there is neither where both are not" Sir John Eliot observed that in the House of Commons...

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  • Religion and Science in the Eighteenth Century

    Article

    Much has been said about the clash between religion and science in Victorian times but there has been less research into the relationship between them in the eighteenth century. This article considers three Georgian clergymen who were also notable scientists – the Reverend William Stukeley, the pioneer of scientific field...

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  • The Albigensian Crusade

    Article

    At the time of the First Crusade southern France was strongly Catholic: the army led by Raymond IV of Toulouse was the largest single force to take part in the expedition and was recruited from all classes. Yet eighty years later the Count's grandson, Raymond V, sent this appeal form...

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  • The Byzantine Empire on the Eve of the Crusades

    Article

    This resource is a pamphlet titled ‘The Byzantine Empire on the Eve of the Crusades’ and written by R. J. H. Jenkins in 1953. As such, some of the scholarship has been updated since then, although it can provide useful historiography. It is not strange that there should in recent...

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  • The Establishment of English Protestantism 1558-1608

    Article

    The Reformation which Queen Elizabeth and her ministers created was a series of acts of state, but if we consider it only at the level of official hopes and pronouncements, we will paint a picture of hopeless unreality. For the Reformation to success, the government needed to follow up its...

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  • The First Crusade

    Article

    Nine centuries after enthusiasm for pope Urban's expedition to Jerusalem swept western Europe the phenomenon of the first crusade continues to fascinate. This pamphlet examines the nature of the crusades and the motives of those who joined it, describes the hardships of the long journey to the Holy Land and...

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  • The French Wars of Religion

    Article

    This classic pamphlet takes you through the French reformation, the first, second and third war of religion, The St Bartholomew's Day massacre and the Fourth War, the later wars, the Catholic League, Henry IV, the nobility, the towns, confessional violence, social contexts and warfare and its costs.

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  • The Investiture Disputes

    Article

    Historical labels are dictated by a wayward fashion; and the name which is still most commonly associated with the first struggle of Empire and Papacy (1076-1122). "The Investiture Disputes," is neither lucid or appropriate. It has been commoner for historians to name the great wars of history after the issues...

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  • The Miraculous Crusade: The Role of the Mystical and Miraculous in the Morale and Motivation of the First Crusade

    Article

    The First Crusade may be considered the only really successful crusade in that it achieved its stated goal, but it demanded great courage and stamina of its participants in their journey to the Holy City of Jerusalem, fighting their way through an unforgiving hostile territory. But courage and stamina by...

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  • The New History of the Spanish Inquisition

    Article

    Helen Rawlings reviews the recent literature which has prompted a fundamental reappraisal of the Spanish Inquisition. The Spanish Inquisition — first established in 1478 in Castile under Queen Isabella I and suppressed in 1834 by Queen Isabella II — has left its indelible mark on the whole course of Spain’s...

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