As you travel around medieval England you will come across a sport described by some contemporaries as ‘abominable … more common, undignified and worthless than any other game, rarely ending but with some loss, accident...

Justice is a relative concept in all ages. The fourteenth century is no exception.

You might find it alarming to think that your doctor will not actually need to see you in person but might make a diagnosis based on the position of the stars, the colour and smell...

You might be offered oatcakes as well as bread (especially in the north). If these do not tempt you, consider eating “horse-bread.” This is made from a sort of flour of ground peas, bran, and...

‎W. H. Auden once suggested that to understand your own country you need to have lived in at least two others. One can say something similar for periods of time: to understand your own century...

Our view of history diminishes the reality of the past. We concentrate on the historic event as something that has happened, and in so doing we ignore it as a moment which, at the time,...

Such planetary alignments are thought to lead to local miasmas: concentrations of fetid air and noxious vapors. These miasmas are then blown on the wind and enter men’s and women’s bodies through the pores of...