Early History: c 500 to c 1450/1500

England, 1154. As Henry II seizes the throne after years of turmoil, a new dynasty is poised to haul this hitherto turbulent nation out from the Da...

This authoritative survey of Viking history and culture, now available in paperback, tells the complete story of the Vikings from their origins in ...

Isabella of France married Edward II in January 1308, and afterwards became one of the most notorious women in English history. In 1325, she was se...

By equal measure state-builder and political unifier and ruthless opportunist and bloody-handed aggressor, Alexander II has been praised or vilifie...

A masterful history of the great dynasty of the Netherlands'' Middle Ages. ''A sumptuous feast of a book'' The Times, Books of the Year ''Thrilli...

Described by Christopher Marlowe as the 'She-Wolf of France', Isabella was one of the most notorious femme fatales in history. According to popular...

When the tall, athletic Edward of York seized the English throne in 1461, he could have chosen any bride he wanted. With his dazzling good looks, f...

Historians typically single out the hundred-year period from about 1050 to 1150 as the pivotal moment in the history of the Latin Church, for it wa...

England during the Middle Ages was at the forefront of European antisemitism. It was in medieval Norwich that the notorious blood libel was first i...

A military history of the campaigns of Belisarius, the greatest general of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Emperor Justinian. He twice defeated the P...

In Search of the Dark Ages is an unrivalled exploration of the origins of English identity, and the bestselling book that established Michael Wood ...

Originally the eastern half of the mighty Roman Empire, Byzantium grew to be one of the longest-surviving empires in world history, spanning nine c...

The 13th Century was a fascinating era in world history. Genghis Khan established the largest contiguous land empire in history. The Magna Carta...

Beacon Lights of History is a 14-volume set first published in 1902. This collection of John Lords lectures spans 6,000 years of European and Ameri...

This scholarly edition of The Welsh Life of St David presents the medieval text of the Life of one of the early Christian missionaries of west Wale...

Beacon Lights of History is a 14-volume set first published in 1902. This collection of John Lords lectures spans 6,000 years of European and Ameri...

After becoming king in 1199, resentment grew and grew at the inept way John dealt with financial issues until matters came to a head with his baron...

In the two centuries before the Norman invasion of England, Anglo-Saxon and Viking forces clashed repeatedly in bloody battles across the country. ...

From the Early Neolithic farm at Knap of Howar to the flamboyant chapel built by Italian prisoners of war in the 1940s, the Orkney Islands are amaz...

The destruction of the French army at Crécy in 1346 and the subsequent siege and capture of Calais marked a new era in European history. The most p...

In a 2010 terrorist plot, Al-Qaeda hid a bomb in a FedEx shipment addressed to a man who had been dead for 800 years. Born in twelfth-century Franc...