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1381. In the English countryside, one peasant has had enough. His resistance leads tens of thousands of armed peasants to march on London. They’re furious about taxes, about wages held down by law, about a world that feels abandoned by God. But they aren’t marching to overthrow t ...  Show more

September 20, 1187. It’s daytime outside the walls of Jerusalem. Saladin, the Sultan of Egypt, ponders his next attack. His troops encircle and lay siege to the city. They vastly outnumber the Crusader knights inside, and Saladin is on the cusp of a victory he never dreamed possi ...  Show more

In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue ... and Ferdinand, king of Aragon, and Isabella, queen of Castile expelled the Jewish population from Spain.

Today’s Sephardic Jewish community has its roots in Spain and Portugal. The Hispanic Jews lived for many centuries in those countries but faced increasing persecution in the 13th and 15th Centuries. Many were forced to convert to Christianity, but some secretly continued their Je ...  Show more

For centuries Spain had been an outlier in Europe due to its religious diversity; Christians, Jews, and Muslims all existed reasonably peacefully across the Iberian peninsula. Under Isabelle of Castile that all changed. She began the Spanish Inquisition and brought to the fore a ...  Show more

Both Frederick II and King John were excommunicated from the all-powerful church, but why?

Dr. Eleanor Janega and Dr. Felicity Hill explore the complex phenomenon of excommunication in the medieval period, from the politics and propaganda behind this spiritual sancti ...