“Opening the door of a pretty Norman church down a country lane in the Cotswold village of South Newington, I was shocked to be confronted by two rather violent murder scenes painted on the wall. The first is of a man being viciously cut down while he raises his hands in prayer; his head is split in two by a sword, and blood spurts over his forehead.” BritishLibrary.uk
Anne Neville experienced life during the Wars of the Roses on both sides. The youngest daughter of Richard Neville – the 16th Earl of Warwick and the ‘kingmaker’ whose influence was without parallel within the House of York – she was married to both the Lancastrian heir to the throne and the last Yorkist king during her short life. HistoryExtra.com
Many fairy tales tell us that princesses spent years confined to towers waiting for knights to rescue them, little more than decorative pawns to be traded by their father. But the lives of historical princesses paint a very different picture. Here, through the lives of the five daughters of Edward I, historian Kelcey Wilson-Lee shares seven lessons on what it was to be a real medieval princess… HistoryExtra.com
From William the Conqueror – the first Norman king of England, who defeated Harold II at the battle of Hastings in 1066 – to Henry Tudor, who took the English throne after defeating and killing Richard III at the battle of Bosworth in 1485, the medieval period is full of fascinating kings and queens. History Extra have been exploring the best and worst of them… HistoryExtra.com
Two years after Bosworth, Henry VII took to the battlefield one last time in 1487 to challenge an imposter posing as Richard III’s nephew. How close was he to losing his crown? Julian Humphrys explores this bitter clash of steel. HistoryExtra.com
The dynasty ruled England and much of France during the medieval period – monarchs included Henry II, Henry III, Edward II and the boy king Richard II – and their hatred, revenge, jealousy and ambition transformed history. HistoryExtra.com
Grimbergen Abbey, a monastery in central Belgium, has burned down three times since it was first built in 1128, hence its phoenix logo. Now, another aspect of the abbey’s history is rising from the ashes: its microbrewery. AtlasObscura.com
The Psalter includes eight large finely painted initials that are hitherto unknown examples of the work of an artist known as the Master of Edward IV. The Master of Edward IV was first identified by art historian Friedrich Winkler in 1915 and named by him after two volumes of a Bible historiale produced for Edward IV in 1479, now in the British Library (Royal MS 18 D ix and Royal MS 18 D x). Subsequently, the Master of Edward IV was credited with the illustration of many other manuscripts ranging in date from the 1470s to 1500. A study by Bodo Brinkmann in 1997 attributed forty-seven manuscripts and twenty separate leaves to him. blogs.bl.uk
As dawn broke on Saturday 20 May 1217, a small force of 900 troops marched to war, hoping to save England from ruination. Their commander, William Marshal – a man feted as the “greatest knight in all the world” – sought to stiffen their resolve on that sun-lit morning, exhorting them to seize this “chance to free our land” and thereby earn “eternal glory”. HistoryExtra.com
In the prologue to the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer’s prioress is accused of speaking an inferior version of French learned in Stratford rather than in Paris:
Frenssh she spak ful faire and fetisly,
After the scole of Stratford att Bowe,
For Frenssh of Parys was to hire unknowne.
“And she spoke French fluently and elegantly,
After the school of Stratford-at-Bow,
For French of Paris was her her unknown.)
Richard III Society 