Offa, Æthelberht and the execution of an East Anglian king in 794: Rory Naismith investigates how a royal killing became the story of a saint.

Yaroslav the Wise built a network of royal exiles, marriages and alliances that placed Kyivan Rus’ at the centre of eleventh-century European politics.

Frederick Barbarossa sought to restore imperial rule in Italy, but Legnano, the Lombard League, and Frederick II’s failure exposed the Empire’s limits.

Harald Hardrada: How Icelandic sagas recast a ruthless warrior-king into the ideal ruler, revealing more about 13th-century values than 11th-century reality.

Edward the Confessor: Once a politically constrained king, later a reluctant saint, his winding path to canonisation reveals power, memory, and post-Conquest England.

Mary Queen of Scots: Her royal lineage reaches back to the Valois dukes of Burgundy, shaped by formidable women whose marriages and power linked courts across Europe.

Formidable Medieval Women: Two noblewomen defied captivity, dynastic pressure, and war—escaping powerful men to fight for land, authority, and survival.

Ælle emerges from Rome’s collapse as Sussex’s shadow-king—credited with battles, a siege at Pevensey, and a brief, fearsome overlordship.

Hengist and Horsa lead the 5th-century charge from legend to history – Germanic brothers invited to a collapsing Roman Britain, igniting war, betrayal, and the dawn of Anglo-Saxon England.

Pope Urban VI forced reform on a lavish Curia, triggered the Western Schism, fought Naples and Florence, and died with Christendom split between Rome and Avignon.