Unpredictable weather in late medieval Europe disrupted agricultural stability, forcing cities to rely on maritime grain ...

Learn how volcanic eruptions in 1345 started a chain of events that allowed the plague to enter Europe and start the Black Death.

Previously unknown volcanic eruptions may have kicked off an unlikely series of events that brought the Black Death—the most ...

A surprising study has uncovered a link between a massive volcanic eruption in 1345 and the onset of the Black Death, Europe's deadliest pandemic. The discovery reveals how a catastrophic chain of ...

My students tend to imagine the Middle Ages as something like the “Kingdom Come” or “Total War” video games: an age of utter political chaos, when swords and daggers ruled, and masculinity and ...

Archaeology reveals that a millennium ago, North America was home to thriving urban centres as large and sophisticated as ...

Was adultery common in the Middle Ages, or was it a rare and harshly punished sin? In this video, we explore the realities of ...

Today, the Middle Ages are a sort of paradox; the myth of the “Dark Ages,” which survives quite ably in popular culture, allows space for it to be whatever the popular imagination wants. When people ...

Detail of medieval roll showing England's Henry VIII tilting at a joust in front of his first wife, Katherine of Aragon. In the West, chariot racing died out rather quickly, but beginning in the ...

In Death and the Miser, a Dutch painting from around 1490, a hideous skeletal figure—a medieval version of the grim reaper—comes knocking at a man’s bedroom door. As death watches, the dying miser ...