The rack became one of the most infamous instruments of torture in medieval Europe, used to extract confessions in cases of treason and heresy. Though never formally sanctioned under English common ...

In parts of medieval Europe, animals accused of crimes were tried in formal court proceedings. Pigs, bulls, and even insects could face charges ranging from murder to crop destruction. Secular courts ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Richard II became king of England when he was 10 and was deposed at 32. British Library/Wikimedia Commons My students tend to ...

Sebastian Jäger, "Wound Man" (c. 1580), ink and paint on parchment, painted in Vienna, Austria, held in UCLA's Louise M. Darling Medical Library, MS Benjamin 8, fol. IVv (photo by Jack Hartnell) Even ...

Since the dawn of humanity, dogs and humans have lived side by side as friends, companions, and fellow hunters. Pet dogs have been depicted in prehistoric cave paintings, on the walls of ancient ...

Usually, when people hear the term “illuminated manuscript,” they think of enormous, leather-bound books, produced painstakingly by the hands of medieval European monks, and filled to the brim with ...

And in Europe, the medieval era was particularly disease-ridden. But what happened when money and social stigma collided? To ...

In medieval Europe, a rivalry between two assertive cultures — Christians and Jews, who both considered themselves “God’s Chosen People” — gave rise to modern antisemitism, argues Yale’s Ivan G.

The modern history of Western Europe is defined by opposition. Europe is presented as a beacon of civilisation facing down the barbarous masses that populated the rest of the world, and one of the ...