Connecting the dots across time
Long before telegraphs or trains, medieval empires relied on a surprisingly sophisticated form of high-speed communication: the carrier pigeon. From sprawling caliphates in the Middle East to the warring lords…
Long before the Ottomans, the Seljuk Turks thundered out of Central Asia to build a vast empire stretching from the Hindu Kush to the Mediterranean. Their conquests permanently reshaped the…
The Maronite Church stands as a fascinating Middle Eastern anomaly: an ancient Eastern Christian tradition, born from the asceticism of Saint Maron and rooted in a Syriac heritage, that is…
The long, curved blade of the scythe is synonymous with the harvest, a tool that brought life-giving sustenance for millennia. Yet, when re-forged in the fires of rebellion, this instrument…
In a medieval era defined by constant violence, the Church introduced the "Truce of God" to limit the bloodshed. This ambitious movement prohibited warfare on certain days and during holy…
Discover the Maronites, an ancient Eastern Catholic community whose story is etched into the mountains of Lebanon. From their Syriac origins and crucial alliance with the Crusaders to their foundational…
Discover how the execution of reformer Jan Hus ignited a revolutionary war that pitted Bohemian rebels against the might of crusading knights. This is the story of the Hussites and…
When we hear the word "crusade", our minds often journey to the sun-scorched deserts of the Holy Land. But in 1147, as knights prepared to march on Jerusalem, another, far…
Dive into the history of the legendary Assassins of Alamut. We separate Marco Polo's myths of drug-fueled killers from the historical reality of a sophisticated Nizari Ismaili state that used…
Hired by the Byzantine Empire and then savagely betrayed, the fearsome Catalan Company went on a decade-long rampage across the medieval Mediterranean. Their journey of vengeance culminated in the conquest…
In 1121, a vastly outnumbered Georgian army faced a colossal Seljuk invasion force, with their kingdom's very survival on the line. Discover how King David the Builder's tactical genius at…
Tossing people out of windows seems to be a uniquely Bohemian form of political protest. The infamous Defenestrations of Prague—in 1419, 1483, and 1618—were not just random acts of violence…
While the crusades to the Holy Land are famous, a longer and more brutal series of holy wars were fought in the forests of Northern Europe. Known as the Baltic…
After the devastating Battle of Manzikert, the Byzantine Empire was on the brink of extinction. This is the story of the Komnenos dynasty, the emperors who engineered a remarkable century-long…
The tale of the Children's Crusade—thousands of innocent youth marching to the Holy Land—is one of history's most tragic stories. But what if the popular legend is almost entirely wrong?…
The Knights Templar rose from a small band of pious bodyguards to the most powerful military and financial institution in the medieval world. As elite warriors of the Crusades and…
Greek Fire was the Byzantine Empire's terrifying superweapon, an incendiary liquid that could burn on water and cling to ships and soldiers. Deployed via ship-mounted flamethrowers, this top-secret formula was…