A vintage engraving of Medieval fashions. 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 ...

Yearning princesses locked away in castles, heroic knights, hawkish Vikings — fragments of medieval European stories have permeated nearly every aspect of contemporary culture, from Taylor Swift songs ...

Medieval Europe’s diverse regional cultures were balanced by a conscious attempt to create a unified view of the world that embraced religious and social ideals, Latin and vernacular literature, and ...

This article originally appeared on AlterNet. When we think about medieval Europe, we tend to think about kings ruling with iron fists, about Christian crusaders purifying Jerusalem with the blood of ...

An illustration, based on a 15th century author’s imagining, of the court of the Great Khan in the 1200s. Credit: National Library of France On January 4, 1254, a French monk named William of Rubruck ...

A stained-glass window depicting Empress Matilda's voyage from England to Normandy Andreas F. Borchert via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 4.0 In three decades of teaching medieval European history, ...

You know what they say: the longer you stick around somewhere, no matter if it seems to have come straight out of a fairytale ...

Europe is home to countless medieval locations. From the tidal island of Mont Saint-Michel, to the spooky castles of Transylvania, Europe's Middle Ages provided some of the world's most amazing places ...