The Prayer Book That Was a Math Textbook
In 1906 a Danish scholar in Istanbul opened a medieval Greek prayer book and noticed faint mathematics underneath the prayers. It was Archimedes.
Read the story →An era
Medieval
500 – 1500
The European Middle Ages, the Islamic Golden Age, and the parallel histories of Asia and the Americas.
12 stories in this era.
The Centuries Europe Froze
From around 1300 to 1850 the northern hemisphere ran a few degrees colder. Glaciers advanced, harvests failed, Norse Greenland died, and the Thames repeatedly froze.
Read the story →The Rhineland Massacres That Came Before the Crusade
In the spring of 1096, before the First Crusade reached Asia, an army of pilgrims spent six weeks killing the Jewish communities of the Rhine.
Read the story →The Larger Dancing Plague Nobody Remembers
In July 1374, after a major Rhine flood, hundreds of people in Aachen began to dance in the streets and could not stop. The plague moved with them up the river.
Read the story → The Coroner’s Report June 10, 2026 · Island on the Rhine, Basel, Bishopric of Basel (modern Switzerland)
The Pogrom That Came Before Strasbourg
Five weeks before the Strasbourg massacre, Basel built a wooden house on an island in the Rhine, locked roughly six hundred of its Jews inside, and burned it.
Read the story → The Coroner’s Report June 11, 2026 · Old Jewish quarter, Cologne, Holy Roman Empire (modern Germany)
The Night Cologne Killed Its Jewish Quarter
Cologne's Jewish community had stood since the fourth century. On the night of Saint Bartholomew, August 1349, a mob ended it in a few hours.
Read the story →The King Murdered in a Castle Basement (Maybe)
Edward II of England was forced to abdicate, locked in a Gloucestershire castle, and died there in September 1327. Or did he escape and live another fourteen years?
Read the story →The Men Who Whipped Themselves Across Europe
In the summer of 1349 thousands of penitents marched through plague-stricken Europe flogging themselves twice a day. The Pope banned them within months.
Read the story →The Seven Years Europe Ate Its Own
The rain started in May 1315 and did not stop. Across northern Europe the harvest failed for three years running. By 1317 cities were locking up their own children.
Read the story →The Queen Who Invaded Her Own Country
Isabella of France crossed the Channel with fifteen hundred soldiers in 1326, deposed her husband, and ruled England with her lover. Her son removed her at seventeen.
Read the story →The Earl Who Ruled England From the Queen's Bedchamber
Roger Mortimer escaped the Tower, invaded England, deposed a king, and ran the country for three years. His own teenage king-by-grace overthrew him in a midnight coup.
Read the story →The Strasbourg Pogrom of Saint Valentine's Day, 1349
Six weeks before the plague reached the city, the council of Strasbourg deposed its mayors, replaced them, and burned the city's Jewish community alive.
Read the story →