Imagine yourself flipping through a worn and wrinkly 1,000-year-old book, before spotting a scribbled note in the margin about curing a headache with crushed herbs. That’s not the “Dark Ages” of superstition we’ve all heard about. This is a glimpse into a world where medieval Europeans were clever with their health and had surprisingly resourceful
The Crusades are perhaps the defining idea of medieval Europe. Over more than four centuries they redefined its history, set it on a new course with a common, foreign enemy against whom the Christian countries could find common cause. They changed Europe forever. Countries rose and fell in the shadow of these religious wars, Christian