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Today's Swiss politics dimly reflects a very odd birth seven centuries ago, in 1291. The beginnings of the radical Swiss Confederation are impossible to unravel, without being struck by the political impact made on Europe by this poor, tiny alliance.

"Abstract: The Bayeux Tapestry is a complex visual history of the Norman Conquest of England. Its creation and the story it weaves were defined by its dichotomous authorship, its physical form as textile art and its analogous narrative imagery. An examination of each these aspects of the Tapestry allows us to move closer to identifying the purpose of the unknown author in creating a textile narrative of the Norman Conquest of England. It is argued that the Tapestry was created on the commission of Odo of Bayeux, however authorship resided with his designer and artisans, who wove a story that befitted their patron. In form and narrative, the Tapestry served the purpose of advancing the position Odo of Bayeux, and the Norman claims to England. Though the narrative is not without ambiguity, the message of the moral and political victory of the Norman elite over a perjurious usurper is a constant refrain throughout the Tapestry."

The letters of Pope Clement IV (1265-1268) contain largely chronologically arranged, with its 556 pieces of the political and personal correspondence of the Pope and are well regarded as the main source of his pontificate. The target audience is broad and largely prominent. Included are letters to the kings of Sicily, France, England, Aragon, Castile, to the Emperor of Byzantium and the princes of the Tartars, in many cases, to cardinals, who were just outside the Roman Curia, and the rest to various ecclesiastical prelates, secular lords, to acquaintances and relatives of Provençal home of the Pope and many others.

Europe in the first half of the 14th Century seemed to be preparing itself for significant changes. Cities grew in importance, though most of the population was still rural. Population increases had led to overuse of the available land. Poor harvests-also due to cooler, wetter weather-led to famines. The serf system was being undermined. Centralized political authority was becoming more powerful. Then the Black Death cut a path-both literal and figurative-through the middle of the 14th Century. The disease was caused by the bubonic plague, which was spread by rats, whose fleas carried the plague bacilli from the East along trade routes until it penetrated almost all of Europe, killing at least one out of every three people. Such a radical alteration in population in any place, at any time, would likely set off dramatic changes in society. What happened in a Europe already beginning to transform itself? In this lesson, students analyze maps, firsthand accounts, and archival documents to trace the path and aftermath of the Black Death.

Dr David Starkey's complete history of the British Monarchy, which reveals the epic and bloody stories of our Kings and Queens and charts the course of the oldest surviving political institution in Europe

historical biography England in the Viking Age The first full biography of Queen Emma In 1002, a beautiful eighteen-year-old named Emma, the half-Danish sister of the Duke of Normandy and the descendant of the Vikings, sailed to England to be the queen of Ethelred the Unready, who needed a Norman alliance against Viking raiders. The political and marital career on which Emma embarked was to be unique for an English queen. Before it was over she would have married two kings, Ethelred and the Danish Canute, and would have given birth to two more, Edward the Confessor and Hardecanute.

Dr David Starkey's complete history of the British Monarchy, which reveals the epic and bloody stories of our Kings and Queens and charts the course of the oldest surviving political institution in Europe

The word 'Assassin' was brought back from Syria by the Crusaders, and in time acquired the meaning of murderer. Originally it was applied to the members of a Muslim religious sect - a branch of the Ismailis, and the followers of a leader known as the Old Man of the Mountain. Their beliefs and their methods made them a by-word for both fanaticism and terrorism in Syria and Persia in the 11th and 12th centuries, and the subject of a luxuriant growth of myth and legend. In this book, Bernard Lewis begins by tracing the development of these legends in medieval and modern Europe and the gradual percolation of accurate knowledge concerning the Ismailis. He then examines the origins and activities of the sect, on the basis of contemporary Persian and Arabic sources, and against the background of Middle Eastern and Islamic history. In a final chapter he discusses some of the political, social and economic implications of the Ismailis, and examines the significance of the Assassins in the history of revolutionary and terrorist movements.

1. Between Magna Carta and the Parliamentary State: The fine rolls of King Henry III 1216-1272 and the project A fine in the reign of King Henry III (1216-1272) was an agreement to pay the king a sum of money for a specified concession. The rolls on which the fines were recorded provide the earliest systematic evidence of what people and institutions across society wanted from the king and he was prepared to give. They open a large window onto the politics, government, economy and society of England in the hinge period between the establishment of Magna Carta at the start of Henry's reign and the parliamentary state which was emerging at its end. This Project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, makes the rolls freely available to a wide audience while at the same time, in the Fine of the Month feature, providing regular comment on their historical interest. Users of the website are also invited to follow and contribute to the Fine Rolls blog.

By contrast, the rebellions in Norfolk in 1381 and 1549 were centrally concerned with the nature of the manorial system and terms of tenure, issues that split lords and tenants into two competing groups. Conceived in Marxist terms, as Rodney Hilton put it, these rebellions were manifestations of conflict between the two main classes in late medieval England, lords and peasants. 4

"Introduction: This essay is concerned not with the formation of all European states of the first millenium A.D., but to highlight and then briefly explore a recurring pattern of historical development on the fringes of the great empires of the era. In the Germanic world beyond the frontiers of the Roman state in the first half of the period, and later in the Slavic world bordering the Carolingian and Ottonian states in the second, there emerged, over time, even more substantial political entities. This paper will compare the processes of development in each case, to establish that they were indeed parallel, and then concentrate upon causation. Wht should history have repeated itself in this way?"

"EuroDocs: Online Sources for European History Selected Transcriptions, Facsimiles and Translations"

A History of Islam

The long term effects of the Black Death were devastating and far reaching. Agriculture, religion, economics and even social class were affected. Contemporary accounts shed light on how medieval Britain was irreversibly changed.