Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Richard II became king of England when he was 10 and was deposed at 32. British Library/Wikimedia Commons My students tend to ...

The rack became one of the most infamous instruments of torture in medieval Europe, used to extract confessions in cases of treason and heresy. Though never formally sanctioned under English common ...

In parts of medieval Europe, animals accused of crimes were tried in formal court proceedings. Pigs, bulls, and even insects could face charges ranging from murder to crop destruction. Secular courts ...

Sebastian Jäger, "Wound Man" (c. 1580), ink and paint on parchment, painted in Vienna, Austria, held in UCLA's Louise M. Darling Medical Library, MS Benjamin 8, fol. IVv (photo by Jack Hartnell) Even ...

Table Fountain (c. 1320–40), gilt-silver, translucent enamel on basse-taille, opaque enamel (all photos courtesy Cleveland Museum of Art unless otherwise noted) Countless examples of a curious device ...

Usually, when people hear the term “illuminated manuscript,” they think of enormous, leather-bound books, produced painstakingly by the hands of medieval European monks, and filled to the brim with ...

(THE CONVERSATION) My students tend to imagine the Middle Ages as something like the “Kingdom Come” or “Total War” video games: an age of utter political chaos, when swords and daggers ruled, and ...