Tag: medieval history

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The Origins of England’s Three Lions

"It's coming home, it's coming home, it's coming, Football's coming home " - So goes the ever popular 1996 "Three Lions" song. So when did the three lions symbol come to be used as England’s royal arms and therefore on the England team shirts ? The answers is somewhat surprising and reveals why in the past we might've been singing "three leopards on a shirt"

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Why do we shake hands as a greeting?

The reason we shake hands has nothing to do with warmth or kindness and everything to do with mistrust. Just as we clink glasses so that if our companion has poisoned our drink he’ll get to drink some of his own poison (by virtue of contents slopping between glasses), we shake hands to check for concealed weapons.

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How Medieval People Used to Walk

I expect that you’ve heard of ‘Doing the Hussle’ or maybe even ‘Doing the funky Chicken’ (they’re dances by the way), but what about ‘Doing the Medieval Walk’? No ?
Well, it’s not a dance craze but a real historic thing.

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The Black Death in the Channel Islands

Not the most pleasant of subjects but when the ‘great mortality’ as it was called struck the Channel Islands it left in its’ wake a scarred population, decimated in numbers and traumatised in the minds and bodies of all islanders.

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Was King John really that bad?

If there’s one English Monarch who’s consistently had a ‘bad wrap’ it’s King John I. He’s the ultimate in abuse of absolute power, an archetypal villan – portrayed as the cruel King oppressing his people with taxes and arbitrary justice. But is this true ? Was his rule really as bad as folklore seems to say ?

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The Warrior Monks Who Brought Banking to London

Today, London is the financial capital of the world and for good or ill the hub of global banking and finance. How banking started in the capital is every bit as intriguing and mysterious as the ways that modern international finance seems to work today. Basically we owe it all to a religious order of heavily armed warrior monks who set up London’s first bank some 900 years ago.

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Medieval Democracy – 8 things you (probably) didn’t know about medieval elections

Democracy isn’t a word that you would ordinarily associate with the Middle Ages. The most common perception of this time is of Kings, Bishops, Feudal over lords and right at the bottom of the ‘social heap’, the peasant all of them with no say in government. In fact it turns out this is not overall an entirely true picture and that elections were a reasonably common occurrence

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The Declaration of Arbroath (Scotland declares independence)

If the 4th July 1776 is remembered for the momentous statement that begins, When in the course of human events … then Saturday the 6th April 1320 should be noted for an equally stirring declaration of independence when another nation struggled for freedom from English rule.

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Pivotal Moments : March 8 1265 – The First English Parliament

There are key moments in history when on the decisions and actions of men the course of human history is changed forever. Sunday March 8th 1265 was such a day when the actions of the nobleman Simon de Montfort still reverberate down the centuries to us today, for on that day the first ever English Parliament sat.

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Who ‘discovered’ the Atom ?

The simplest of experiences can hatch eureka moments. Legend has it that despite all his inherited wealth and global travels, the ancient Greek philosopher Democritus hit upon one of the most fundamental of ideas in physics while sitting in the comfort of his own home.

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Chaucer – Medieval Master Wordsmith

English is a very rich languange indeed and is possibly the greatest gift that Britain has bestowed to the world. In this article we look at one of the oldest masters of them all Geoffrey chaucer, often described as the father of English literature.

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Death & Retribution in the Priory of Notre Dame de Lihou

Lihou island off of Guernsey’s west coast, at first, looks like a tranquil, if not rugged, haven of peace and security. But there is a darker more salacious history to it that would even make readers of today’s gossip mags gasp. In this article we look at foul murders and dark deeds in what was supposed to be a place of spiritual contemplation and service for God.

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