Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
© Russel Wills, Geograph. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.
A monk living in the tumbledown hermitage that had once belonged to St Cuthbert reluctantly decided that it needed more than repairs.
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© Kresten Hartvig Klit, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0.
As various ball sports began to take hold in England, King Edward III became convinced that Government action was required.
Grigoriy Myasoyedov (1834–1911), via the National Museum of Warsaw and Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
When the capital of the Roman Empire was in the grip of a violent earthquake, it fell to one small child to save all the people.
From a manuscript of Froissart’s ‘Chronicles’ (?1470-72), via the British Library and Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
On October 13th, 1399, Henry Bolingbroke was crowned King Henry IV of England in Westminster Abbey.
© Michael Beckwith, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.
As late as the fifteenth century, criminals on the run could find refuge in the precincts of England’s great churches.
© Mike Cattell, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.
Scientist and clergyman Temple Chevallier believed that the fast pace of recent discoveries in astronomy risked substituting a new superstition for an old one.