What do you picture when you hear the “Dark Ages”? Perhaps you see a void. A time of chaos after Rome fell. We often imagine Britain shrouded in fog. Its libraries burned. Its culture vanished. This is the common story. But what if that story is wrong? What if the light of civilization wasn’t extinguished? What if it just moved?
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The documentary How the Celts Saved Britain episode 1 explores a traditional British view of history that often overlooks a critical narrative. This perspective typically regards Ireland as a wild and uncivilised land.
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The Private Lives of Medieval Kings episode 3: The story of the British Library’s Royal Manuscripts collection reaches its end with the last great flowering of illumination, in the courts of the Tudors. Dr Janina Ramirez unlocks the secrets of illuminated manuscripts that were custom-made for kings, and explores the medieval world they reveal. In this episode, the story of the British Library’s Royal Manuscripts collection reaches its end with the last great flowering of illumination, in the magnificent courts of the Tudors. She investigates astrological texts created for Henry VII, and unwraps his will – still in
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The Private Lives of Medieval Kings episode 2: Dr Janina Ramirez shows how medieval illuminated manuscripts gave power to the king and united the kingdom in an age of plague, warfare and rebellion. Dr Janina Ramirez unlocks the secrets of medieval illuminated manuscripts and shows how they gave power to the king and united the kingdom in an age of plague, warfare and rebellion. She discovers that Edward III used the manuscripts he read as a boy to prepare him for his great victory at the battle of Crecy and reveals how a vigorous new national identity bloomed
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The Private Lives of Medieval Kings episode 1 : Dr Janina Ramirez unlocks the secrets of illuminated manuscripts that were custom-made for kings and explores the medieval world they reveal. She begins her journey with the first Anglo-Saxon rulers to create a united England, encountering books in the British Library’s Royal manuscripts collection which are over a thousand years old and a royal family tree which is five metres long. Janina finds out about a king who had a reputation for chasing nuns and reads a book created as a wedding gift for a ten-year-old prince. She roams
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The Glorious Story of Castles: carriers of myths and legends, castles strongly mark our imaginations, appearing most often as the pivot of a dark and barbaric period. Reality is different. They are full of mystery and grandeur, emblematic abstractions of the Middle Ages, they testify to medieval civilization. The Glorious Story of Castles A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or
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In Andrew Marr’s History of the World part 4, Andrew Marr reaches the Middle Ages. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, Europe was little more than a muddy backwater. Vikings explored and pillaged from Northern Europe to North America. But they also laid the foundations of powerful new trading states – including Russia. This was also the Golden Age of Islam, and the knowledge of ancient civilisations from India, Persia and Greece was built upon by Islamic scholars in Baghdad’s House of Wisdom. Andrew Marr’s History of the World part 4 By exploring the conquests of Genghis Khan, the
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