Europe

E.R. Chamberlin recounts the Babylonian captivity, as Petrarch described it, which lasted in Avignon for seventy-four years.

E.A. Smith describes how, immediately after the Seven Years’ War, the young Earl Fitzwilliam became a grand tourist of Europe in the eighteenth-century style.

Just when the great merchant-banker had reached the zenith of his career, writes A.R. Myers, Jacques Couer was suddenly disgraced and imprisoned. Three years later, he was able to escape and took refuge, first in Provence, then in Rome with a sympathetic Pope.

Sidney Z. Elher describes how, for a decade, during the Thirty Years War, Wallenstein dominated the scene in the Holy Roman Empire.

C.T. Allmand describes the economy of medieval military history, and how Chaucer’s “parfit gentil knight”, on his pilgrimage to Canterbury, was probably sustained by the prizes won in foreign wars.

David Francis Jones describes how, among primitive peoples encountered by the Romans, the fair-haired, blue-eyed Celts made a particularly deep impression.

Described by Bossuet as “a Protestant in friar's clothing,” Sarpi was an historian who saw that religion might be a cloak for political designs and, as Peter Burke describes, organised his historical writings around this point.

Josef Bradac introduces some regal Bohemians who enjoyed medieval English hospitality on their visit to the southeast and hazards a guess at the purpose of their visit.

When, on September 8th, 1565, the last Turkish troops had been driven from the island, only six hundred of its original defenders were still capable of bearing arms. But, as T.H. McGuffie writes, the attacking force had lost some twenty-five thousand men; and the Turkish drive westwards was for ever halted.

Count Zeppelin and his successors in Germany and Britain backed an invention that failed; but David Sawers describes how, during its lifetime, the airship attracted the enthusiasm of many aeronautical engineers.