Little is known about the origins of the Bayeux Tapestry, or its journey from Norman propaganda to a world-famous tourist attraction. Yet those moments in which its story does come into focus reveal a surprising history of cross-cultural exchange.
The protests that broke out across Iran towards the end of 2017 were not triggered by one event. Their cause was mounting unrest at zulm: an all-encompassing term for the injustice, iniquity and oppression that has permeated Iranian society for more than a century.
In the late 1950s, Armchair Voyage was the BBC’s first foray into televised historical documentary, taking its viewers on a tour of the classical world and establishing a format that is still popular today. Though it introduced classics to a mass audience, its origins lay in an elite members’ club.
European Christians who converted to Islam in the Ottoman Empire were vilified as traitors who had defected to the arch-enemy. But there is a big difference between official propaganda and the lived experiences of these ‘renegades’.
Lured by the romantic appeal of uniforms and guns, a craze for volunteer soldiering swept across Britain in the 1860s, prompting the creation of a British National Rifle Association. But it never gained the power of its American counterpart.
Embodied in the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the Sunni-Shia divide is a schism that threatens to tear the Islamic world apart. Though its origins go back to the beginnings of Islam, its present toxicity is a recent development.
Modern vegetarianism is concerned largely with issues of animal welfare but its roots are to be found in the early-modern desire to promote spirituality by curbing humanity’s excessive appetites.
While the great and good of the medieval Church secured lucrative and influential posts, the average parish priest was often forced to juggle a variety of casual jobs to make ends meet. The ‘gig economy’ – of which we hear so much today – was part of everyday life in medieval England.
In June 1976, Gay News magazine published a poem that – as the subject of a high profile blasphemy trial a year later – was described as ‘the ultimate in profanity’. Whitehouse v Lemon, the trial in question, exposed Britain’s archaic and obscure blasphemy laws.
Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamid II ruled with an iron fist, curtailing press freedom, promoting Islam and severing ties with the West. His similarities with Turkey’s current president, Erdoğan, have not gone unnoticed.
