History of the Jesuits: Ignatius of Loyola, who started the Jesuits Ignatius of Loyola In the early 1500s AD, the Protestants were the new thing in Europe. Protestants were getting more and more popular. [...]
Catholic monks and nuns - European religion Christians, Jews, and Muslims In 1500 AD, most people in Europe were Christians. A fair number of Europeans were Jewish, and some were Muslims, especially in Eastern [...]
René Descartes - Enlightenment philosopher How do we know what is true? All this fighting about religion and new ideas coming from Africa and the Americas, China and India meant that [...]
Medieval tithe barn (Germany) In the Middle Ages, the Catholic church in Europe collected a tax of its own, separate from the kings' taxes, which was called a tithe. Tithe means "one-tenth", because people were [...]
The first view of the pilgrimage: Chartres on the horizon Who went on pilgrimages? In the Middle Ages, many people - both men and women - went on short or long [...]
Mary window at Chartres Cathedral People think of the Middle Ages as a very religious period, when the Christian Church was the most important institution and everybody prayed all the time. Certainly [...]
Francis of Assisi gives his father back his clothes (Giotto, in Assisi) Who was Francis of Assisi? By 1200 AD, the Catholic Church was very powerful. Bishops and popes were often rich men. They cared more about [...]
Nativity mosaic (St. Maria in Trastevere, Rome ca. 1300 AD) showing the birth of Jesus on Christmas When did people start to celebrate Christmas? Beginning about 300 AD, people began to [...]
Albigensians were also called Cathars This story starts about 1050 AD, not long after the Capetians took power in northern France. Some Christian people in the south of France began to think differently about God from the [...]
Egyptian caves where early monks and nuns lived The first Christian nuns, like the first Christian monks, lived in Africa - they lived alone in the desert in Egypt in the 300s and 400s AD, where they [...]
