A Nestorian cross on a tombstone from Kazakhstan (1300s AD) In 428 AD, when Pulcheria and Eudocia were running the Roman Empire, a bishop named Nestorius became the Patriarch of Constantinople. That's like being the Pope but for people [...]
Byzantine iconoclasm: an Icon of St. Nicholas (Russia) Byzantine iconoclasm By the early 700s AD, the Roman Empire had seen four hundred years of religious arguments about what or who Jesus Christ was. The Arians believed that [...]
Mary's tunic, preserved in a glass case in the treasury of Chartres cathedral in France Romantic story of Mary's dress About 800 AD, Empress Irene was ruling the Roman Empire in Eastern [...]
The Lawyer's Tale: This is probably a picture of either the real Constantina or her mother Helena (Santa Costanza church, Rome) The Lawyer's Tale In the time of the Roman Empire, [...]
St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice, Italy (about 1100 AD) The Seljuks destabilize Europe's neighbors In 1071 AD, the Byzantine Empire lost most of Anatolia (modern Turkey) to the Seljuk Turks at the Battle of Manzikert. [...]
Early Middle Ages: Interior of Hagia Sophia When is the Early Middle Ages? The Early Middle Ages comes after the fall of Rome, about 400 AD. But all the way through the [...]
Ostrogothic helmet By 476 AD, the Ostrogoths were still living north of the Black Sea, but the Roman Emperors no longer had any practical power in the West. In that year, the last Roman Emperor [...]
Holy Roman Empire: Otto the Great (on a seal) What happened after Charlemagne? After the death of Charlemagne, the Holy Roman Emperors got weaker and weaker. By 924 AD, a hundred years later, nobody [...]
Who was Charlemagne? This is Charlemagne, or possibly his grandson (now in the Louvre Museum) What's Charlemagne's real name? Charlemagne's name is really Charles le Magne, or Charles the Great. [...]
The Roman emperor Arcadius Honorius and Arcadius After the death of Theodosius in 395 AD, the empire fell to his sons, the west to Honorius and the east to Arcadius. Arcadius left all the work [...]
