Priest blessing people who have the plague Very soon after the crucifixion of Jesus, by around 40 or 50 AD, the early Christians began to choose leaders from among themselves. The Christians called these [...]
Catholic priests celebrating Christian Mass The central Christian ritual The central part of Christian life in antiquity and the Middle Ages was the Christian Mass. That was when you went to church and the priest went through a [...]
The Gnostics - Books of Roman Gnostic writings from Nag Hammadi in Egypt (300s AD) When were the Gnostics? About the time of Jesus, about 100 BC-100 AD, people living in the Eastern [...]
Maybe our earliest image of the Last Supper - from the Catacombs of Domitilla, 100s AD The Last Supper At the Last Supper, Jesus gave his disciples bread and wine. What's the Last Supper? [...]
French Revolution: French women revolutionaries march on the king's palace at Versailles Why did France want a revolution? All through the 1700s, Enlightenment philosophers in France had been figuring out new ways [...]
Sherwood Forest, where Robin Hood lived In the Early Middle Ages, most people did not pay any money taxes to the king. Instead, they gave chickens, honey, or work days to their own [...]
Elevation of the nave inside Reims cathedral One difference between Chartres cathedral and Reims cathedral was that at Reims they didn't build a deep gallery over the aisle. Instead, they just put [...]
A misericorde in a church Why did people need misericordes? In the Middle Ages, Christian priests and monks sang in their church choirs just as people do today. Sometimes they had to sing for [...]
Medieval cathedrals: Façade of Amiens cathedral in France What is a cathedral? A cathedral is any Christian church where a bishop has his headquarters. No matter how big a church is, if there's [...]
Elevation of Amiens cathedral (begun 1220 AD) Where Chartres cathedral had a full gallery above the side aisles, Amiens has only a thin false gallery like Reims, with windows behind it that let in [...]
