Category: Timeline Stories

From the High Middle Ages, Europe developed into a “persecuting society,” obsessed with stamping out the “cancer” of heresy. But questions about how this was accomplished — and the consequences…

Europe’s first universities are born in Paris and Bologna around the year 1200 when masters and students form guilds known as universitas magistrorum et scholarium. A few years later, the…

In episode VI, we get Medieval! Find out why the Middle Ages were as much a period of inquisition and persecution as reason and inquiry.   Why was the famous…

Pope Leo III crowning Charlemagne, 14th century illumination.   Charlemagne is another ambiguous character. After he becomes Holy Roman Emperor in 800, he revives the Latin language and rescues ancient…

14th century miniature of Abelard and Héloïse (Public Domain)   The multitalented theologian, philosopher and poet Pierre Abelard (1079-1142) is most famous for the tragic love affair he has with his…

Glass mosaic in Surrey   The friar and philosopher William of Ockham is best known for his razor: The problem-solving principle of choosing the explanation based on fewest assumptions. In 1339…

Giovanni di Paolo: St. Thomas Aquinas Confounding Averroës (1445-1450). Bishop Tempier mainly condemned the works of Aquinas and Averroës aka Ibn Rushd.   In March 1277, the Parisian bishop Étienne Tempier issues…

Thomas Aquinas sitting between Plato (right) and Aristotle (left). Benozzo Gozzoli: Triumph of St. Thomas Aquinas, 1470-1475   Thomas Aquinas becomes one of the most influential thinkers in Medieval Europe when he…

The Mongols besieging Baghdad, c. 1430, Bibliothèque nationale de France   The Mongols conquer Baghdad on January 29, 1258. The fall of Baghdad marks the fall of the ʿAbbāsid Caliphate…