Explore the dramatic fall of Rome and its ripple effects across Europe, the fierce voyages of the Vikings, and the rise of mighty leaders like Charlemagne.
Welcome • When Rome fell to the sword, its death throes affected more than just the city and its immediate vicinity.
Darkness to Light • Are the stereotypes about the Early Middle Ages really true, or a Renaissance-era fiction?
The Dark Ages • Everything you wanted to know about But were too afraid to ask
The Last Days of the West • The earth-shattering collapse of the Western Roman Empire was the result of invasions, corruption and cruelty
Rome’s kingmaker
Odoacer: First king of Italy
The Byzantine Empire • The dramas of the Eastern Empire were a match for anything that the West had been able to offer
Picturing Jesus
The Slayer of the Bulgars • The Byzantine Empire produced many military giants, but few could match Emperor Basil II
Bowing and curtseying • Political life in the Eastern Empire may have sometimes been chaotic, but it was always regulated by intricate rules and rituals
Rise of the Holy Empire • The dominant institution in the lives of kings and peasants alike, the Church promised heavenly salvation to all yet frequently delivered earthly schism
The Crusades
The Seven Kingdoms • Out of the chaos of the end of an empire, seven kingdoms emerged, known as the Heptarchy
Blood and Sea • Traders, raiders, explorers and conquerors: Vikings changed the world
Early Viking Raids on Britain • From Lindisfarne to the Great Heathen Army
What’s in a name? • It’s time to uncover why we call them ‘Vikings’
When Vikings Ruled the Waves • Portrayed as bloodthirsty pirates pillaging innocent villagers, Vikings also ruled the waves with a lucrative trade network
Viking voyages • As expert ship builders, the Vikings were able to voyage further and wider than any civilisation before…
navigation
Raids • No monastery was safe from the fiery scourge that swept over the land from beyond the sea
Anatomy of a Viking warrior
The attack on Lindisfarne
Trade • Vikings were not powered by brutality but instead a complex and prosperous trade network
Lost kingdoms of the Vikings • From Canada to Constantinople, the Norse raiders pillaged and plundered the known world in search of treasure and territory
Ireland • For more than 200 years the Vikings exerted influence over vast swathes of the Emerald Isle
The theories behind the Viking expansion
norse words that invaded the English language
North America • With parts of Northern Europe ransacked, the Vikings turned their attention to the other side of the Atlantic
What became of Vinland?
France • Across the Channel, Vikings threatened the Franks in Normandy, Brittany and Aquitaine
Russia and Eastern Europe • Using the river systems of the Baltic to their advantage, the Vikings travelled east for further trade and conquest
Seven other travelling civilisations
Constantinope • The Vikings venture to the gates of the Byzantine Empire
Legacy • The fearsome warriors who became the most brutal bodyguards of the age
Iberia • The Norse expansion into the Christian north and Islamic south of Spain
Charlemagne • The ‘father of Europe’ and ruler of much of France and Germany, Charlemagne made his name as a king but left a legacy as the first Roman emperor since the 5th century
Birth of the modern Europe • Three big ways in which Charlemagne changed the continent
Kingdom of the northmen • How the Vikings turned a small duchy into a great Medieval power
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