Browse Items (167 total)

This painting of the Saint Bartholomew’s Massacre dates from sometime between 1572, the year of the massacre, and 1584, the artist’s death. The painting shows the chaos of the scene with numerous vignettes of violence, murder, and death. The body of…

The Little Hours opens with what seems to be a peaceful and pious nun leading a lost donkey through a serene wilderness back to her abbey. Yet, not even five minutes in, the idea that this is going to be a film depicting the day-to-day lives of…

Family drama abounds in the The Lion In Winter, in which King Henry II and his estranged wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine spar over which of their sons will inherit the English throne. The Lion in Winter was first a 1966 play written by James Goldman. The…

This walrus ivory chess-piece from twelfth-century Lewis Chessmen is one of 93, discovered in a sand dune on the Isle of Lewis, Scotland. The pieces and their garments are representative of the rigid social hierarchy of the time. The chess-pieces…

A pseudo-historical film exploring the fictional idea that Romulus Augustus, considered to be the last Roman Emperor in the West, left Italy after he was deposed and traveled to Britain, where he became known as Uther Pendragon.

This is an excerpt from Joan of Arc’s inquisition, in which judges sympathetic to English political interests interrogated her about her loyalty to the church, whether she held any anti-clerical views, and when and why she heard voices commanding her…

In this clip from Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal (1957), a rural town in interrupted by the violent and frightful procession of flagellants -- wandering penitent Christians who believe the plague was sent by God, and that physical pain is the…

The author of the hagiography The First Life of St. Francis was Thomas of Celano, a Franciscan who joined the order shortly after it was founded and who knew Francis personally. To write an account of Francis’ life, Celano drew on testimonies from…

The film begins with a quotation from Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Gibbon’s idea of a long Roman decline brought on by many factors influenced the movie considerably, though the plot is only loosely based on the real…

The Eagle is a film of historical fiction, and stars Channing Tatum, Jamie Bell, and Donald Sutherland. Released in February of 2011, The Eagle adapts Rosemary Sutcliff's 1954 novel The Eagle of the Ninth. It was filmed with a budget of $25 million,…