#material-culture

#material-culture

The tomb effigy of a French crusader from the thirteenth century preserves a surprising secret: a carved copy of a Chinese sword which belonged to the knight. The question of how a Chinese sword ended up on the tomb has fascinated scholars for decades. It is a story that speaks to the influence of global travel, crusading warfare, trade and plunder, inviting us to reconsider the Middle Ages as more globally connected than often imagined.

Domination tells the story of how a tiny local cult became one of the greatest cultural and political forces in history. Alice Roberts puts the case that the Roman empire lived on in a different form in the church. It is not an original idea after all the foundation prayer of Christianity says thy Kingdom come but Roberts tells the story from the point of view of individual parishes and even buildings. It's a revelation, like watching those stop-motion films of how a plant grows