Papal States: Did you mean...?

Pope Joan was a legendary female pope of the Middle Ages said to have reigned from 855 to 858. After her story was popularized by Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375), a statue of her was placed alongside those of other popes at...

The Town Meeting was a unique form of local participation in government that became popular in New England. This video goes into detail as to how this phenomenon developed, its limitations, and why New England and not other colonial regions...

The Northwest Ordinance was enacted by the Confederation Congress of the United States on 13 July 1787. It created the Northwest Territory – comprised of the modern-day states of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota...

In response to Martin Luther's 95 Theses, as well as his other works, Pope Leo X sent a papal bull threatening him with excommunication in June 1520. Luther publicly burned the bull at Wittenberg on 10 December 1520 and was officially excommunicated...

As the Reformation developed in France in the first half of the 16th century, there were several episodes of severe repression which preceded the Wars of Religion (1562-1598). These were times of great hardship and oppression against those...

The Crusades were a series of military campaigns organised by popes and Christian western powers to take Jerusalem and the Holy Land back from Muslim control and then defend those gains. There were eight major official crusades between 1095...

The Donation of Constantine (Donatio Constantini or the Donatio) is a medieval forgery dated to the 8th century purporting to be an original 4th-century document in which the Roman emperor Constantine the Great (r. 306-337) granted supreme...

Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472 CE) was an Italian scholar, architect, mathematician, and advocate of Renaissance humanism. Alberti famously wrote the treatise On Architecture where he outlines the key elements of classical architecture...

The Spanish Requirement or Requerimiento was a document intended to be read out to and agreed upon by indigenous peoples during the Spanish conquest of the Americas. Created in 1513, the document outlined the history of Christianity, the...

Johann Eck (l. 1486-1543) was a Catholic theologian and writer best known for his disputations with Martin Luther (l. 1483-1546) beginning in 1517 and continuing until his death in 1543. Eck maintained the position that, if anyone could determine...