Robin Hood is a wraith in Lincoln green, a shadowy figure who peers out at us through the dense foliage of the forests of time; hooded, anonymous and yet terribly familiar to us. Today, more than seven hundred and fifty years after the first stories about him began to circulate, he still exercises a huge influence over our culture. [read more]

On a roasting-hot day in July 1187, the great Kurdish warrior Saladin (Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub), who had spent years unifying the various Muslim factions of the Near East, met a huge Christian army of approximately 20,000 men under the command of Guy de Lusignan, King of Jerusalem. [read more]

Richard the Lionheart left the Holy Land in the second week of October 1192. The Third Crusade had been only a partial success and, after three years of fighting the Saracens, the Christian warriors were exhausted and their numbers much depleted by disease, desertion and death in battle. [read more]