For a millennium, rivalries between and among Byzantine noble families propelled public life, with the kind of bloody factional maneuvering that makes the Tudors look like the Waltons in comparison.

Though political power was usually a male privilege in Byzantium, a striking feature of the Byzantine tales is the prominence of women as political... See more

The scene was set for Ferdinand and Isabella’s union of Aragon and Castile some time before their births. Aragonese elites had grown tired of being vassals to Catalan interests, and their chance arrived in 1410, with the death of the pleasingly-titled Martin the Humane in 1410. His death without heirs ended the House of Barcelona, and Aragonese... See more