By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 24 September 2026
Little Saint Hugh: England’s Worst Blood Libel Craze
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Tag Archives: Christendom
Shark Attacks in Human History
“Religion” is Not a Human Universal
The Armenian Revolutionary Movement: 1860s to 1915
The Recreation of Israel, War, and Survival
Murder, Martyrs, and Mystery: The Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre
Origins of Vampire Stories: When, Where, and How
When Did the “Roman” Empire Become the “Byzantine” Empire?
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 12 June 2021
A painting representing the Byzantines use of “Greek fire” to repel the Arab siege of Constantinople, 674-78
The use of the word “Byzantium” for the Eastern Roman Empire is inescapable, though it is best thought of as a term of convenience rather than definition. For one thing, the inhabitants never called themselves “Byzantines”: they always thought of themselves as “Romans”, though using the Greek work “Romaioi”. The easiest way to see the problem is to ask: When did the Byzantine Empire begin? Continue reading
The Munster Millenarians: Anabaptism and the Radical Reformation
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 21 February 2021
Execution of Jan Beuckelszoon // Illustration in a book by Lambertus Hortensius
In 1534, shortly after the onset of the Protestant Reformation, a radical sect from this new movement, the Anabaptists, seized the city of Munster in Germany and governed it for sixteen months as a millenarian cult in a manner so alarming it managed to bring together Catholic and Lutheran forces to put it down. The experience had a profound influence not only on the development of Anabaptism thereafter, but on the manner in which the Reformation more generally unfolded. Continue reading
The Confrontation that Began the Protestant Reformation
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 28 January 2021
“Luther at the Diet at Worms”, by Anton von Werner, 1877
The Diet of Worms convened 500 years ago today.[1] Four years earlier, Martin Luther had sent his Ninety-five Theses as part of a letter to the Archbishop of Mainz, Albert of Brandenburg. The date on which Luther sent this letter, 31 October 1517, is now celebrated as “Reformation Day”, but the Reformation in a serious sense did not begin until after Luther was summoned before the 1521 Diet of Worms. Continue reading
