Back then, a piece of cheese and pineapple on a cocktail stick was exotic. (View Post)

A good fishmonger’s is worth its weight in gold. Fish is only worth eating if it’s fresh. We lost F. Berndes in Enfield, five years ago, although Waitrose still does fresh fish. There is a mobile fis… (View Post)

He did, but then lived in peace with his neighbours, and left an ample treasury on his death. (View Post)

The administrative and logistical abilities of the Roman, Ottoman, and Chinese empires, were simply in a different league to anything that Western Europe could manage, until the late sixteenth centur… (View Post)

A typical medieval army would be 5-10,000 men, with an equivalent number of camp followers (who essentially, performed a similar function to modern support soldiers). By the mid-sixteenth century, yo… (View Post)