Watched an interesting program on BBC 4 last night about the attitudes of medieval people, and how their lives were governed by the constant battle between the imaginary forces of good and evil. The program was able to explain how the church fitted into all this and why it was so important.
I’ve always been surprised by just how many abbeys, minsters, cathedrals and churches there are about, left from the middle ages. Were people really that religious or the church so wealthy that they could...

Doris Duke (1912-1993) was a wealthy American heiress, philanthropist, horticulturalist and art collector. The only child of tobacco and energy magnate James Buchanan Duke, she was shrewd, independent, and mingled with the likes of Elizabeth Taylor and Jackie Onassis. Her father's passing when she was just 12 years old thus made her the "richest girl in the world."

She...