The medieval era in Europe lasted a millennium and saw massive social change and technological innovation, as well as calamities like the Black Death. That makes it a great period for historical fiction, offering a glimpse of a past that was very different from our own lives, and yet can resonate with the present. Here Marion Turner, Professor of English Literature at Oxford University, recommends some of her favourite historical novels set in the Middle Ages and explains why she finds them so compelling.

Writer and Dark Age historian delves into five books on Celtic history, and talks about the challenge of separating history from legend. One priority for any Dark Age historian, he says, is "to avoid these awful bogs"