Just like the Clerk's Tale: Clerks in the Manessa Codex (1300 AD) A story from Boccaccio Chaucer's Clerk's Tale is actually taken from one of Boccaccio's stories, and because of that [...]
Chaucer's tomb in Westminster Abbey Who was Chaucer? Geoffrey Chaucer was born about 1343 AD, probably in London, England, during the Hundred Years' War. His father seems to have been pretty well [...]
Florence, Italy Who was Boccaccio? Most of the people who knew how to write in the early Middle Ages were monks. So most of them wrote about serious things like God and [...]
The only surviving manuscript of Beowulf Date of Beowulf Beowulf is a long poem that somebody wrote down around 1000 AD. The poem is in Old English, so whoever wrote it [...]
King Arthur hunting, 1300s AD (British Library, London) Stories about King Arthur may be based on a real man who ruled southern England about 450 AD, just after the Romans left, but nobody knows anything [...]
Anna Comnena, author of the Alexiad Who was Anna Comnena? Anna Comnena was born a princess in 1083 AD. She was the oldest child of the Byzantine emperor Alexios. She was named [...]
Empress Wu of the T'ang Dynasty A regent is someone who rules for somebody else. Usually it is an uncle or mother who rules for a child. Maybe the child [...]
Burying people who died of plague - the Late Middle Ages The Mongol Empire In the Late Middle Ages, the Mongol Empire brought peace to most of Asia, and encouraged trade along the Silk [...]
The red rose of Lancaster During the Hundred Years' War, the kings of England got into a big fight about who should be king. There was a long civil war in England. [...]
Bronze horses of St. Mark's, Venice In 1204 AD, Venice agreed to help European soldiers on the Fourth Crusade. They would use their great navy to get the Crusaders to Egypt. But in exchange, the Venetians got the [...]
