Medieval Book (Cluny Museum, Paris) In the Early Middle Ages, as the Roman Empire was collapsing, the new power of Christianity inspired Augustine, in North Africa, and Pope Gregory the Great in Italy. They [...]
Gregory of Tours: This reading desk belonged to a nun, St. Radegund, who was Gregory's friend. Do you see the chi-rho symbol near the top? Who was Gregory of Tours? [...]
Dante Alighieri, painted by Giotto about 1320 AD Dante wrote in Italian, not Latin Since the time of the Romans, writers who lived in Italy had always written in Latin. Virgil wrote in Latin, Ovid wrote in Latin, [...]
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 [...]
Qing dynasty court lady reading a handwritten scroll (probably 1700s AD) Printing with movable type first began in China about 1000 AD. It caught on when European printers combined movable type with [...]
