-
Was th first Norman King of England, reigning from 1066 until his death in 1087. The descendant of Viking raiders, he had been Duke of Normandy since 1035. After a long struggle to establish his power, by 1060 his hold on Normandy was secure, and he launched the Norman conquest of England in 1066.
-
Paper was invented in ancient China during the Han dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD) and spread slowly to the west via the Silk Road. Papermaking and manufacturing in Europe was started by Muslims living on the Iberian Peninsula, (today's Portugal and Spain) and Sicily in the 10th century, and slowly spread to Italy and Southern France reaching Germany by 1400.
-
Magna Carta is a charter agreed by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, on 15 June 1215
-
the Christians of Europe might have continued much longer their efforts to recover the Holy Land, had they not lost faith in the movement. But after two centuries the old crusading enthusiasm died out, the old ideal of the crusade as "the way of God" lost its spell.
-
The bubonic plague mainly affects rodents, but fleas can transmit the disease to people. Once people are infected, they infect others very rapidly. Plague causes fever and a painful swelling of the lymph glands called buboes, which is how it gets its name.
-
Robin Hood became a popular folk figure in the late-medieval period, and continues to be widely represented in literature, films and television.
-
The Canterbury Tales, a collection of stories in a frame story, between 1387 and 1400. It is the story of a group of thirty people who travel as pilgrims to Canterbury (England).
-
The Wars of the Roses were a series of battles fought in medieval England from 1455 to 1485 between the House of Lancaster and the House of York.
-
First published in 1485 by William Caxton.
-
Henry won the throne when his forces defeated the forces of Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field, the culmination of the Wars of the Roses.
