Medieval History Articles
Famine, plagues, and public executions — the Middle Ages were no picnic. Learn how it all went down, from the Holy Roman Empire to the Hundred Years' War.
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Cheat Sheet / Updated 03-27-2016
The medieval period was an exciting and action-packed time. This Cheat Sheet lists the main events of the period and the locations where they took place.
View Cheat SheetArticle / Updated 03-26-2016
Europeans in the fourteenth century were looking at the world in a new way, seeing far-off places as desirable, worth finding out about, maybe worth acquiring. Yet before Europeans really got out and started taking over that world, there had to be enough personal wealth back home to make a decent-sized market for foreign luxuries. Oddly, it took a horrible disease and mass-scale death for that market to find a foothold. The Black Death (also called the Black Plague), a devastating epidemic of bubonic plague and its variants, probably started in the foothills of Asia's Himalayan mountain range. But in the fourteenth century something happened to make disease spread — perhaps the rise of trade. The disease lived in fleas carried by rats. Where people go, especially people carrying food, so go rats and their parasites. When a rat died, the fleas jumped to another rat. When no other rat was handy, the fleas tried less desirable hosts. When those hosts were human, the people got terribly sick and most of them died quickly. An even more deadly version of the disease, pneumonic plague, spread through the air from person to person. The blackish bruises that appeared beneath their skin were called buboes. That's where the name bubonic plague comes from. (Think of that next time you hear a child call a bruise a "boo-boo.") Killing relentlessly In 1333, the plague killed thousands of Chinese. The disease spread west. By 1347, it reached Constantinople, where it was called "The Great Dying," and it continued rapidly west through the Balkans, Italy, France, and Spain. Then year by year, the disease advanced northward. Within a few years the Black Death reached Russia, Scandinavia, and beyond, following the Viking trade routes to Iceland and completely wiping out Norse settlements in Greenland. As many as 25,000,000 people died in Europe. Maybe a third of the people in England fell. Periodic outbreaks followed for centuries after, but the Black Death had an impact even beyond the horror and sorrow and the morbid fascination it inspired. (Many examples of art from this time focus on disease and death.) The children's rhyme "Ring Around the Rosie" is much older, and much more morbid, than many modern parents realize. It goes back to plague times, when the "rosie" was a rash that appeared as victims first came down with the disease. "Pocket full of posies" refers to the erroneous belief that flower petals were a defense against sickness. The posies did sometimes help with the overwhelming smell of death. "Ashes, ashes," is from the funereal "ashes to ashes, dust to dust." And the final line, "all fall down" originally carried the understanding that few, if any, would get back up again. Doing the math: Fewer people equals more wealth Plague so drastically reduced Europe's population that a smaller labor pool changed the economy. Ironically, this improved many Europeans' lives — creating disposable income, which spurred a demand for eastern luxuries and even eastern ideas. (The intellectual and cultural result of this reduction in population and eastward focus was called the Renaissance.) With so many dead, fewer people were left to work the land. A few workers had the spunk to stand up to the nobles and landowners and point out that they weren't about to give more work for the same money — not when the supply of workers had become smaller and thus more valuable. The most famous of these uprisings was led by Wat Tyler, an English rabble-rouser who got himself killed for his trouble in 1381. Post-plague economics forced some large landholders to split their estates into smaller plots. Instead of remaining tenants who turned over the bulk of their crop to the landlord, some laborers actually began earning pay for their work. Though there were fewer people overall, more people had land, income, and the potential to buy goods. This stimulated a rise in merchants, craftspeople, and skilled traders who could supply goods. Up until that time, you were either rich or poor, usually poor. Now there was a middle class.
View ArticleArticle / Updated 03-26-2016
Nostradamus didn't start out with the intention to write a book of poetry. Instead, he spent his nights in the attic in his home in Salon, France. This attic became the retreat where he studied his favorite topics, read, and pursued his interest in astrology. It was also here that Nostradamus began using meditation techniques and a prayerful attitude to ask for visions of what the future might be. He wrote notes and even made sketches of the visions he saw. He then transformed the notes into the poetry form that exists today as his prophecies. A quick lesson on quatrains A quatrain is four lines of poetry that are grouped together. Sometimes these lines are set apart by spacing, and sometimes because they all rhyme. The quatrain your teacher taught you as part of an English lesson is the same structure Nostradamus used as a lesson on life for the rest of mankind in The Prophecies. Each quatrain Nostradamus wrote is a separate piece and not part of one long poem; so don't sweat it if you look at things that seem to be out of order, because they're not (in order that is). The quatrains were meant to stand alone. Rhyme, while not a requirement, seems to have been one of Nostradamus's elements. Most of his quatrains contain rhymes between the first and third lines and the second and fourth lines. This kind of weaving together of rhyme makes poetic lines feel like they're built strongly to stay together. Nostradamus probably wrote the quatrains in a rough form of Latin and then translated them into a mix of French, Provençal, Italian, Latin, and made-up words that suited his purposes. Each one of these four-line wonders spoke of at least one future event and sometimes several that could be related. When a century isn't 100 years Nostradamus arranged his prophetic quatrains into ten groups of 100 — well, almost. Century 7 has only about half its quatrains, and no one has figured out why Nostradamus shorted this century). These ten groups are called centuries, but don't get derailed into thinking that these grouped prophecies covered 100 years. Here, centuries have nothing to do with years and everything to do with keeping 942 prophecies organized somehow. In terms of Nostradamus's prophecies, century simply refers to the 100 quatrains into which most of the prophecies were divided. Nostradamus didn't pull this format out of a hat. His knowledge of numerology and the power of numbers gave him a distinct form for his message. The most common way to note which of the 942 quatrains is being referenced is to identify them by both the century and the quatrain number. Century numbers are typically in Roman numerals, and the quatrain number follows after a dash. For example, C II – 45 refers to Century II (2) and Quatrain 45. An exception to every rule Just when you think you have quatrains and centuries all sorted out, you'll find a wrench in the works. Nostradamus wasn't a great poet. The overall form of his poetry would've given his mentor and noted critic of poetry, César Scalinger, quite a fit. Frankly, the rhymes were rough. Consider the idea that a poem normally has a beginning, middle, and an end. You'd expect a poem (if the collection of quatrains in The Prophecies are considered together to be one piece) that covers many years to at least have a regular sort of timeline, but Nostradamus didn't give readers that comfort. The quatrains appear in a seemingly random order that certainly isn't guided by time, and topics are spread throughout the entire collection in quatrains that are separated instead of being collected in nice, neat bundles where all the quatrains in one section talk about a specific time or a specific topic. But even the exception has an exception, and in several instances, a prophecy continues from one quatrain to another in a series.
View ArticleArticle / Updated 03-26-2016
The most natural mistake people make when reading Nostradamus's predictions is trying to take in everything he wrote all at once. He was a very deep guy with a lot to say, so don't try to get your PhD in Prophecy in one day. You could begin by selecting a topic, person, or idea that you find interesting and then finding a specific quatrain to match (you can look at what other people have said about a specific quatrain as a starting point for your own ideas). You could also begin by simply choosing quatrains at random. Whichever way you choose to read Nostradamus, there should be a method to your madness —and the method should go something like this: 1. Read the entire quatrain in English all the way through several times, and jot down general ideas about what you think the topic may be (a war, a person, a church-related matter, and so on). Don't get attached to your original ideas; they may change by the time you're done. 2. Note if your quatrain's translation from French to English matches word for word with other people's translations. Sometimes tiny word changes by one translator can make a difference in how you interpret Nostradamus's meaning. Pick a translation that makes the most sense to you. After you have a translation you like, try briefly reading over other people's understanding of the quatrain so you get a broad view of possible meanings that other people see within the quatrain. 3. Pick out what seem to be the most important or key pieces — names, places, and other things necessary for making any kind of sense of the quatrain. Remember any relationships that exist between items. These relationships could be important later to understanding the text. 4. Examine these pieces of the puzzle from many different angles, and let your search be free form, but don't expect it to go in one direction. Exploring the Internet and libraries, as well as brainstorming to find ideas associated with the items in the quatrain, are some of your best bets for unraveling these mysterious pieces. Try to find locations on maps and see what's nearby or whether there were important people around or events that happened in or near that town. For people, begin with their biographies and the important ideas and people associated with them. Often Nostradamus used a person to represent either an idea or a country. If a word or place seems to lead nowhere, try rearranging the word (in English and in French if you can) to form other words. Remember that Nostradamus loved word tricks, so you need to be familiar with these techniques in order to unravel the tricky words in some quatrains. Take notes on what you find for each piece. After you've gathered the pieces, look to see whether any of the pieces are related to each other. Do they all talk about Germany? Is everything about struggle or war-torn areas? These are the kind of general questions you should ask to try and tie the pieces together. 5. After you get the background information on who, what, and where the quatrain is discussing, reread the quatrain, and try to put it all back together as a story with more details. This is the time to go back and really look at the relationship among the pieces in the original quatrain. Try rewriting the quatrain using summarized versions of the words you've researched. This kind of paraphrasing can help because it takes the sometimes awkward words of the quatrain and simplifies them. You may find that with your background knowledge of the previously mysterious pieces, the quatrain will begin to give up its answers. 6. Try to figure out when the events are supposed to shake down, using quatrain dating, history, and current events to help you. Sometimes just knowing who's involved gives you an idea of time because you can look at the person's lifespan. Be careful, however, not to make assumptions. Just because Nostradamus used an older name for a place doesn't mean the events being discussed happened when the place was known by its ancient name. 7. Reread the quatrain and the information you've gathered about the pieces to see whether Nostradamus may have hidden an overall trend or pattern within the words. This is the time to rely on what you know about Nostradamus's favorite topics and see if he has reverted to old habits by discussing politics, religion, France, or the like. If the past just doesn't seem to match up with the pieces of your quatrain, you may need to look at more recent events. Keep an eye on the news, especially beyond the first headlines, on the topics of science, natural disasters, slow changes in political power, and issues that seem connected to the items in your quatrain. Even if nothing matches, you may still be able to find the beginning of a pattern (like the changes from Communism to free trade in Eastern Europe that have taken decades) that may be a future prediction. Don't toss out that quatrain just because the answer isn't in the past. These steps form the basic outline for examining Nostradamus's quatrains and prophecies, but they aren't the definitive guides. Add your own steps as you find that they become necessary.
View ArticleArticle / Updated 03-26-2016
When historians talk about the Middle Ages and a view of the medieval world, they are generally talking about events that took place in and around modern-day Europe and a few adjacent areas, as this figure shows.
View ArticleArticle / Updated 03-26-2016
Famine, plague and public execution – the medieval period wasn’t the best time for some, but heroic rulers like Charlemagne, William the Conqueror and Henry V made sure that it was full of action. Here are the key dates for the big events of the medieval period. Date in Middle Ages What Happened in Medieval History c. AD 450 The first Anglo-Saxons arrive in England. 476 Romulus Augustulus is deposed; the Western Roman Empire ends. 496 Clovis the Frank converts to Christianity. 597 Augustine of Canterbury begins to convert the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity. 638 Jerusalem falls to Islamic forces. 711 Tarik-Ibn-Ziyad begins the Muslim conquest of Spain. 751 Pippin III becomes the first Carolingian king. c. 790 The Vikings begin raiding Ireland. 800 Charlemagne is crowned as the first Holy Roman Emperor. 827 Islamic forces invade Sicily. 843 The Treaty of Verdun splits the Frankish kingdom into three parts, creating modern France and Germany along the way. 863 The Eastern Church and the papacy in Rome split in the First Great Schism. c. 870 The Vikings discover Iceland. 871 Alfred becomes the king of Wessex. 909 Charles the Simple grants lands around Rouen to Viking settlers, beginning the Norman civilisation in France. 987 Louis V, the last Carolingian king, dies. Hugh Capet begins the Capetian line of French kings. 1016 Cnut of Denmark becomes king of England. 1066 William of Normandy invades England; the Battle of Hastings takes place. 1095 Pope Urban II preaches the First Crusade. 1097 The First Crusade arrives at Constantinople. 1099 The First Crusade recaptures Jerusalem and establishes the kingdom of Outremer. 1147–48 The Second Crusade fails to make any gains and is forced to retreat from Damascus. 1189 The Crusade of Frederick Barbarossa ends in failure when he drowns in Asia Minor. 1190–91 The Third Crusade pits Richard I against Saladin. 1204 The Fourth Crusade sacks Constantinople. 1215 King John agrees to the Magna Carta, weakening the authority of the English crown. 1291 The city of Acre falls, and the kingdom of Outremer ends. 1324 Marsilius of Padua criticises the papacy in the Defensor pacis. 1337 The Hundred Years’ War begins. 1346 The Battle of Crecy is fought during the Hundred Years’ War. 1348 The Black Death hits Europe. 1381 The Peasants’ Revolt happens in England. 1415 The Battle of Agincourt is fought during the Hundred Years’ War. 1431 Joan of Arc is executed by the English after leading the French recovery during the Hundred Years’ War. 1453 The French recover Gascony; the Hundred Years’ War ends. The Ottoman Turks capture Constantinople; the Byzantine Empire ends. 1470 Leonardo da Vinci begins work as a professional artist in Florence as the Italian Renaissance gathers pace. 1492 Christopher Columbus discovers America.
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