Medieval History: Expert Guides and Resources

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.