middle ages

William the Conqueror invades England

Sep 25, 1066

was the 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 is first mass-produced in Spain

Sep 24, 1150

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

Sep 25, 1215

First drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury to make peace between the unpopular King and a group of rebel barons, it promised the protection of church rights, protection for the barons from illegal imprisonment, access to swift justice, and limitations on feudal payments to the Crown, to be implemented through a council of 25 barons. Neither side stood behind their commitments, and the charter was annulled by Pope Innocent III, leading to the First Barons' War. After John's death, the regency

End of the Crusades

Sep 25, 1270

In spite of the above reasons 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. Men had begun to think less of winning future salvation by visits to distant shrines and to think more of their present duties to the world about them. They came to believe that Jerusalem could best be w

The Plague

Sep 25, 1348

The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 75 to 200 million people and peaking in Europe in the years Although there were several competing theories as to the etiology of the Black Death, analysis of DNA from victims in northern and southern Europe published in 2010 and 2011 indicates that the pathogen responsible was the Yersinia pestis bacterium, probably causing several forms of plague

First appearance of Robin Hood in literature

Sep 24, 1378

The first clear reference to "rhymes of Robin Hood" is from Line 5396 of the late-14th-century poem Piers Plowman, but the earliest surviving copies of the narrative ballads that tell his story date to the 15th century, or the first decade of the 16th century.

Chaucer writes The Canterbury Tales

Sep 24, 1387

The Canterbury Tales is a collection of over 20 stories written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of the 14th century, during the time of the Hundred Years' War

War of th roses

Sep 25, 1455

The Wars of the Roses were a series of dynastic wars for the throne of England. They were fought between supporters of two rival branches of the royal House of Plantagenet, the houses of Lancaster and York. They were fought in several sporadic episodes between 1455 and 1487, although there was related fighting before and after this period.

First tudor king, Henry VII, is crowned

Sep 25, 1485

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. Henry was the last king of England to win his throne on the field of battle. He cemented his claim by marrying Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV and niece of Richard III. Henry was successful in restoring the power and stability of the English monarchy after the political upheavals of the civil wars known as the Wars of the Roses.

First printing of Le Morte d’Arthur

Sep 25, 1487

The exact identity of the author of Le Morte D'Arthur has long been the subject of ongoing speculation, owing to the fact that a number of minor historical figures bore the name of "Sir Thomas Malory", but scholarship has increasingly supported the notion that the author was the Thomas Malory who was born between the years 1400-1410 to Sir John Malory, of Newbold Revel, Warwickshire. Sir Thomas inherited the family estate in 1434 after his father died and is believed to have engaged in a life of