The Middle Ages

William the Conqueror invades England

Aug 28, 1066

The policies of William the Conqueror, king of England from 1066 until his death in 1087, may be largely responsible for eventually making Britain the most powerful nation in Europe.

Paper is first mass-produced in Spain

Aug 28, 1150

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. Earlier, other paper-like materials were in use including papyrus, parchment, palm leaves and vellum.

Magna Carta

Jun 28, 1215

The Magna Carta was signed in June 1215 between the barons of Medieval England and King John. 'Magna Carta' is Latin and means "Great Charter". The Magna Carta was an attempt by the barons to stop a king - in this case John - abusing his power with the people of England suffering.

End of the Crusades

Aug 28, 1270

The Crusades were a series of military campaigns during the time of Medieval England against the Muslims of the Middle East to claim Jerusalem.

The Plague

Aug 28, 1348

In Medieval England, the Black Death was to kill 1.5 million people out of an estimated total of 4 million people between 1348 and 1350. No medical knowledge existed in Medieval England to cope with the disease.

First appearance of Robin Hood in literature

Aug 28, 1378

The first literary references to Robin Hood appear in a series of 14th- and 15th-century ballads about a violent yeoman who lived in Sherwood Forest with his men and frequently clashed with the Sheriff of Nottingham. Rather than a peasant, knight or fallen noble, as in later versions, the protagonist of these medieval stories is a commoner.

Chaucer writes The Canterbury Tales

Aug 28, 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. The tales are presented as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together on a journey from Southwark to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral.

War of the Roses

Aug 29, 1455

The Wars of the Roses were a series of civil wars fought in medieval England from 1455 to 1487 between the House of Lancaster and the House of York. The name Wars of the Roses is based on the badges used by the two sides, the red rose for the Lancastrians and the white rose for the Yorkists.

First printing of Le Morte d’Arthur

Aug 28, 1485

Written by Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur, completed in 1469 or 1470 and printed by Caxton in abridged form in 1485, is the first major work of prose fiction in English and remains today one of the greatest. It is the carefully constructed myth of the rise and fall of a powerful kingdom — a legendary kingdom, but perhaps also, obliquely, the real English kingdom which in Malory's day seemed as surely doomed by its own corruption as the ancient realm of King Arthur.

First Tudor king, Henry VII, is crowned

Aug 29, 1485

Henry VII ended the dynastic wars known as the Wars of the Roses, founded the Tudor dynasty and modernised England's government and legal system.