Medieval

E.R. Chamberlin recounts the Babylonian captivity, as Petrarch described it, which lasted in Avignon for seventy-four years.

On August 26th, 1071, Byzantine army was defeated by the Seljuk Turks, and Anatolia was forever lost to Christendom.

Peter Munz describes how the reign of Henry IV was marked by the famous struggle with the Papacy, wars with his German nobles and family tension with his sons.

Peter Munz finds that the eleventh-century Holy Roman Emperor was one of those rare rulers who took the ethics of their calling literally.

An international merchant, Jacques Coeur became banker to the court of Charles VII of France. By 1450, writes A.R. Myers, Couer had reached a magnificent height of prosperity

During the troublous reign that began when he dethroned his cousin Richard, Henry IV encountered a long series of exhausting crises. He met his troubles, writes A.L. Rowse, with resilience and courage.

About the beginning of the fourteenth century, writes A.L. Moir, a prebendary of Lincoln Cathedral completed his ambitious world map, in which geographical information is mixed with historical details and pictures of fantastic legendary monsters.

C.T. Allmand introduces the chronicler, Jean Froissart, who left to posterity a fascinating account of the events and attitudes of his age, which he himself mirrored so faithfully.

Hugh Ross Williamson describes how, in the fierce dynastic struggles of the later fifteenth century, Edward IV’s brother, George Plantagenet, played a devious and ill-fated part.