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History, written by a contemporary, is likely to be less accurate, less truthful than the History of the past written by someone living in the present.

During the early Middle Ages most books were used by priests and monks for liturgical purposes. New books appeared most often when a new monastery was founded.

Most illuminators were humble craftsmen who set up shop. Some were independent, itinerant artists who traveled from place to place looking for commissions. The best held the rank of court artists at the exclusive service of a wealthy patron.

Illuminators usually belonged either to the painter’s guild or another guild involved in the book trade. Most illuminators remained anonymous until the late Middle Ages

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 1348–50 CE.

The Black Death is thought to have originated in the arid plains of central Asia, where it then travelled along the Silk Road, reaching the Crimea by 1346

divided into small city states, each of which consisted of a city and its surrounding countryside

here were probably always slaves in India, but until about 1000 AD there were only a few slaves, and most of them worked as house servants.

Islamic conquerors reached India, they forced many more people to be slaves. They sold thousands of these slaves out of India to work in Persia (modern Iran) or Afghanistan. Many of these people worked in the mines. SIGN IN LOG OUT

On November 27, 1095, Pope Urban II makes perhaps the most influential speech of the Middle Ages, giving rise to the Crusades by calling all Christians in Europe to war against Muslims in order to reclaim the Holy Land, with a cry of "Deus vult!" or "God wills it!"

By the end of the 11th century, the Holy Land—the area now commonly referred to as the Middle East—had become a point of conflict for European Christians. Since the 6th century, Christians frequently made pilgrimages to the birthplace of their religion, but when the Seljuk Turks took control of Jerusalem, Christians were barred from the Holy City. When the Turks then threatened to invade the Byzantine Empire and take Constantinople, Byzantine Emperor Alexius I made a special appeal to Urban for help. This was not the first appeal of its kind, but it came at an important time for Urban. Wanting to reinforce the power of the papacy, Urban seized the opportunity to unite Christian Europe under him as he fought to take back the Holy Land from the Turks.

Urban delivered a rousing speech summoning rich and poor alike to stop their in-fighting and embark on a righteous war to help their fellow Christians in the East and take back Jerusalem. Urban denigrated the Muslims, exaggerating stories of their anti-Christian acts, and promised absolution and remission of sins for all who died in the service of Christ.