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Major setbacks occurred at the end of the thirteenth century and continued into the fourteenth, when population expansion and declining crop yields coincided with a devastating and widespread plague, the Black Death (1348-1349). This had a major impact on population numbers-which dramatically declined-and on both society and economy. Immediately following an economic crisis, a period of crop failure, and an intensification of criminal activity (which may, perhaps, have been linked to fluctuations in food prices), the plague was devastating in its effects, and forms a turning point in the history of medieval England. Nor was the Black Death an isolated event; further pestilence struck in the 1360s, accentuating the problems. Read more: Medieval Britain - Documentation, Norman Period, Feudal Period, Economic Recovery, Cathedrals, Churches, and Monasteries, Impact of Protestantism - England, Castles, Century, Period, Norman, and Built - JRank Articles http://www.jrank.org/history/pages/5958/Medieval-Britain.html#ixzz1Z3mRCdHa

The 14th century was an era of catastrophes. Some of them man-made, such as the Hundred Years' War, the Avignon Papacy, and the Great Schism. These were caused by human beings, and we shall consider them a bit later. There were two more or less natural disasters either of which one would think would have been sufficient to throw medieval Europe into a real "Dark Ages": the Great Famine and the Black Death. Each caused millions of deaths, and each in its way demonstrated in dramatic fashion the existence of new vulnerabilities in Western European society. Together they subjected the population of medieval Europe to tremendous strains, leading many people to challenge old institutions and doubt traditional values, and, by so doing, these calamities altered the path of European development in many areas.

Medieval England was not a comfortable place for most women. Medieval women invariably had a hard time in an era when many men lived harsh lives. A few women lived comfortable lives but Medieval society was completely dominated by men and women had to know 'their place' in such a society.

"Published on Jun 3, 2014 Jacqui Pearce, Senior Ceramic Specialist at MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology), discusses the development of MOLA's medieval London pottery type series. The excavation of a number of waterfront sites in London led to the discovery of pottery-rich medieval dumps located behind wooden river revetments. The revetment timbers were accurately dated through dendrochronology which enabled MOLA to create an incredibly detailed typology of pottery through the medieval period. Pottery is the most common material found on archaeological sites and this precise dating information has been hugely important, enabling us to date the layers of archaeology found on our sites."

"There is a Middle English aphorism that says, 'Winter all eats / That summer begets'. Living alongside 24-hour supermarkets, it is easy to forget the once vital preoccupation with preserving the autumn harvest and stocking our larders to the brim. As we approach the sign of Aquarius, long nights and short days will persist until mid-March when the sun enters Aries, and we spare a thought for our medieval forebears in the most barren and cold of seasons. Depictions of wintry concerns and activities from the medieval era are frequently featured in the calendars which preface many Books of Hours and Psalters"

"The CHSSP is proud to introduce our third Blueprint unit: Sites of Encounter in the Medieval World, funded through the generous support of the Social Science Research Council and the British Council.  Drawing on new historical scholarship about the Mediterranean world, maritime technology transfers, travel narratives and multicultural trade cities, the unit is framed around the investigation question:  How did sites of encounter change the medieval world?"

" By the later Middle Ages there was great interest in anatomy and how the body worked. Medieval people made illustrations to explain medical and anatomical issues of human body. Here is a list of medieval images of the whole or parts of the body, which offer a fascinating, unique and strange views from the Middle Ages."

"Ever since antiquity astronomy has consisted of both theory and observation, but these two components have often received different treatments in the original sources. In the medieval period we find many texts that present theories (even new theories) for the motions of the Sun, the Moon, and the planets; and other texts that describe instruments (some newly invented) for making observations. Moreover, medieval scholars carefully read various works that survived from antiquity, notably Ptolemy's Almagest, and these treatises served as a guide for the scientific study of astronomy. In particular, Ptolemy described methods of determining the planetary models (or parts of them) from sets of dated observations, and he gave numerous examples (including many based on observations he himself made) which take up a major portion of his magnus opus. In this respect, however, the vast majority of his successors did not follow him, for we find surprisingly few planetary observations in the medieval astronomical corpus. (A similar paucity of observations of the Sun, the Moon, and eclipses has also been noted.) Indeed, in most astronomical tables compiled in the Middle Ages observations play no role, and it can be demonstrated that the tabular entries are largely based on earlier astronomical theories."

"Our list of the best medieval maps - ten maps created between the sixth and sixteenth centuries, which offer unique views into how medieval people saw their world. These maps are arranged chronologically, which helps to reveal some of the changes that took place during the Middle Ages in how people created maps."

"Richard Cross, Rev. John A. O'Brien Chair in Philosophy (UND), and Stephen Gersh, Professor of Medieval Studies (UND), present on "The Medieval Understandings of Participation" at a Templeton Colloquium at the NDIAS on "Participation in God: Reassessing an Ancient Philosophical Idea and Its Contemporary Relevance." This colloquium took place March 18-20, 2014 at the University of Notre Dame and was conceived by Douglas Hedley, Templeton Fellow at the NDIAS and Reader in Hermeneutics and Metaphysics at the University of Cambridge."

" What did medieval cities look like? Or more precisely, how did medieval people depict cities? Here are 15 images from the Middle Ages that show how the urban world looked like."

Women's involvement with medieval music took a variety of forms; they served at times as audience, as participant, as sponsor, and as creator. The evidence for their roles, like that for their male contemporaries, is sporadic at best. Many musical sources have been lost, and those sources that do survive only occasionally provide composer attributions. Information on specific performances is virtually non-existent, and the references to musical performances gleaned from literary allusions must be read critically. Similarly, an art-work portraying a women musician may be representational or symbolic--or both. Yet despite these handicaps, modern scholarship reveals many ways in which medieval women were engaged with--and enriched by--the music that flourished around them.

"The Online Medieval and Classical Library (OMACL) is a collection of some of the most important literary works of Classical and Medieval civilization."

Timeline of the medieval period

"This text is part of the Internet Medieval Source Book. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and copy-permitted texts related to medieval and Byzantine history."

"Wish to go travelling medieval style? Here is a list of books, which will tell you all about how people in the Middle Ages went about it What time of the year should you venture out? Which mounts should you choose? Or should you go by the sea? Where to cross rivers? What inns were safe? Where to find food? Anyone living in the Middle Ages had to have a good working knowledge of what was both reasonable and feasible. At a time when people had to move around in order to trade, to learn, to fight - or just to connect, practical knowledge about landscapes, food, hostile strangers and friendly hospices might often mean the difference between life and dead. Here is a list of books, which will introduce you to the field in general. Further literature may be found in the generous bibliographies, they are all fitted with."

Leges Henrici Primi:all facts at a glanceThe Leges Henrici Primi or Laws of Henry I is a legal treatise, written in about 1115, that records the legal customs of medieval England in the reign of King Henry I of England. The Leges Henrici Primi or Laws of Henry I is a legal treatise, written in about 1115, that records the legal customs of medieval England. It was written during the reign of King Henry I of England, and was part of a ... (Source: Wikipedia: Leges Henrici Primi)

"The idea that Medieval people drank beer or wine to avoid drinking bad water is so established that even some very serious scholars see no reason to document or defend it; they simply repeat it as a settled truth. In fact, if no one ever documents the idea, it is for a very simple reason: it's not true."

"Story of medieval England 15/36 The Anarchy of Stephen's Reign" VIDEO