BedeBede (biːd Bǣda ˈbæːdɑ, Bēda ˈbeːdɑ; 672/3 - 26 May 735) was an English monk and an author and scholar. He was one of the greatest teachers and writers during the Early Middle Ages, and his most famous work, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, gained him the title "The Father of English History". He served at the monastery of St Peter and its companion monastery of St Paul in the Kingdom of Northumbria of the Angles. He is also known as Saint Bede, The Venerable Bede, and Bede the Venerable (Beda Venerabilis).
Black DeathThe Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality or the Plague) was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Western Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causing the deaths of 75–200 million people, peaking in Europe from 1347 to 1351. Bubonic plague is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis spread by fleas, but during the Black Death it probably also took a secondary form, spread by person-to-person contact via aerosols, causing pneumonic plague.
CharlemagneCharlemagne (ˈʃɑːrləmeɪn,_ˌʃɑːrləˈmeɪn ) or Charles the Great (Carolus Magnus, Frankish: Karl; 2 April 747 – 28 January 814), a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and was crowned as the Emperor of the Romans by the Papacy in 800. Charlemagne succeeded in uniting the majority of western and central Europe and was the first recognized emperor to rule from western Europe after the fall of the Western Roman Empire approximately three centuries earlier.
Cantigas de Santa MariaThe Cantigas de Santa Maria (kanˈtiɣɐz ðɪ ˈsantɐ maˈɾi.ɐ, kɐ̃ˈtiɣɐʒ ðɨ ˈsɐ̃tɐ mɐˈɾi.ɐ; "Canticles of Holy Mary") are 420 poems with musical notation, written in the medieval Galician-Portuguese language during the reign of Alfonso X of Castile El Sabio (1221–1284). Traditionally, they are all attributed to Alfonso, though scholars have since established that the musicians and poets of his court were responsible for most of them, with Alfonso being credited with a few as well.
ColumbanusColumbanus (Columbán; 543 – 23 November 615) was an Irish missionary notable for founding a number of monasteries after 590 in the Frankish and Lombard kingdoms, most notably Luxeuil Abbey in present-day France and Bobbio Abbey in present-day Italy. Columbanus taught an Irish monastic rule and penitential practices for those repenting of sins, which emphasised private confession to a priest, followed by penances levied by the priest in reparation for the sins. Columbanus is one of the earliest identifiable Hiberno-Latin writers.
Chain mailChain mail is the name (called mail or maille, but also called chain mail or chainmail) of a type of armour consisting of small metal rings linked together in a pattern to form a mesh. It was in common military use between the 3rd century BC and the 16th century AD in Europe, and longer in Asia and North Africa. A coat of this armour is often called a hauberk, and sometimes a byrnie. The earliest examples of surviving mail were found in the Carpathian Basin at a burial in Horný Jatov, Slovakia dated in the 3rd century BC, and in a chieftain's burial located in Ciumești, Romania.
ChronicleA chronicle (chronica, from Greek χρονικά chroniká, from χρόνος, chrónos – "time") is a historical account of events arranged in chronological order, as in a timeline. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and local events, the purpose being the recording of events that occurred, seen from the perspective of the chronicler. A chronicle which traces world history is a universal chronicle. This is in contrast to a narrative or history, in which an author chooses events to interpret and analyze and excludes those the author does not consider important or relevant.
AachenAachen ('ɑːxən , ˈaːxn̩; Oche ˈɔːxə; French and traditional English: Aix-la-Chapelle) is the 13th-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia and the 27th-largest city of Germany, with around 249,000 inhabitants. It is the westernmost city in Germany, and borders Belgium and the Netherlands to the west, the triborder area. It is located between Maastricht (NL) and Liège (BE) in the west, and Bonn and Cologne in the east. The Wurm River flows through the city, and together with Mönchengladbach, Aachen is the only larger German city in the drainage basin of the Meuse.
Dante AlighieriDante Alighieri (ˈdante aliˈɡjɛːri; 1265 – 14 September 1321), most likely baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (ˈdɑːnteɪ,_ˈdænteɪ,_ˈdænti, USˈdɑːnti), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His Divine Comedy, originally called Comedìa (modern Italian: Commedia) and later christened Divina by Giovanni Boccaccio, is widely considered one of the most important poems of the Middle Ages and the greatest literary work in the Italian language.
GothsThe Goths (𐌲𐌿𐍄𐌸𐌹𐌿𐌳𐌰; Gothi, Gótthoi) were Germanic people who played a major role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the emergence of medieval Europe. In his book Getica (c. 551), the historian Jordanes writes that the Goths originated in southern Scandinavia, but the accuracy of this account is unclear. A people called the Gutones - possibly early Goths - are documented living near the lower Vistula River in the 1st century, where they are associated with the archaeological Wielbark culture.
