On Christmas Day in the year AD 800, in Rome, the pope placed a crown on the head of Charlemagne, king of the Franks, and named him emperor. Charlemagne ruled much of Western Europe. He could read but found writing hard, yet he gathered scholars at his court and asked monasteries to start schools.
Key idea
Lords built castles of stone, with thick walls, towers and moats, to defend their lands. Knights trained from boyhood, first as pages and then as squires. They were expected to follow a code called chivalry: to be brave and loyal, and to protect the weak.
In monasteries, monks and nuns prayed, cared for the sick and travelers, and copied books by hand. A single Bible could take years to copy, and they decorated the pages with gold and bright colors. Without these copyists, many ancient books would have been lost.
In 1215, English barons made King John agree to the Magna Carta, "the great charter." It said that even the king had to obey the law. Then, from 1347, a terrible sickness called the Black Death spread across Europe and killed about one person in three.
Worked example: Middle of what?
- Writers in the 1400s and 1500s thought of their own time as new, and of Greece and Rome as the ancient past.
- The years in between they called the middle age.
Answer: They come between ancient times and modern times.
Common mistake
Try it at home
- Design a coat of arms for your family on a shield shape: choose two colors and a picture that stands for something you value.
- Write the first letter of your name large and decorate it with vines and gold (yellow) like a monk's illuminated page.