Daily Medieval

People lived so differently centuries ago that it is difficult to know exactly what life was like in the pre-Industrial Era. Some scholars, ...

When learning about people in the Middle Ages, you can only go so far with records and archaeology. Sometimes you have to go to the people t...

While discussing how England tried to control the movement of laborers after the Black Death  yesterday , I mentioned something about what w...

“Whereas late against the malice of servants, which were idle, and not willing to serve after the pestilence, without taking excessive wages...

As seen yesterday , the significant population loss resulting from the Black Death had a positive effect on laborers' wages. Reduction i...

Although the cause of the Black Death has been questioned, what we know as the Bubonic Plague is the likeliest culprit, causing widespread ...

The greatest impact on European culture was not the Fall of Rome, the mass (forced) adoption of Christianity, the creation of the Holy Roman...

Aristotle called the Greek philosopher Hippodamas the father of city planning because Hippodamas supposedly designed the right-angled grid l...

Enea Silvio Bartolomeo Piccolomini (18 October 1405 - 14 August 1464) had a very simple origin. He was born to the very large family of a si...

In a surprising turn in 1439, during a time when the papacy was in turmoil and rival popes were almost commonplace, the Council of Basel cho...

Amadeus VIII (1383 - 1451) took on the title Count of Savoy at an early age after the death of his father, Amadeus VII. His grandmother, Bon...

After numerous engagements to find the right bride, Amadeus VI of Savoy finally married Bonne of Bourbon (1341 - 19 January 1402). They we...

Like all rulers, Amadeus VI, Count of Savoy  (1334 - 1383), was going to need an heir. He was only nine years old when his father died and p...

When he was 32-years-old, Count of Savoy Amadeus VI started a mini-Crusade. He sent 1700 men on 15 ships to aid Byzantine Emperor John V Pa...

When Aymon, Count of Savoy, died in 1343, his successor, his son Amadeus, was only nine years old. Two cousins were assigned as co-regents. ...

Tenedos (now a Turkish possession called Bozcaada) is an island in the northeast of the Aegean Sea. It was mentioned in the Iliad  and the O...

After the final phase of the decades-long war between Genoa and Venice , the man brought in to mediate a permanent truce between the two mar...

The final phase of the decades-long conflict between Genoa and Venice came in 1378 to 1381 when Genoa decided to directly attack Venice inst...

After the most recent events , the pope attempted to stop the conflict between the two, but they would not be dissuaded from their decades-l...

After the Battle of Curzola in 1299, in which Venice lost dozens of ships and thousands of men against Genoa, Venice was subdued for decade...

After the War of Saint Sabas between Genoa and Venice, a generation went by without outright war. In 1291, the Fall of Acre lost the Crusa...

Four times between 1258 and 1381, the rivalry between the maritime republics of Genoa and Venice reached a tipping point that turned into m...

After the Crusades gave it the opportunity to start creating trading posts in the Eastern Mediterranean, the maritime republic of Genoa beg...

We've touched on Genoa and the possible origin of its name  before . Genoa is on the far northwestern coast of Italy, and archaeological...

Yesterday's post mentioned Buscarello de Ghizolfi, a man from Genoa who served a few Mongol leaders as their ambassador to Europe, spea...

There was a surprising amount of connection between the Mongol Empire and culture and the people of Western Europe. Part of this was because...

Ghazan Khan (1271 - 1304) was not the first Mongol leader to communicate with Christians, but he set about to firm up an alliance to deal wi...

A direct descendant of Genghis Khan, Ghazan Khan ruled the Mongol Empire's Ilkhanate (southwestern part of the empire, what now is Iran)...

Arghun Khan (1258 - 1291) was the son of Abaqa Khan and ruler of the Ilkhanate, in the southwestern part of the Mongol Empire. Arghun (shown...