Late Middle Ages

The Late Middle Ages run from the year 1000 to the fall of Constantinople, in 1453. In Europe the population grows, towns fill with merchants and craftsmen, and in Italy the communes are born. Great cathedrals are built, first Romanesque and then Gothic, and the first universities open. Merchants like Marco Polo travel all the way to China, and inventions such as spectacles and mechanical clocks appear. There are some very hard times too, such as the Crusades, the Hundred Years' War and the Black Death.

The era on a line: 25 events

1. about 1050 The growth of medieval towns
2. 1054 The East–West Schism
3. about 1070 The Bayeux Tapestry
4. about 1088 The University of Bologna
5. 1096–1099 The First Crusade
6. about 1100 The Italian communes
7. about 1100 Romanesque cathedrals
8. about 1100 Watermills and windmills
9. 1144 Gothic style at Saint-Denis
10. about 1150 Hildegard of Bingen
11. about 1150 Paper arrives in Europe
12. 1155 Frederick Barbarossa
13. about 1182 Francis of Assisi
14. 1202 Fibonacci and the Liber abaci
15. 1215 Magna Carta
16. 1252 The gold florin
17. 1271 Marco Polo sets off for Asia
18. about 1286 Spectacles
19. about 1300 The Hanseatic League and northern trade
20. about 1305 Giotto paints in Padua
21. about 1307 Dante begins the Divine Comedy
22. 1337–1453 The Hundred Years' War
23. 1347–1352 The Black Death
24. about 1350 Public mechanical clocks
25. 1429 Joan of Arc

Did you know?

• The Hundred Years' War actually lasted 116 years, from 1337 to 1453, with long breaks between one round of fighting and the next.
• The founding date of the University of Bologna, 1088, was chosen in the 1800s by a committee led by the poet Giosuè Carducci.
• In Fibonacci's Liber abaci there is a problem about a pair of rabbits that gives rise to a famous series of numbers: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13…

storiascopio.com/en/era/late-middle-ages/ · free worksheet, you may photocopy it for your class

1. Put in order: write 1 next to the oldest and 5 next to the most recent.

• Watermills and windmills
• The Bayeux Tapestry
• Francis of Assisi
• Spectacles
• The Black Death

2. Choose the right answer.

1. Which two Churches came out of the split of 1054?

   • The Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church
   • The Waldensian Church and the Calvinist Church
   • The Lutheran Church and the Anglican Church
   • The Coptic Church and the Armenian Church

2. Which battle does the Bayeux Tapestry tell the story of?

   • The Battle of Legnano
   • The Battle of Hastings
   • The Battle of Agincourt
   • The Battle of Crécy

3. What did the first teachers in Bologna, such as Irnerius, explain?

   • The laws of Justinian
   • Astronomy
   • Arab medicine
   • Painting

4. What did Abbot Suger want his church to be like?

   • Entirely covered in gold
   • Full of light
   • The tallest in the world
   • Without windows

3. Match each person to what they did: write the right letter.

Storiascopio · texts by Ciro Simone Irmici, written with the help of AI and checked · sources in the online cards