People in the seventeenth century didn’t know what caused the plague and many believed it was a punishment from God. They did realise that coming into contact with those infected increased the risk of contracting the disease themselves. Cures and preventative measures were not at all affective.
Many doctors, knowing that they could do nothing [...]

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Bubonic Plague was known as the Black Death and had been known in England for centuries. It was a ghastly disease. The victim’s skin turned black in patches and inflamed glands or ‘buboes’ in the groin combined with compulsive vomiting, swollen tongue and splitting headaches made it a horrible, agonizing killer.
The plague started in the [...]

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Population figures for the Middle Ages are not exact, so it is difficult to know how many people died of the Black Death before the epidemic stopped in the 1350s. However, it seems likely that over all Europe at least one person in four died from it. In many places, the figure was much higher. [...]

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People who caught the plague first started to shiver, and then they became feverish. They began to sweat, cough up blood and vomit. Their heads, backs and limbs ached violently. They felt giddy. Even the dim light of the cottage hurt their eyes. They could not sleep, and diarrhoea set in. They felt dazed, and [...]

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The Italian town of Genoa was one of the busiest ports in Europe. Ships sailed from Genoa to trade all over the Mediterranean and into the Black Sea. Some goods were even shipped around the coast of Spain and France to England. Merchants traded many goods from Asia such as spices, precious metals and silk. [...]

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Introduction
When we think of chivalry, the most likely image to spring to mind is one of the perfect gentleman - an impeccably mannered individual who displays gentle and courteous behaviour, especially towards women.
The word ‘chivalry’ has its earliest roots in the French word for horse, cheval, and a knight in that same languare is called [...]

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The Knight
Knights - After the lord on the social ladder came the knight. The path to knighthood began at the age of seven, when a vassal sent his son to the lord’s house to become a page. For seven years a page was cared for by the women of the house, who instructed him in [...]

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Type 1 - Bubonic Plague
The most common form. This disease is characterised by an extremely high fever, chills, and ultimately delirium and death. The bacilli collect in the lymph nodes, particularly those in the armpits and groin. The nodes swell and become extremely painful. These swellings are called buboes, hence the name bubonic plague. Death [...]

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Soon after midnight on Sunday 2 September 1666 a fire broke out in a baker’s shop in Pudding Lane, near London Bridge. It spread rapidly through the narrow streets where the high houses were tightly packed together. Like trees in a forest, they were tinder-dry after a long hot summer.
The Thames was so low that [...]

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Outside
The early castles were usually a type called motte-and-bailey. Castle builders made a huge, steep, earth mound surrounded by a very deep ditch. Around the top of the mound they erected a timber wall. Within the wall was a stronghold called a keep which was usually a tall, wooden, rectangular tower. Below the motte there [...]

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