Medieval People

Medieval people were energetic, imaginative and courageous – and not just as gallant knights. Highly illustrated, Medieval People carries its learning lightly, telling the life stories of seventy individuals across Europe and the Middle East from the ninth to fifteenth centuries – Monarchs and merchants, popes, peasants and poets, artists and adventurers, saints, scholars and soldiers. Major empire builders such as Charlemagne, Frederick Barbarossa and Chinggis Khan are contrasted with influential female leaders such as Matilda of Tuscany, Eleanor of Aquitaine and Joan of Arc. Religious figures range from Urban II, the pope who started the Crusades, to Hildegard of Bingen, notable nun, Thomas Becket, martyred archbishop, and Dominic de Guzmán, founder of the Dominican order. Fulk Nerra, pioneering castle builder, sits beside the great Persian polymath Avicenna. James Douglas, hero of Scottish independence, rubs shoulders with Dante, Giotto and Abbot John of Wallingford who fought leprosy to construct a marvellous astronomical clock.