Ferdinand I, sometimes referred to as the Handsome, occasionally as the Inconstant, was King of Portugal and the Algarve, the second (but eldest surviving) son of Peter I and his wife, Constance of Castile. He succeeded his father in 1367....

Saint Catherine of Siena was a tertiary of the Dominican Order and a Scholastic philosopher and theologian. She also worked to bring the papacy of Gregory XI back to Rome from its displacement in France, and to establish peace among the Ita...

The Most Noble Order of the Garter is an order of chivalry, or knighthood, originating in medieval England, and presently bestowed on recipients in the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms; it is the pinnacle of the honours system i...

The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 75 to 200 million people in Eurasia, peaking in Europe from 1347 to 1351. The bacterium Yersinia pestis, which results in se...

Margaret of Dampierre was the last Countess of Flanders (as Margaret III) of the House of Dampierre, Countess of Artois and Countess Palatine of Burgundy (as Margaret II) and twice Duchess consort of Burgundy. Margaret was widowed in 13...

Vytautas the Great (c. 1350 – 1430) was one of the most famous rulers of medieval Lithuania. Vytautas was the ruler (1392–1430) of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania which chiefly encompassed the Lithuanians and Ruthenians. He was also the Prince...

The Renaissance (from French: Renaissance "re-birth", Italian: Rinascimento, from rinascere "to be reborn") was a cultural movement that spanned the period roughly from the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Age...

This fascinating fourteenth-century text is as complex as it is misunderstood. The premise is simple enough: the author creates a fictional set-up where, over ten days, seven female and three male characters who are cooped up in a country e...

Jogaila was Grand Duke of Lithuania (1377–1434), King of the Kingdom of Poland (1386–1399), and then sole King of Poland (1399–1434). He ruled in Lithuania from 1377. In 1386 in Kraków he was baptized as Wladyslaw, married the young Queen r...

Margaret I was queen consort of Norway and Sweden, omnipotent ruler of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and founder of the Kalmar Union, which united the Scandinavian countries for over a century. De facto a queen regnant, the laws of contempora...

Bayezid I, nicknamed Yildirim, "the Thunderbolt", was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1389 to 1402. He was the son of Murad I and Valide Sultan Gülçiçek Hatun. In 1394, Bayezid laid siege to Constantinople, the capital of the Byz...

John I, called the Good (sometimes the Great) or of Happy Memory, was the tenth King of Portugal and the Algarve and the first to use the title Lord of Ceuta. He was the natural son of Peter I by a noble Galician woman named Teresa Lourenço...

The Yongle Emperor, born Zhu Di, was the third emperor of the Ming Dynasty of China from 1402 to 1424. His era name means "Perpetually Jubilant". His usurpation of the throne is now sometimes called the "Second Founding" of the Ming. He is...

Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici was an Italian banker, the first historically relevant member of Medici family of Florence, and the founder of the Medici bank. He was the father of Cosimo de' Medici (Pater Patriae), and great-grandfather of Lo...

Richard II was the son of Edward the Black Prince, Prince of Wales, and Joan "The Fair Maid of Kent". He was born in Bordeaux and became his father's successor when his elder brother died in infancy. He was deposed in 1399 and died the next...