Azzone Visconti was lord of Milan from 1329 until his death. He is considered the founder of the state of Milan, which later became a duchy. Born in Ferrara, he was the sole legitimate son of Galeazzo I Visconti and Beatrice d'Este. In 1322...

Bridget of Sweden, also Birgitta of Vadstena, Saint Birgitta, was a mystic and saint, and founder of the Bridgettines nuns and monks after the death of her husband of twenty years. She was also the mother of Catherine of Vadstena. She is on...

Francesco Petrarca, commonly anglicized as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar and poet in Renaissance Italy, who was one of the earliest humanists. His rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited with initiating the 14th-century Renaiss...

Ibn Battuta, Muslim traveler from Tangier. No other medieval traveler is known to have journeyed so extensively. In 30 years (from c.1325) he made a series of journeys recorded in a dictated account. He traveled overland in North Africa and...

Laura de Noves was the wife of Count Hugues de Sade (ancestor of the Marquis de Sade). She could be the Laura that the Renaissance poet Francesco Petrarch wrote about extensively; however she has never been positively identified as such. If...

Longchenpa or Longchen Rabjampa, Tib., klong chen pa, (1308 - 1363 possibly 1369) was a major teacher in the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism. Along with Sakya Pandita and Je Tsongkhapa, he is commonly recognized as one of the three main...

Urban V, pope (1362–70), a Provençal named Guillaume de Grimoard; successor of Innocent VI. He was a Benedictine renowned for his knowledge of canon law. The great event of Urban's pontificate was the abortive attempt to return the papacy f...

Edward III was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 25 January 1327 until his death; he is noted for his military success and for restoring royal authority after the disastrous and unorthodox reign of his father, Edward II. Edward III t...

Giovanni Boccaccio was an Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanist. Boccaccio wrote a number of notable works, including The Decameron and On Famous Women. He wrote his imaginative literature mo...

Hafez was a Persian poet who "laud[ed] the joys of love and wine [but] also targeted religious hypocrisy". His collected works are regarded as a pinnacle of Persian literature and are to be found in the homes of most people in Iran, who lea...

Charles IV, born Wenceslaus, of the House of Luxembourg, was Holy Roman Emperor from 1355 until his death. He was the eldest son and heir of John the Blind, from whom he inherited Luxembourg and Bohemia on 26 August 1346. He was elected Kin...

Robert II reigned as King of Scots from 1371 to his death as the first monarch of the House of Stewart. He was the son of Walter Stewart, 6th High Steward of Scotland and of Marjorie Bruce, daughter of Robert the Bruce and of his first wife...

John II, called John the Good (French: Jean le Bon), was the King of France from 1350 until his death. He was the second sovereign of the House of Valois and is perhaps best remembered as the king who was vanquished at the Battle of Poitier...

John Wycliffe was an English scholastic philosopher, theologian, Biblical translator, reformer, and seminary professor at Oxford. He was an influential dissident within the Roman Catholic priesthood during the 14th century. Wycliffe atta...

William of Wykeham was Bishop of Winchester, Chancellor of England, founder of Winchester College and of New College, Oxford, and builder of a large part of Windsor Castle. William was born to an undistinguished family, in Wickham, Hamps...