Claus Sluter (1340s in Haarlem – 1405 or 1406 in Dijon) was a Dutch sculptor. He was the most important northern European sculptor of his age and is considered a pioneer of the "northern realism" of the Early Netherlandish painting that cam...

Philip the Bold (Dutch: Filips de Stoute French: Philippe le Hardi), also Philip II, Duke of Burgundy, was the fourth and youngest son of King John II of France and his wife, Bonne of Luxembourg. By his marriage to Margaret III, Countess of...

Geoffrey Chaucer, known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to be buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey. While he achieved fame during his...

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...

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...

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...

Henry IV was the King of England and France and Lord of Ireland from 1399 to 1413. He was born at Bolingbroke Castle in Lincolnshire, hence the other name by which he was known, "Henry (of) Bolingbroke". His father, John of Gaunt, was the t...