The Middle Ages in European history have a bad press, as if everyone was barbaric and always burning witches and torturing people. But it was a time when Europeans achieved their most breathtaking achievements in art and architecture, and set in place much of the thinking and ideas we rely on today.
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 529 | St Benedict founds the monastery of Monte Cassino |
| 711 | Muslim invasion of Spain |
| 732 | Charles Martel defeats Arabs at Battle of Poitiers |
| 787 | Viking raid on Lindisfarne |
| 800 | Charlemagne crowned ‘Roman’ emperor in the west |
| 1054 | Schism between ‘Catholic’ Roman Church and ‘Orthodox’ Greek Church |
| 1066 | Norman conquest of England |
| 1071 | Battle of Manzikert: Turks overrun Anatolia |
| 1099 | Jerusalem falls to First Crusade |
| 1204 | Fourth Crusade sacks Constantinople |
| 1241 | Mongols overrun eastern Europe |
| 1337 | Start of the Hundred Year’s War |
| AD 313 | Edict of Milan: Constantine accepts Christianity |
| AD 395 | Roman Empire divides in two |
| AD 410 | Rome sacked by Alaric, king of the Visigoths |
| AD 476 | Last western Roman emperor deposed |
| 1346 | Black Death arrives in western Europe |
| 1309–1417 | The Great Schism |
| 1450 | Gutenberg’s printing press |
| 1453 | Fall of Constantinople |
| 1492 | Fall of Granada: Moors expelled from Spain; Columbus lands in the New World |