Medieval

For centuries before independence in 1877 the Romanian principalities led a precarious life of their own, writes Kenneth Johnstone.

Nicolas Cheetham describes how the Fourth Crusaders captured Byzantium in 1204 and French noblemen created feudal principalities in Southern Greece.

Windmills abounded in England from the twelfth century onwards. Terence Paul Smith describes how their bodies usually revolved on a vertical post so that the miller could face the sails into the wind.

Over four centuries the University of Padua attracted a large number of foreign students, writes Alan Haynes, among whom the English were prominent.

From A.D. 400, writes E.R. Chamberlin, imperial Rome was subject to pillage and plunder, but Popes in the Renaissance destroyed in order to rebuild.

Although he died six centuries ago, Robert the Bruce remains a symbol of Scotland’s identity.

Courtney Dainton describes how the enquiring middle class trained at the grammar schools of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries went on to influence late medieval English society.

From Norman times until the fifteenth century, writes L.W. Cowie, the Tower was often a royal residence as well as a fortress and armoury.

Anthony Dent describes how this rich French province remained a royal English vineyard for a good three centuries.