Medieval History Quiz
The Middle Ages were far busier with trade and travel than the old 'Dark Ages' label suggests.
A medieval history quiz with answers that looks beyond knights and castles to the merchants, scholars and travellers of the Middle Ages, in Europe, Africa and Asia.
Did you know?
- Medieval people did not think bathing was always unhealthy. Public bathhouses were common in many European towns in the 13th and 14th centuries, and Paris had dozens of them. They declined later, partly because of fears that they spread disease.
- The oldest surviving mechanical clocks in Europe date from the late 13th and 14th centuries. Early town clocks often had no dial and simply struck a bell each hour, and a clock in Salisbury, England, from around 1386 still works today.
- Spectacles were invented in Italy around the 1280s, probably in or near Pisa. The first ones helped people with long sight to read and were balanced on the nose or held by hand, since arms that rest over the ears were only added centuries later.
The medieval world beyond castles
The Middle Ages usually refer to the thousand years between the end of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century and the late 15th century. The old label 'Dark Ages' suggested a time of little learning, but historians now emphasise how much happened: towns and universities grew, farming improved, and long-distance trade linked Europe, Africa and Asia. Many institutions that still exist, from universities to banks, took shape in this period.
Towns and trade
From around the 11th century, Europe's population grew and towns expanded. Weekly markets and large seasonal fairs, such as those in Champagne in France, brought merchants from distant regions together. Italian cities developed banking, bills of exchange and double-entry bookkeeping, which made it easier to trade over long distances without carrying large sums of coin. Guilds regulated work inside the towns, while merchant networks like the Hanseatic League organised trade between them.
Learning and scholarship
Centres of learning flourished across the medieval world. The University of Bologna, founded in 1088, is often considered the oldest university in continuous operation in Europe, followed by Paris and Oxford. In Baghdad, Córdoba and Cairo, scholars translated and extended Greek works on mathematics, medicine and astronomy. Timbuktu's manuscripts show that West Africa also had a strong written tradition. Paper, which spread from China through the Islamic world, made books far cheaper.
Journeys across continents
Travel was slow and risky, but many people made long journeys. Merchants followed caravan routes across the Sahara and the Silk Roads across Asia, while sailors used monsoon winds to cross the Indian Ocean. Travellers such as Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta described cities, customs and markets that few of their readers would ever see. Their accounts are valuable to historians, even though some details were exaggerated or remembered imperfectly years later.