Five medieval moments
Charlemagne, the Vikings, the First Crusade, the bacillus that became the Black Death, and the long war over France.
5 questions. Pick an answer to see the explanation. Share your result at the end.
Who crowned Charlemagne Emperor of the Romans, and when?
Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne *Imperator Romanorum* in St Peter's Basilica in Rome on Christmas Day, 800. The act was politically contested — the existing Roman Empire, ruled from Constantinople, did not recognise it — and established the principle that Western Christian Europe could have its own emperor. The Holy Roman Empire, which dated itself from this coronation, lasted until Napoleon dissolved it in 1806.
What dates conventionally mark the start and end of the Viking Age?
The conventional start is the Viking raid on the Lindisfarne monastery on the Northumbrian coast in June 793 AD. The conventional end is the Battle of Stamford Bridge on 25 September 1066, at which the Anglo-Saxon king Harold Godwinson defeated the Norwegian invader Harald Hardrada — three weeks before Harold himself was killed at Hastings.
Who called the First Crusade, and when?
Pope Urban II preached the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont on 27 November 1095, offering a plenary indulgence to knights who would travel east to recover the Holy Land. The expedition reached Jerusalem and captured it on 15 July 1099. Richard the Lionheart led the Third Crusade (1189–1192); Alexios I Komnenos's request for aid against the Seljuks was the immediate trigger but he did not call the Crusade himself; Francis of Assisi joined the Fifth Crusade as a peace envoy.
What pathogen caused the Black Death?
DNA analysis of skeletons from 14th-century plague pits in London and elsewhere, published 2010–2011 by Johannes Krause's team, definitively identified *Yersinia pestis* as the pathogen — ending centuries of medical debate. The bacterium is transmitted primarily by fleas on rats and is still extant. About 2,000 plague cases are reported worldwide every year, mostly in Madagascar, the DRC, and Peru.
How long did the Hundred Years' War actually last?
The conventional dates are 1337 (Edward III's claim to the French throne) to 1453 (the French recovery of Bordeaux). That's 116 years, with multiple long periods of de facto truce. The label *Guerre de Cent Ans* is a 19th-century French historiographical convenience for what contemporaries experienced as a series of distinct wars.