Background: General
18 July 2008

Brown University
Decameron Web
Although this large site is intended for students of Boccaccio, much of what it has to say about the Italian poet's milieu (literature, society, history, maps, the plague, religion, the arts) is also valid for fourteenth-century England. Includes bibliography.

Bonnie Duncan
A Chaucer Chronology
An excellent example of the genre: fills in the historical background, gives approximate dates for the poetry, and incorporates information from the Life Records.

Jane Zatta
Canterbury Tales Page
Commentaries, illustrated from medieval MSS., on the background to the Knight's Tale, the Miller's Tale, the Man of Law's Tale, the Clerk's Tale, the Second Nun's Tale, the Friar's Tale, the Nun's Priest Tale, the Reeve's Tale, the Franklin's Tale, the Wife of Bath's Tale, and Chaucer's Tale of Melibee.

Dept. of History, University of Calgary
The End of Europe's Middle Ages
"[D]esigned to assist those students engaged in Renaissance, Reformation and Early Modern studies who lack a background in medieval European history. Intended to provide a brief overview of the conditions at the end of Europe's Middle Ages, the tutorial is presented in a series of chapters that summarize the economic, political, religious and intellectual environment of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The main objective of the tutorial is to furnish a baseline against which the vast changes of the following centuries may be measured."

A. Compton Reeves, Laura Blanchard
Late Medieval England: Suggested Reading List
Topical bibliography: economic affairs, military history, particular monarchs, government administration, accounts of individuals, law and justice, church and churchmen, culture and society, interpretive studies.

Please send comments to David Wilson-Okamura at david@virgil.org.