A timeline of medieval Britain

The Middle Ages is a long stretch of history. Historians use a timeline to keep the order of events clear. Here are the turning points you'll meet in this lesson:

Skill — chronology: knowing the order of events helps you explain how one thing led to another (that's causation).

1066 and the Battle of Hastings

When King Edward the Confessor died in 1066 with no son, three men claimed the English throne. Duke William of Normandy (from northern France) invaded and defeated King Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings in October 1066.

William was crowned king on Christmas Day 1066 and became known as William the Conqueror. This is one of the most important dates in English history.

Who won in 1066?

Castles and the Domesday Book

Ruling England after 1066 was hard — the Normans were a small group ruling a much larger, unhappy population. William used two powerful tools:

• Castles — first quick motte-and-bailey castles of earth and wood, later huge stone keeps like the Tower of London. They let a few soldiers control a whole area.
• The Domesday Book (1086) — a giant survey recording who owned what land, so the king could tax people fairly and know exactly what his kingdom was worth.

The feudal pyramid

To reward his followers and keep control, William shared out the land in a system historians call feudalism. Everyone owed something to the person above them, and gave protection to those below.

Watch out: most people were peasants at the bottom. They were not free to leave — they worked their lord's land in return for a small strip of their own.

Reading the pyramid

Christendom and the Church

Almost everyone in medieval Britain was a Christian. Western Europe was called Christendom — a family of kingdoms that all followed the Pope in Rome, the head of the Church.

• The Church ran everyday life: baptisms, weddings, funerals, and Sunday services in the local parish church.
• Monasteries and abbeys were centres of learning, medicine and copying books.
• The Church was hugely wealthy and powerful — it collected a tax (the tithe) of one tenth of what people produced.

Church vs Crown: kings and the Church did not always agree. In 1170 Archbishop Thomas Becket was murdered after clashing with King Henry II — a famous struggle over who had more power.

King John and Magna Carta, 1215

King John lost wars in France, raised heavy taxes and quarrelled with the Church. His angry barons forced him to seal Magna Carta ("the Great Charter") in 1215.

Magna Carta said that even the king must obey the law. It promised that free men could not be imprisoned without a fair trial (the idea behind "justice for all").

What did Magna Carta really do?

Simon de Montfort and Parliament

Kings needed money, and money meant asking powerful people for agreement. These meetings grew into Parliament (from the French parler, "to talk").

In 1265, the baron Simon de Montfort called a Parliament that, for the first time, invited not just lords and bishops but also ordinary townspeople and knights from the shires. This is a key step towards the Parliament we know today.

A new kind of meeting

Match the date to the event

Tap a date on the left, then tap the event it belongs to on the right.

The Black Death, 1348

In 1348 a terrible plague — the Black Death — reached England. Within two years it killed around a third to a half of the population. People did not understand germs; many blamed God's anger or "bad air".

One event leads to another

Historians love asking "so what happened next?" The Black Death set off a chain of consequences:

Surprising truth: the Black Death was a disaster, but for the peasants who survived it actually raised their bargaining power. Lords had to offer better pay to keep workers.

An unexpected result

The Peasants' Revolt, 1381

Lords tried to freeze wages and a new poll tax (a charge on every person) made things worse. In 1381 thousands of peasants, led by Wat Tyler, marched on London in the Peasants' Revolt.

The 14-year-old King Richard II met the rebels. Wat Tyler was killed and the revolt was crushed — but the hated poll tax was dropped, and over time lords could no longer treat peasants exactly as before.

Why did they revolt?

The Wars of the Roses

In the late 1400s two branches of the royal family — Lancaster (red rose) and York (white rose) — fought a series of civil wars for the throne, known as the Wars of the Roses.

They ended at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, where Henry Tudor defeated King Richard III. Henry became Henry VII, the first Tudor king, and married Elizabeth of York to unite the two sides.

Put history in order

Which event came first each time? Build the timeline from earliest to latest.

How do we know all this?

Historians can't visit the past, so they use sources — evidence left behind:

• Primary sources — made at the time: the Bayeux Tapestry (showing 1066), the Domesday Book, chronicles written by monks, coins and buildings.
• Secondary sources — written later, like a modern textbook or this lesson.

Historians ask: who made this source, when, and why? A monk writing about a rebellion might be biased against the rebels. Weighing up sources like this is what makes history a subject, not just a list of dates.

Judging a source

What 1066 really changed

The Norman Conquest didn't just swap one king for another. It brought a whole new ruling class from France, new castles, and lasting changes to the English language — hundreds of French words (like beef, parliament and royal) entered English.

How big was 1066?

The story in a nutshell

You've followed Church, state and society across four centuries — narrative, causation, and how historians use evidence. Press Finish to see your score.