Middle Ages

Jogaila (Lithuanian: [jɔˈɡâːɪɫɐ] ; c. 1352/1362 – 1 June 1434), later Władysław II Jagiełło (Polish: [vwaˈdɨswaf jaˈɡʲɛwwɔ] ), was Grand Duke of Lithuania beginning in 1377 and starting in 1386, becoming King of Poland as well. As Grand Duke, he ruled Lithuania from 1377 to 1381 and from 1382 to 1401, at which time he became the Supreme Duke of Lithuania in exchange for naming his cousin Vytautas as the new Grand Duke. Władysław II initially served as King of Poland alongside his wife Jadwiga until her death in 1399, and then the sole ruler until his own death in 1434.

Raised a Lithuanian polytheist, he converted to Catholicism in 1386 and baptized as Ladislaus (Polish: Władysław) in Kraków, married the young Queen Jadwiga, and was crowned King of Poland as Władysław II Jagiełło. In 1387, he converted Lithuania to Catholicism. His reign in Poland started in 1399, upon the death of Queen Jadwiga, lasted a further thirty-five years, and laid the foundation for the centuries-long Polish–Lithuanian union. He was a member of the Jagiellonian dynasty in Poland that bears his name and was previously also known as the Gediminid dynasty in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The dynasty ruled both states until 1572, and became one of the most influential dynasties in late medieval and early modern Europe.

An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared document where the text is decorated with flourishes such as borders and miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Church for prayers and liturgical books such as psalters and courtly literature, the practice continued into secular texts from the 13th century onward and typically include proclamations, enrolled bills, laws, charters, inventories, and deeds.

The earliest surviving illuminated manuscripts are a small number from late antiquity, and date from between 400 and 600 CE. Examples include the Vergilius Romanus, Vergilius Vaticanus, and the Rossano Gospels. The majority of extant manuscripts are from the Middle Ages, although many survive from the Renaissance. While Islamic manuscripts can also be called illuminated and use essentially the same techniques, comparable Far Eastern and Mesoamerican works are described as painted.

Medieval demography is the study of human demography in Europe and the Mediterranean during the Middle Ages. It estimates and seeks to explain the number of people who were alive during the Medieval period, population trends, life expectancy, family structure, and related issues. Demography is considered a crucial element of historical change throughout the Middle Ages.

The population of Europe remained at a low level in the Early Middle Ages, boomed during the High Middle Ages and reached a peak around 1300, then a number of calamities caused a steep decline, the nature of which historians have debated. Population levels began to recover around the late 15th century, gaining momentum in the early 16th century.

Charlemagne (/ˈʃɑːrləmeɪn/ SHAR-lə-mayn; 2 April 748 – 28 January 814) was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and Emperor of what is now known as the Carolingian Empire from 800. He united most of Western and Central Europe and was the first recognised emperor to rule from the west after the fall of the Western Roman Empire approximately three centuries earlier. Charlemagne's reign was marked by political and social changes that had lasting influence on Europe throughout the Middle Ages.

A member of the Frankish Carolingian dynasty, Charlemagne was the eldest son of Pepin the Short and Bertrada of Laon. With his brother Carloman I, he became king of the Franks in 768 following Pepin's death and became the sole ruler three years later. Charlemagne continued his father's policy of protecting the papacy and became its chief defender, removing the Lombards from power in northern Italy in 774. His reign saw a period of expansion that led to the conquests of Bavaria, Saxony, and northern Spain, as well as other campaigns that led Charlemagne to extend his rule over a large part of Europe. Charlemagne spread Christianity to his new conquests (often by force), as seen at the Massacre of Verden against the Saxons. He also sent envoys and initiated diplomatic contact with Harun al-Rashid, the Abbasid caliph in the 790s, due to their mutual interest in Iberian affairs.

The co-princes of Andorra are jointly the heads of state (Catalan: cap d'estat) of the Principality of Andorra, a landlocked microstate lying in the Pyrenees between France and Spain.

Founded in 1278 by a treaty between the bishop of Urgell and the count of Foix, this unique diarchical arrangement has persisted through the Middle Ages to the present. Following the transfer of the count of Foix's claims to the Crown of France and, subsequently, to the head of state of the French Republic, the current arrangement has the bishop of Urgell (Josep-Lluís Serrano Pentinat) serving as the episcopal co-prince and the president of France (Emmanuel Macron) as the lay co-prince. Each co-prince appoints a personal representative. The episcopal co-prince is currently represented by Eduard Ibáñez and the lay co-prince by Patrice Faure.

Zurich (German: Zürich; Alemannic German: Züri; see below) is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. As of the end of 2024, the municipality has a population of 436,551, while the urban area was home to 1.45 million people (2020), while the Zurich metropolitan area had a total population of 2.1 million (2020). Zurich is a hub for railways, roads, and air traffic. Both Zurich Airport and Zurich's main railway station are the largest and busiest in the country.

Evidence of early, sparse settlements in the area dates back more than 6,400 years, indicating human presence prior to the establishment of the town. Permanently settled for over 2,000 years, Zurich was eventually founded by the Romans, who called it Turicum. During the Middle Ages, Zurich gained the independent and privileged status of imperial immediacy and, in 1519, became a primary centre of the Protestant Reformation in Europe under the leadership of Huldrych Zwingli.

Trier (/trɪər/ TREER, German: [tʁiːɐ̯] ; Luxembourgish: Tréier [ˈtʀɜɪ̯ɐ] ), formerly and traditionally known in English as Trèves (/trɛv/ TREV, French: [tʁɛv] ) and Triers (see also names in other languages), is a city on the banks of the Moselle in Germany. It lies in a valley between low vine-covered hills of red sandstone in the west of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, near the border with Luxembourg and within the important Moselle wine region.

Founded by the Romans in the late 1st century BC as Augusta Treverorum ("The City of Augustus among the Treveri"), Trier is considered Germany's oldest city. It is also the oldest seat of a bishop north of the Alps. Trier was one of the four capitals of the Roman Empire during the Tetrarchy period in the late 3rd and early 4th centuries. In the Middle Ages, the archbishop-elector of Trier was an important prince of the Church who controlled land from the French border to the Rhine. The archbishop-elector of Trier also had great significance as one of the seven electors of the Holy Roman Empire. Because of its significance during the Roman and Holy Roman empires, several monuments and cathedrals within Trier are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin saecum, 'worldly' or 'of a generation' or 'century'), is the state of being unrelated to, or neutral in regard to, religion.

The origins of secularity as a concept can be traced to the Bible, and it was fleshed out through Christian history into the modern era. Since the Middle Ages, there have been clergy not pertaining to a religious order called "secular clergy". Furthermore, secular and religious entities were not separated in the medieval period, but coexisted and interacted naturally. The word secular has a meaning very similar to profane as used in a religious context.

Georges Duby (French: [ʒɔʁʒ dybi]; 7 October 1919 – 3 December 1996) was a French historian who specialised in the social and economic history of the Middle Ages. He ranks among the most influential medieval historians of the twentieth century and was one of France's most prominent public intellectuals from the 1970s to his death. In 2019, his work was published in the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade. He is one of the rare historians to benefit from such an honor, with Herodotus, Thucydides, Ibn Khaldoun, Froissart and Michelet.

Jacques Le Goff (French: [ʒak lə ɡɔf]; 1 January 1924 – 1 April 2014) was a French historian and prolific author specializing in the Middle Ages, particularly the 12th and 13th centuries.

Le Goff championed the Annales School movement, which emphasizes long-term trends over the topics of politics, diplomacy, and war that dominated 19th-century historical research. From 1972 to 1977, he was the head of the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) in Paris. He was a leading figure of New History, related to cultural history. Le Goff argued that the Middle Ages formed a civilization of its own, distinct from both Classical Antiquity and the modern world.