Historical Background

On these pages you will find links to a wide variety of sites on the internet related to the era depicted in The Heretic's Tomb . Please be sure to let me know if any of these links are no longer operative.

The Black Death

The first cases of the Black Death in England occurred during the reign of Edward III in the summer of 1348, and the disease spread quickly. By autumn, the plague had reached London, killing nearly half of the city’s 70,000 inhabitants. Over the next two years, between thirty and forty percent of the English population, or approximately two million people, died of the plague. In Europe as a whole, it is estimated that at least twenty-five million people died between 1347 and 1351. Outbreaks continued to occur periodically for centuries and the plague did not disappear from Europe until the eighteenth century.

Accounts of The Black Death can be found on these websites
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death
http://www.themiddleages.net/plague.html
http://www.insecta-inspecta.com/fleas/bdeath/
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/plague.htm

Maps depicting the progress of the Black Death throughout Europe can be found here.
http://www.insecta-inspecta.com/fleas/bdeath/Path.html
http://www.britannica.com/eb/art-4544

An account of Edward III and his reign can be found here

The Hundred Years War, a major part of the medieval history of Europe, is described here.