The Late Middle Ages

There are some fine links to material on medieval cathedrals. A good place to start is this list of virtual tours of cathedrals. You should visit, in particular, the site on Amiens Cathedral. This is an ambitious site, and not everything works perfectly, but you should at least take a look at the slide gallery.

Another very impressive cathedral site, giving you many fine choices, is Gothic Dreams. You may choose to start there instead.

Clocks and the history of timekeeping also are represented on the Web. Check out the Horology web site and the Walk through Time site of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Explore the history of a couple of the most important late medieval inventions, gunpowder weapons and the blast furnace.  You can find a simple chronology of gunpowder development here, and a short discussion of the earliest use of gunnery here.You should take at least a quick look (read the first four or five paragraphs, at least) of an interesting essay on medieval and colonial American ironmaking  prepared for a project at Penn State devoted to showing the relationships between medieval and colonial technologies.

 

 

 


*For your section meeting, bring in a print out and discussion of your cathedral exploration.  You should also be prepared to discuss late medieval technologies.



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