Plague Journal

Complete this assignment in  your history  spiral.

Imagine that you are living in a Medieval European town in the 14th century. (The 1300's.)  Use your notes about life in a Medieval town to help with the details.

The "Great Mortality" or Black Plague has arrived in your town.  How are people reacting?  What is your family doing to survive?  Write a 100 to 150 word journal entry to answer these questions.  Uses your notes, your history  book and your SHEG activity on the Black Plague to add detail  to your journal.  For instance, include what the doctors say you should do to keep from catching the plague and what are other people doing?

Make your journal interesting and dramatic.  You can invent characters and include a plot.  However, the bulk of your grade will come from how much historical detail  you include in your journal entry.

Include an illustration.

This will be due on Friday.

Daily Life in Medieval Towns

Do Now: Observe this painting by Peter Breugal painted in  1560.  It shows over 80 games played by children in the late Medieval period.  Use the zoom feature to take a closer look.  What games are the children playing.  make a list of at least 10.  You can name the games or you can describe what the children are doing.  Write your list in your history journal.

Homework: Chapter 4: Daily Calendar Page

First finish your notes for chapter 4. Glue them into your history journal.

Complete a daily calendar page to describe what a typical day might have involved for someone living in a town in medieval Europe. You calendar page should have an hour-by-hour account of the day and include relevant details from the various aspects of life you learned about.  You may begin your calendar page with the three entries shown below.

5:30 A.M. Rise from bed. Wash face with cold water. Pluck eyebrows. Tie hair in net and put on skirt and hat.

6:30 A.M.  Eat breakfast (bread, cheese, weak cider).  Throw scraps in street for hogs.  Begin walking to market.

7:30 A.M.  Pick up shoes from cobblers' guild. Ask master if his hand is healing properly.

You may add illustrations.
Complete your schedule through to 8:30 P.M. when you go to bed. Write your schedule in your history journal. 

Your notes for chapter 4 should be glued into your history journal once you have finished them.

Why Were Medieval Knights Always Fighting Snails?

There are many illustrations in the margins of Medieval manuscripts showing an armored knight fighting a snail.  Usually they appear in books that are religious in nature such as prayer books.  Typically, the pictures have nothing to do with what the writing is about.  Why did so many scribes include pictures of knights fighting snails? 

To answer this question and complete your assignment follow these steps. 

1.  Read this article at Smithsonian.com.  

2. Take at look at the pictures in this article from the British Library.

3. In your history spiral answer these questions in  complete sentences:

• What are some theories about why there are so many drawings of knights fighting snails in Medieval manuscripts?
• What do you think the reason  is for so many drawings.

4.  Draw a quick sketch of a knight fighting a snail.

Illuminated Church Poem

Create an illuminated poem about the Roman Catholic Church using your notes for chapter 3.  

Poems should have nine short stanzas (2 to 4 lines).  Stanzas may vary in length, they do not all have to have the same number of lines.  The first letters of each stanza much spell out THE CHURCH.  Stanza one must start with 't', stanza two with 'h', stanza three with 'e' etc.

The poem must use at least five of these content words:
religion, persecute, clergy, sacrament, Roman Catholic Church, natural law, pilgrimage, religious order.


High scoring poems will:

• contain several illuminated letters
• have pictures
• be colorful
• look good overall
• have few or no spelling or grammar errors
• be correctly capitalized
• have stanzas
• contain hand drawn elements
• contain rhymes

Here are two examples for the letters H and C:

How emperors did persecute the early Christians in Rome

Til' Constantine did change his ways and say to them "Welcome home."

Certain people while on  pilgrimage did stay in tents.

Prayers and penance - their devotion to God was intense.

Annotated Castle Projects

Read the book Castle by David Macaulay.

Create an annotated "drawing" of a castle.  Due at the end of class on Tuesday, March 12.  You will  have time in class to work on this project today, Wednesday and on Friday.  Period five will also have time on  Thursday. After that point, this is homework.

Create either a Motte and Bailey castle or a 13th century castle.  (You may trace. You may use artistic methods other than drawing.)

You may draw all or part of the castle.  You may do a "bird's-eye" drawing.

Include 10 annotations (2-3 sentences).

• Six should label and explain a part of the castle
• Four should label and describe a person (monarch, lords/ladies, knights, peasants)

Annotations should contain lots of historical information

Drawings (artwork) should show effort.

Here are some examples of annotated castles I found.