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Medieval Literature and Poetry/ Illuminated Manuscripts The Middle Ages was a period of about one thousand years, between the collapse of the Roman Empire during the fifth century AD and the revival of classical art and learning known as the Renaissance around the fifteenth century. During this dark and chaotic period small groups of devout Christians could live with security and pursue a religious life. These people were doing something that almost no one else …

…they worked and what they did for fun, what kind of clothes they wore, what weapons they used, what they ate and drank- basically they tell us what life was like in the Middle Ages. Chaucer’s story The Canterbury Tales provides vivid description of the people and lives of those who lived in the Middle Ages. All these works of literature provide us with an illustrated and well written history of the Middle Ages.