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Middle Ages

What Were the Middle Ages?

What Were the Middle Ages?
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   grades 5 to 7
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   5.2

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    stonecarvers, romance, queens, dressy, mainly, crossing, civilization, rebirth, medieval, span, assistant, trusty, sword, fire-breathing, reading, kings
     content words:    Middle Ages, King Arthur, Round Table, Robin Hood, Hundred Years, Black Death, Kings Henry, Roman Empire

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What Were the Middle Ages?
By Sharon Fabian 		  
1     What were the Middle Ages? The Middle Ages has always been big news, so let's use the journalists' five W's to answer this question. We'll start with when.
 
2     When did the Middle Ages happen?
 
3     The Middle Ages began sometime around 400 AD, and ended around 1500 AD. That's a long time - about 1,100 years!
 
4     Where did the Middle Ages happen?
 
5     During this time span, interesting developments were taking place all over the globe, but the events that we usually think of as belonging to the Middle Ages happened mainly in Europe - although sometimes they spilled over into other places.
 
6     What happened during the Middle Ages?
 
7     The answers to that question could fill up books, but here are a few of the whats of the Middle Ages: knights in shining armor, damsels in distress, a sword in a stone, dragons breathing fire, castles with moats, drawbridges for crossing the moats, and dungeons deep inside the castles.
 
8     Lords and ladies dressed in those wild medieval fashions - long dressy dresses and pointy hats (for the ladies), short jackets and tight hose (for the men). Kings and queens ruled. King Arthur consulted his Knights of the Round Table. Merlin, the magician, was his trusty assistant. Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor. There was a War of the Roses and a Hundred Years' War. There was the Black Death.
 
9     Jousts and tournaments took people's minds off of their troubles. Jugglers and troubadours did too.

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