if you want to learn more:

Take an overview of the ravages of the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453), the crucible in which England and France forged themselves into coherent nations. Western Europe paid a horrific price for this protracted conflict, which also heralded many innovations in technologies of warfare, finance and government. The Société de l'Oriflamme (named for the mythological French royal battle standard) and De Re Militari (devoted to medieval warfare in general) both offer overviews of contemporary weapons, including the military revolution effected by the introduction of firearms.

Read contemporary accounts and modern historians' arguments about the Black Death, which devastated Europe in the middle of the 14thC and continued to plague it well into the 18thC. Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-75), the celebrated Florentine author (and friend of Petrarch), recalled the Plague as a framing device for his Deacmeron; read his description of it from the Introduction to his famous work.

For an appreciation of the complex sonic patterns of High Medieval polyphony, contrast it with the more straightforward monophony of the early Middle Ages:

• "Viderunt omnes," repsonsorial chant (monophony), probably pre-1000 AD
  sung by Concentus Musicus Wien, dir. Paul Elliot (from the "Norton Recorded Anthology of Western Music," vol. 1)
• "Viderunt omnes," organum quadruplum (polyphony) for Notre Dame, twelfth century
  sung by the Hilliard Ensembe (from the album "Pérotin")
• "Can vei la lauzeta mover," by the twelfth-century Occitan troubadour Bernart de Ventadorn
  sung by Gothic Voices, dir. Christopher Page (from the album "Marriage of Heaven and Hell")
• "Plus bele que flors / Quant revient / L'Autrier jouer / Flos filius eius," a thirteenth-century motet
  sung by Gothic Voices, dir. Christopher Page (from the album "The Medieval Romantics")

(You will need a copy of the free RealPlayer to play these files; download a copy here if you don't have one already. Be sure to avoid the 14 day free trial version, instead click on the blue "RealPlayer-Free" button.)

You can read extracts from Francesco Petrarca's (Petrarch, 1304-74) own works, including from a letter to Boccaccio, as well as a few sonnets. Get an appreciation of Renaissance art, in various other media too, from Italy and Northern Europe (& Spain).

Veteran historian (and a founding father of medieval history online), Lynn H. Nelson, offers a succinct & entertaining survey of the Avignon papacy. (He can also teach you how to boil potatoes.) The Avignonese popes have traditionally had a terrible reputation -- in no small measure thanks to Petrarch's scathing review of them as a new Babylon; this is a reputation that some historians nowadays try to question.