The growth of Aragon and its mediterranean empire, consolidation and political change in Northern Italy, fragmentation in Germany; Jan Hus, heresy and the Council of Constance. 

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Ths episode is the first of 3 to bring us up to date with the history of Europe to the time of Henry IVth. This week it's all about the Economic development of Europe, and about some of the technological change that impacts on it

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In 1399 Bolingbroke and Richard were locked in a struggle - who would rule England and how. 

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At last in 1397 Richard would have felt that he had put his past humiliation from the Appellants behind him. But he was no happier or secure. He gathered his private army of Cheshire Archers around him and looked out at the world outside the court with mistrustful eyes. 

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In 1397, Richard finally saw the chance to try to get his revenge on the Appellants - Gloucester, Arundel and Warwick. So the parliament  of September 1397 was momentus. 

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Henry Bolingbroke, Earl of Derby, son of the most powerful magnate in England, was a golden child blessed with every advantage. While Richard tried to get his royal feet under the throne, Bolingbroke left the wife to bring up the children and headed out to fulfil the image of the perfect medieval knight.

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Between the Appellants crisis of 1388 and 1397, Richard ruled with increasingly confidence. He was hardly the most impressive English king but he appeared to have cast off the wildness of his early days, and accepted the need to rule together with his leading magnates.

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By 1387, it was becoming clear that the Wonderful Parliament of 1385 had not solved the problem. Pressure had been building, and Gloucester, Warwick and Arundel were far from satisfied - and felt far from safe. The showdown came at the Merciless Parliament of 1388. 

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From the end of the Peasant's Revolt in 1381, England continues to be managed by the Council, but the young Richard began to have more and more influence. And despite his youth and lack of sole control, what he does manages to raise concern rather than to re-assure. As the war with France goes from bad to worse, by the time 1387 comes around there are more than a few murmers of discontent around. 

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Wycliffe's views finally began to attract the enmity of the church; and the crown, in the form of Richard, was no longer prepared to protect him - though unexcited about suppression. By 1384, open discussion at Oxford University of Wycliffe's ideas were a thing of the past, and Wycliffe was dead - but a new religious movement called Lollardy was precariously alive. It was helped by the first Bible in English - Wycliffe's Bible. Along with Chaucer, Gower, Langland - English was back to stay. 

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