Boccaccio (1313-1375) : Italian writer, poet and humanist, author of The Decameron.

Edward III : King of England from 1327-1377, who regained and then re-lost English lands in France.

Esquire : a member of the gentry ranking below a knight.

Mary Tudor : Mary I, known as Bloody Mary by 17th century protestants, Queen of England from 1553-1558. She was the eldest daughter of Henry VIII.

Military campaign : the so-called ‘hundred years war’ between England and France had begun in 1336.

Petrarch (1304-1374) : Italian poet, famous for his sonnets.

Richard II : King of England from 1377-1399, deposed by Henry Bolingbroke (Henry IV), and later murdered in Pontefract Castle.

Romance : The Romance of the Rose was written by Guillaume de Loris, continued by Jean de Meun. It was a French allegorical account of a courtly love affair, the most popular and influential of all mediaeval romances.

Visconti : Bernabo Visconti (1319-1385) : his intrigues and ambitions kept him at war almost continuously with the Pope, the Florentines, Venice and Savoy.