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The High Middle Ages (ca.1000-1300); Shakespeare's King John.

• 1016 The Danish King Canute gains control over all England.
• 1040-1057: Macbeth rules as King of Scotland.
• 1042 The Wessex dynasty regains the throne with Edward the Confesor (mentioned in Shakespeare's Macbeth, 3.4.27; 4.3.147).
• 1066 The conquest of England by William, duke of Normandy, ends the Anglo- Saxon period and introduces French feudalism. (Norman horsemanship is praised in Hamlet, 4.7.82-89).
• 1086 Domesday Book: William I's survey of lands and yields.
• 1087-1100 William II rules England; his elder brother Robert Curthose inherits the duchy of Normandy.
• 1095-1291 The Crusades try to free the Holy Land from the Muslims.
• 1100-35 Henry I defeats Robert, reuniting England and Normandy.
• 1128 Henry I's daughter, Matilda, marries Geoffrey of Anjou (nicknamed "Plantagenet").
• ca.1135 Geoffrey of Monmouth writes the History of the Kings of Britain.
• 1135-54 Stephen of Blois rules England; civil war follows Matilda's return in 1139.
• 1144 Completion of the choir of St. Denis Abbey Church, first example of Early Gothic architecture.
• 1154-1399 England is ruled by the House of Anjou-Plantagenet.
• 1154-89 Reign of Henry II, son of Matilda and Geoffrey of Anjou; fiefs of the Angevin realm held from the French crown include: Normandy, Brittany, Anjou, Maine, Touraine, and Aquitaine. (Map)
• 1160-90 Chretien de Troyes writes his courtly Arthurian romances.
• 1164 Constitutions of Clarendon: clergy are to be punished by secular courts.
• 1170 Murder of Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury.
• 1171 The conquest of Ireland begins.
• 1174-85 French Gothic style is adopted in England in the choir of Canterbury Cathedral and in Lincoln Cathedral (begun 1192).
• 1189-99 Reign of Richard I the Lion-heart.
• 1199-1216 Reign of John I.
• 1202 Philip Augustus of France declares John's fiefs forfeit and conquers territories north of the Loire.
• 1213 John I accepts England as a fief held from the Pope.
• 1215 King John is forced by English barons to accept the Magna Carta, through process of law protecting the nobility from the arbitrary actions of the king.
• 1258-65 Barons' Uprising led by Simon de Montfort.
• 1259 Henry III is forced to grant the Provisions of Oxford.
• 1259 Peace of Paris; Henry III abandons Normandy, Maine, Anjou and Poitou to Louis IX of France and recognizes French overlordship of the duchy of Guyenne (Aquitaine).
• 1265 The first Parliament is organized by Simon de Montfort.
• 1272-1307 Reign of Edward I, "the English Justinian" (judicial cases begin to be compiled, forming a body of common law).
• 1277-84 English conquest of Wales and adoption of the long bow.
• 1284 Wales becomes the principality of the English crown prince.
• 1295 The Model Parliament is held; the Commons (community representatives) meet together with the barons.
• 1297 Parliament is granted the right to approve taxes and customs duties; Parliamentary petitions approved by the king become law.
• 1299 English Parliament, under Edward I, rebuffs Pope Boniface's attempt to claim Scotland as papal fief.

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