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The 1340s: 1340–1349
1340–1349 · worldwide, all places
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Edward III invaded France in 1346 and his archers destroyed French chivalry at Crecy, opening the Hundred Years' War in earnest. A year later ships from the Black Sea brought plague to Sicily, and by 1348 it was emptying Florence, Paris and London street by street.
Crecy in 1346 and the plague's arrival in 1347-48 struck within eighteen months of each other. Bernard Cornwell's The Archer's Tale follows an English bowman into the French campaigns, and the film Wondrous Boccaccio adapts the Decameron stories told by young Florentines hiding from the plague. Open the 1340s on the StoryTerra map and explore its stories by place.
10 famous stories set in the 1340s
Live snapshot of the top 10 most popular catalogue items (2026-09-05). Click any card to open this entry on the live map.
Browse 7 books and 3 movies set in the 1340s (1340–1349).
The Little Hours
Garfagnana Italy 1347. The handsome servant Masseto fleeing from his vindictive master takes shelter in a nunnery where three young nuns Sister Alessandra Sister Ginevra and Sister Fernanda try unsuccessfully to find…
Wondrous Boccaccio
It's 1348. The plague has brutally hit Florence. A group of then young people seven women and three men rebel against the feeling of death that is about to swallow them. They flee the city and find refuge in an…
The Archer's Tale
From New York Times bestselling author Bernard Cornwell, now available in paperback—the first book in the Grail Series--a spellbinding tale of a young man, a fearless archer, who sets out wanting to avenge his family's…
The Crowfield Curse
An angel is buried behind the abbey! It's 1347, and Will, an orphan boy, lives and works as an apprentice of the Crowfield monks. Sent into the forest to gather firewood, he stumbles across a trapped, wounded creature…
Juliet
Juliet, an ambitious, utterly engaging historical novel on the scale of The Thirteenth Tale and The Birth of Venus, follows a young woman who discovers that her family’s origins reach all the way back to literature’s…
The Pied Piper
Greed corruption ignorance and disease. Midsummer 1349: the Black Death reaches northern Germany. Minstrels go to Hamelin for the Mayor's daughter's wedding to the Baron's son. He wants her dowry to pay his army while…
Company of Liars
In this extraordinary novel, Karen Maitland delivers a dazzling reinterpretation of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, an ingenious alchemy of history, mystery, and powerful human drama.The year is 1348. The Black Plague grips…
In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made
Ring around the rosies,A pocketful of posies,Ashes, ashes,We all fall down.—"Ring Around the Rosies," a children's rhyme about the Black DeathThe Black Death was the fourteenth century's equivalent of a nuclear war. It…
Betvingade
Östergötland 1349I en tid där inget är säkert och en kvinnas heder hänger på hennes oskuld går stormannadottern Illiana Henriksdotter till en skogstjärn för att bada då hon blir överfallen och bortförd.Markus Järv,…
Løgnhalsen fra Umbrien
Roman om herboristen, ligrøveren og kvaksalveren Giuseppe Emanuele Pagamino, der i 1348 kommer til det pestramte Firenze for at se, hvad der er at erhverve af kostbarheder dér. I et hus fyldt med lig finder han drengen…
The 10 stories above are just a sample of the 10 in the catalogue for this entry. For the live 1340–1349 catalogue, use the button above — or browse the whole 14th century. On the live map you can also filter by the exact time the stories take place — any year, decade or century, from BCE to the future.
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1300s · 14th century · Time hub · All places · 1350s