Middle Ages Word Search for Medieval History Units

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Name Date

Middle Ages Word Search

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0 of 16 words found

GZESYEAKTSCMLVI

ROTLSADIDABSDXB

AOEGRFBVASSALFL

MEAGIICQCQHPBGA

CRPULEEEAUPETEC

CENJSFHZSIOANLK

HSMOATLDTRLSPOD

ISUUCHARLEMAGNE

VIUSRECNEWANSGA

ACATHEDRALNTFBT

LZDVHARMORODWOH

RHNPNJEHHNRAFWV

YLEAGESSIMBSRHO

DRAWBRIDGEGTOCH

EHVDKNIGHTNGIHE

This grid is wider and taller than its box. Slide it to see every letter.To drag, hold the first letter for a moment, then slide.Keyboard: Tab to the grid, arrow keys to move, Enter on the first and last letter.

VassalVASSAL
FiefFIEF
PeasantPEASANT
CastleCASTLE
MoatMOAT
DrawbridgeDRAWBRIDGE
KnightKNIGHT
SquireSQUIRE
ChivalryCHIVALRY
ArmorARMOR
LongbowLONGBOW
JoustJOUST
CathedralCATHEDRAL
ManorMANOR
CharlemagneCHARLEMAGNE
Black DeathBLACK DEATH

16 of 24 words from the Middle Ages Favorites list.

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Answer key: Middle Ages Word Search

GZESYEAKTSCMLVI

ROTLSADIDABSDXB

AOEGRFBVASSALFL

MEAGIICQCQHPBGA

CRPULEEEAUPETEC

CENJSFHZSIOANLK

HSMOATLDTRLSPOD

ISUUCHARLEMAGNE

VIUSRECNEWANSGA

ACATHEDRALNTFBT

LZDVHARMORODWOH

RHNPNJEHHNRAFWV

YLEAGESSIMBSRHO

DRAWBRIDGEGTOCH

EHVDKNIGHTNGIHE

VASSAL, FIEF, PEASANT, CASTLE, MOAT, DRAWBRIDGE, KNIGHT, SQUIRE, CHIVALRY, ARMOR, LONGBOW, JOUST, CATHEDRAL, MANOR, CHARLEMAGNE, BLACK DEATH

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All 217 words

Feudal Society 24

Baron A noble who often held his land directly from the monarch; a council of 25 was set to enforce Magna Carta.
Clergy Priests, bishops and other church leaders; in France they made up the First Estate.
Coronation The ceremony that crowns a new monarch; William the Conqueror's was on Christmas Day 1066.
Duke The highest-ranking peer of the king in a feudal monarchy; the title comes from the Latin dux, leader.
Earl A British noble ranked above a viscount; across the Channel the same rank was called a count.
Estates The orders of society: in France the clergy came first, titled nobles second, everyone else third.
Falconry Using a trained bird of prey to hunt wild animals.
Fealty A pledge of faithfulness, from the Latin fidelitas; a vassal could swear it to many overlords.
Feudalism The medieval system of land in return for loyalty, strongest from the 9th to the 15th century; nobody used the name back then.
Fief Land that an overlord gave a vassal in return for service; in Latin, feudum.
Homage The ceremony in which a vassal knelt, put his hands between his lord's and became "his man".

Show all 217 words (206 more)

Feudal Society, continued

King The crowned ruler at the top of the feudal ladder; his barons often held their land straight from him.
Lady A woman of high social standing, or the woman at the head of a household.
Liege The one lord a vassal put first: homage could be performed to him alone.
Lord The one who granted land and promised protection in return for a vassal's service.
Monarch A head of state for life, such as a king, a queen or an emperor.
Noble A member of the class ranked just below royalty, usually born into the title.
Oath A solemn spoken promise, like the pledge of faithfulness a vassal made to his lord.
Peasant A farm laborer or small farmer, above all one who lived under feudalism and paid rent or services to a landlord.
Queen A woman who rules a realm, or the wife of its ruler; Eleanor of Aquitaine was one in two countries.
Realm Another word for a kingdom: the territory over which one sovereign rules.
Serf An unfree peasant who had to work the lord's fields and got protection and land to farm in return.
Vassal A person who swore loyalty to a lord and owed him obedience, advice and help in war.
Villein A kind of serf bound to the land, who could not leave without the lord's permission.

Medieval Castles 32

Arrow Slit A narrow upright opening that let a bowman shoot out from cover; also called a loophole.
Bailey The walled courtyard beside the mound of an early fortress, ringed by a ditch and a fence of stakes.
Barbican A fortified outpost or outer gateway set in front of the main defenses.
Battering Ram A large, heavy log driven against a gate or stonework to smash it open.
Battlement The toothed top of a defensive wall, with gaps called crenels and solid blocks called merlons.
Belfry The medieval name for a wheeled wooden tower rolled up to a wall to shelter attackers and their ladders.
Castle The private fortified home of a lord or noble; the first ones appeared in the 9th and 10th centuries.
Catapult A machine that hurls a missile a long way without gunpowder.
Crenel One of the gaps along the top of a fortress wall, the opening a defender shot through.
Curtain Wall The stretch of stone defense that runs from one tower to the next around the courtyard.
Drawbridge A movable crossing at the entrance of a fortress ringed by water.
Dungeon An underground prison cell, the kind linked with medieval fortresses.
Garderobe Today the usual name for a medieval fortress toilet; the French words first meant a place to guard robes.
Garrison The troops kept in a fortress to guard it; Krak des Chevaliers held about 2,000.
Gatehouse The building over the entrance, the most heavily armed part because the entry was the weakest point.
Great Hall The main room of a fortress or big house, where the whole household dined together.
Jester A member of a noble household kept to amuse guests with songs, stories, juggling and jokes; also called a fool.
Keep The great fortified tower inside the defenses, the refuge of last resort if the rest fell.
Machicolation An opening between the supports of a jutting parapet, for hitting attackers at the foot of the wall.
Mangonel A stone-thrower worked by a crew pulling on ropes, not by a falling weight.
Merlon One of the solid upright blocks along the top of a fortress wall, between two gaps.
Minstrel A medieval entertainer: at first any musician, juggler, acrobat, singer or fool.
Moat A deep, broad ditch, dry or filled with water, dug around a fortress.
Motte The raised mound that carried the wooden or stone tower of an early Norman fortress.
Palisade A row of tall wooden stakes set side by side as a defensive fence.
Portcullis A heavy grille that dropped to block a gateway; the name is Old French for "sliding gate".
Postern A second, often hidden gate that defenders could slip out of during an attack.
Siege Surrounding a town or fortress and cutting off its supplies until it gives up; from the Latin for "to sit".
Solar The family's private living and sleeping room, usually on an upper floor.
Tower A tall stronghold; London's White one dates from 1078 and William the Conqueror.
Trebuchet A giant sling on a swinging beam; the counterweight kind arrived in the 12th century.
Turret A small tower that juts out from a wall or a corner of a larger building.

Knights and Armor 29

Accolade The central act of the ceremony that made a man a knight, also called dubbing; today it also means praise.
Archer A soldier with a bow; nearly 80 percent of Henry V's army at Agincourt fought this way.
Armor Protective covering for the body in battle; full suits of steel plate arrived late in the Middle Ages.
Chain Mail Protection made from small metal rings joined into a mesh.
Chivalry The code of ideal knightly conduct, which took shape in France between 1170 and 1220.
Coat of Arms A family's heraldic design, shown on a shield, a surcoat or a tabard.
Crossbow A weapon with a stock that shoots short missiles called bolts or quarrels.
Destrier The best-known medieval war horse, called the Great Horse, and never very common.
Gauntlet A glove that guards the hand and wrist; throwing one down was a challenge.
Great Helm The barrel-shaped steel head covering worn by mounted warriors from about 1210 to 1340.
Halberd A two-handed pole weapon: an axe blade topped with a spike, used from the 13th to the 16th century.
Hauberk A sleeved shirt of linked metal rings; by the 11th century it reached the knees, as the Bayeux Tapestry shows.
Heraldry The system of hereditary designs on shields that grew up in the High Middle Ages.
Joust A martial game between two combatants, most famously riders charging with lances.
Knight A mounted warrior who served a lord as an elite fighter, often paid in land.
Lance A long spear made to be held couched under the arm during a mounted charge.
Longbow A weapon about 6 feet long, used by English and Welsh bowmen at Crécy, Poitiers and Agincourt.
Mace A club with a heavy head, made for delivering powerful blows.
Melee A confused fight at close quarters; at a medieval tournament it was one of the events.
Page A young male attendant or messenger serving a nobleman.
Pike A very long thrusting spear used by foot soldiers from the Late Middle Ages.
Quintain A practice target for riders with lances: a shield or board mounted on a pole.
Shield Carried on one arm to block blows; the late 12th-century kind is shaped like the base of a clothes iron.
Squire The shield bearer of a mounted warrior; boys in the role saddled his horse and cared for his weapons.
Surcoat A garment worn over metal protection to show the wearer's insignia; the name is French for "over the coat".
Sword A straight, double-edged blade with a cross-shaped hilt, about 70 to 80 cm long in the High Middle Ages.
Tabard A short coat that might be emblazoned with its owner's heraldic design.
Tournament A festival of mock combat for mounted warriors, common from the 12th to the 16th century.
Troubadour A poet-musician of the High Middle Ages who sang in Old Occitan of chivalry and courtly love.

Church and Learning 41

Abbess The woman at the head of a community of nuns; Hildegard of Bingen was one.
Abbey A religious house ruled by an abbot or an abbess.
Abbot The head of a community of monks; the title comes from abba, an Aramaic word for father.
Benedictine A monk or nun who follows the Rule written about 530, with its motto "pray and work".
Bestiary A book of beasts in which each animal comes with a moral lesson.
Bishop A senior member of the clergy in charge of a diocese.
Buttress A support built against a wall; the "flying" kind let cathedral builders make the windows much bigger.
Cathedral A church that holds the cathedra, the official seat of a bishop.
Chant Unaccompanied sacred song; the Gregorian kind took shape in the 9th and 10th centuries.
Chartres A French cathedral mostly built from 1194 to 1220 that still has most of its original colored windows.
Cistercian One of the "White Monks", an order founded at Cîteaux in 1098.
Cloister A covered walk around a monastery courtyard; from the Latin claustrum, an enclosure.
Franciscan A member of the order founded by Francis of Assisi and approved by Pope Innocent III.
Friar A member of a begging order such as the Dominicans, who traveled and was not tied to one monastery.
Gargoyle A carved grotesque with a spout that carries rainwater away from the side of a building.
Gothic The building style of pointed arches and rib vaults, of the late 1100s to the 1500s; it began at Saint-Denis.
Illumination The decoration of a handwritten page with borders and miniature pictures.
Latin The dominant language of scholarly writing in medieval Europe; the Rule of Saint Benedict is written in it.
Manuscript From the Latin for written by hand. Before printing, every book in Europe was one.
Monastery A building where monks or nuns live, work and pray as a community.
Monk A man who belongs to a religious order, lives with his brothers and spends his life in prayer.
Notre Dame The Paris cathedral begun in 1163 and largely complete by 1260, known for its rose windows.
Nun A woman who vows to give her life to prayer and religious service.
Oxford Home of the oldest center of higher learning in the English-speaking world, teaching as early as 1096.
Parchment Writing material made from prepared animal skins.
Pilgrim A traveler journeying to a holy place; from the Latin peregrinus.
Pope The Catholic Church's head; Urban II, who held the office in 1095, called the First Crusade.
Psalter A book of psalms, often richly decorated and commonly used for learning to read.
Quadrivium Latin for "four ways": arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy.
Refectory The dining room of a monastery.
Relic The remains or belongings of a holy person kept as a memorial; Chartres drew crowds with the Sancta Camisa.
Saint A person recognized as exceptionally holy; Thomas Becket was declared one two years after his murder.
Scribe A professional copyist who wrote out books by hand before printing.
Scriptorium The writing room where monks copied books by hand; only some monasteries had one.
Shrine A sacred place dedicated to a holy figure, often holding relics; Becket's drew travelers to Canterbury.
Spire A tall, thin, pointed top built on a church tower; one at Chartres rises 105 meters.
Stained Glass Window pieces colored with metallic salts and held together by strips of lead.
Tithe A one-tenth share of produce or income paid to the Church; the Old English word meant "tenth".
Trivium The first three of the seven liberal arts: grammar, logic and rhetoric.
University A medieval invention: the one in Bologna has taught since about 1088 and is the oldest still running.
Vellum Fine parchment made from calfskin; the Book of Kells, of about 800, is written on it.

Towns and Trade 25

Apprentice A learner of a craft, the first of the three ranks, below journeyman and master.
Bruges The Flemish city, once one of the world's chief trading places, where the Hanseatic League kept an office.
Burgher A free resident of a medieval town, living under its own municipal law.
Champagne The French county whose yearly cycle of trade gatherings dealt in cloth, leather, fur and spices.
Chandler A maker or seller of candles; a great household had an office for wax and candles with a matching name.
Charter A written grant of rights or authority; a royal one could give a town its market.
Cooper A maker of casks, barrels, buckets and tubs.
Curfew The evening bell that told townspeople to cover their fires; from the Old French for "cover fire".
Fair A big yearly trading gathering; each one in the famous Champagne cycle lasted two to three weeks.
Fletcher A craftsman who fits feathers to arrows; the name comes from the French flèche.
Florence The Tuscan city, a center of medieval trade and finance, where a famous gold coin was struck from 1252.
Florin A gold coin struck in Florence from 1252 to 1533.
Fuller A worker who cleaned and shrank woven wool into tight, water-repellent cloth; water mills later did the pounding.
Genoa The Italian sea republic that was the eternal rival of Venice for control of the Mediterranean.
Guild An association of craftspeople or merchants; only its members could practice the trade in their city.
Hanseatic The name of the league of trading cities that grew from Lübeck and reached nearly 200 settlements.
Journeyman A trained craftsman paid by the day; the name comes from the French journée, a whole day.
Market A regular gathering for buying and selling, usually one or two days a week; a town needed a special right to hold one.
Mason A craftsman who shapes and lays stone, the builder of walls, bridges and cathedrals.
Masterpiece The piece of work a craftsman made to win full membership of his association as a "master".
Merchant A person whose job is buying and selling goods for profit.
Silk Road The network of Asian trade routes, over 6,400 km long on land, that Marco Polo traveled.
Spices Pepper, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg: goods whose trade into Europe Venice and Genoa controlled for centuries.
Town Crier An officer who makes public announcements aloud; also known as a bellman.
Venice The Italian sea republic, birthplace of Marco Polo, that grew rich on trade with the East.

Manor and Village 22

Beans With peas and lentils, the planting for the second plot of the three-field system.
Commons Shared land where villagers had the right to graze animals, gather wood or cut turf.
Crop Rotation Growing different plants on the same ground in turn, season after season, so the soil is not worn out.
Daub The sticky mix of clay, soil and straw smeared over a woven wooden lattice to make a wall.
Demesne The part of an estate that the lord kept and managed for his own use.
Fallow Left unseeded for a season to rest, as one of a village's three big plots was each year.
Horse Collar The harness that let an animal pull with its shoulders without choking, widely adopted by the 12th century.
Manor A lord's rural estate, with his house and the land his peasants worked: the basic unit of feudal society.
Miller The person who runs the machine that grinds grain into flour; it became a common surname.
Open Field The farming system of two or three huge unfenced plots divided into many narrow strips.
Oxen The earliest animals used to pull a plow; they worked under a yoke.
Pasture Grassland for grazing animals, shared by the whole village in the open-field system.
Plow A farm tool for turning the soil before sowing, traditionally drawn by oxen or horses.
Pottage A thick soup or stew of boiled vegetables and grains, a staple meal for centuries.
Reeve After the Norman Conquest, the man who managed an estate and oversaw its peasants.
Rye A grain sown in autumn beside winter wheat in the three-field system.
Thatch A roof of dry straw, reeds or rushes, layered so that water runs off.
Trencher A flat round of stale bread used for a plate; from an Old French word meaning "to cut".
Watermill A building where a wheel turned by a stream drives the grinding stones.
Wattle The woven lattice of wooden strips inside a cottage wall, coated with a sticky clay mix.
Wheat A grain sown in autumn on the first plot of the three-field system.
Windmill A wind-driven grain grinder; the upright kind was first seen in northwestern Europe in the 1100s.

Medieval People and Events 44

Agincourt Henry V's victory of 25 October 1415, won by an army that was mostly English and Welsh bowmen.
Alfred The king of the West Saxons, called "the Great", who won at Edington in 878 against a Viking army.
Aquinas Thomas, the Italian Dominican friar who wrote the Summa Theologica between 1265 and 1274.
Bayeux Tapestry An embroidery nearly 70 meters long that tells the story of the conquest of England in 58 scenes.
Becket The Archbishop of Canterbury murdered in his own cathedral by four knights on 29 December 1170.
Bede The English monk, died 735, known as the Father of English History.
Black Death The pandemic of 1346 to 1353 that killed 30 to 60 percent of Europe's people.
Byzantine The later name for the eastern Roman Empire, which lasted until 1453.
Canterbury The English city whose cathedral held the shrine of Thomas Becket, the goal of Chaucer's travelers.
Charlemagne King of the Franks from 768, whom Pope Leo III crowned emperor in Rome on Christmas Day 800.
Chaucer The English poet, died 1400, who wrote twenty-four stories told by travelers on the way to Becket's shrine.
Constantinople The great walled capital that fell to the Ottomans on 29 May 1453 after a 53-day siege.
Crusades The wars the papacy launched from 1095 to 1291 for control of the Holy Land.
Dante The Italian poet, died 1321, who wrote the Divine Comedy in his native Tuscan when scholars used Latin.
Domesday Book The Great Survey of England, completed in 1086 for William the Conqueror.
El Cid The Castilian knight who ruled Valencia from 1094 and became Spain's national hero.
Eleanor The duchess of Aquitaine who was Queen of France, then Queen of England, and mother of Kings Richard I and John.
Fibonacci The mathematician from Pisa whose book of 1202 made Hindu-Arabic numerals popular in Europe.
Franks The people united under Clovis I by the early 6th century; Charlemagne was their king from 768.
Granada The last Muslim-ruled state in Western Europe, surrendered in January 1492; its rulers built the Alhambra.
Gutenberg The German goldsmith who invented the movable-type press around 1440.
Hastings The battle of 14 October 1066 in which Duke William beat King Harold Godwinson.
Hildegard The German Benedictine abbess of Bingen, born about 1098, who wrote books, medicine and music.
Jerusalem The holy city captured by the First Crusade in 1099 and taken by Saladin in 1187.
Joan of Arc The peasant-born teenager who helped lift the siege of Orléans in 1429, a patron saint of France.
Lionheart The nickname of Richard I, King of England from 1189 to 1199 and a commander of the Third Crusade.
Longship A long, slender Norse warship driven by oars and later a sail, sometimes with a raised dragon head.
Magna Carta The "Great Charter" of rights that King John sealed on 15 June 1215.
Marco Polo The Venetian merchant who traveled through Asia from 1271 to 1295 and was received by Kublai Khan.
Medieval The adjective for this period, from the Latin medium aevum, "the middle age".
Middle Ages The period of European history from about the 5th to the late 15th century.
Norman Describes the people of a French duchy, descended from Norse settlers, who conquered England in 1066.
Orleans The French city whose siege the English abandoned in 1429, nine days after a teenage girl arrived.
Plague The disease, spread by flea bites, behind the great pandemic that reached Europe in 1347.
Printing Press The machine of about 1440 that made books far quicker to produce than copying by hand.
Reconquista The centuries of Christian campaigns in Spain and Portugal that ended with the capture of Granada in 1492.
Renaissance The "rebirth" of art and learning, first centered in Florence, that came as the Middle Ages ended.
Rome The city whose western empire fell in the 5th century, the event that opens the Middle Ages.
Runes The letters of the old Germanic alphabets, found in Norse inscriptions.
Runnymede The meadow beside the River Thames where King John sealed the Great Charter in 1215.
Saladin First to be sultan of Egypt and Syria together, who won the Battle of Hattin in 1187.
Viking A seafarer from Scandinavia who raided, traded and settled from the late 8th until the late 11th century.
Vinland Norse name for the North American coast that Vikings explored about the year 1000; their one known camp is in Newfoundland.
Wat Tyler The rebel whose name is given to the English Peasants' Revolt of 1381.

How this list was compiled: 217 words about medieval Europe in 7 themed lists, chosen and defined for this site. Dates, names and places in the clues were checked on 2026-09-19 against English Wikipedia, for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Ages, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle, and word meanings against the American Heritage Dictionary, https://www.ahdictionary.com/. One clue was rechecked on 2026-09-20 against https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinland. Licence: own work

How it works

This Middle Ages word search opens on 16 of 24 favorites, from Castle to Black Death. Pick one of 7 themed lists, such as Medieval Castles or Towns and Trade.

Read the full guide

Match the list to the lesson

Under Start from a list, the 217 words sit in 7 themed lists: Feudal Society, Medieval Castles, Knights and Armor, Church and Learning, Towns and Trade, Manor and Village, and Medieval People and Events. Legends such as King Arthur and Robin Hood are left out, so every word belongs on a history test.

Swap the words for clues

Tick Show clues, not words, in More options, and students must recall each term before they hunt for it. Every clue was checked on 2026-09-19, and many carry a date: "King of the Franks from 768, whom Pope Leo III crowned emperor in Rome on Christmas Day 800" leads to Charlemagne.

Teaching feudalism? Feudal Society at 24 words holds the whole ladder, from King and Duke down to Villein and Serf.
For grades 7 and 8, pick Hard Middle Ages and press Hard. Constantinople fills 14 squares.
Armor and Plow use American spelling. Melee, Orleans and Notre Dame are hidden without accents or spaces.

Questions and answers

Is a medieval word search the same as this one?

Yes. Medieval and Middle Ages name the same period, from about the 5th to the late 15th century; medieval comes from the Latin for the middle age. All 217 words are about Europe in those centuries.

Is there a knights and castles list for younger children?

Yes. Click Medieval Castles or Knights and Armor, or pick Easy Middle Ages for 56 words of 3 to 5 letters such as Moat, Keep, King and Sword. Then take words off the list until 8 are left.

Which people and events are in the puzzle?

Medieval People and Events holds 44 names, from Charlemagne, Alfred and Saladin to Joan of Arc, Chaucer and Gutenberg, with Hastings, Magna Carta, the Crusades and the Black Death. With clues ticked, each carries its date, such as 14 October 1066.

All 217 words

Feudal Society 24

Feudal Society, continued

Medieval Castles 32

Knights and Armor 29

Church and Learning 41

Towns and Trade 25

Manor and Village 22

Medieval People and Events 44

How it works

Match the list to the lesson

Swap the words for clues

Questions and answers

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