What 'medieval' means here

Before any history, the chapter explains one word, 'medieval', and the explanation is a small lesson in how historians work.

'Medieval' means 'between two ages'. It was first used for European history, roughly from the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century CE to the Renaissance of the 14th–16th centuries.

It was once thought to mark a dark age before modern science. But Europe's history and India's are very different, so using the same word for both is not ideal, and historians do not agree on which period it covers in India.

So the book sets its own meaning and says so openly: for us, 'medieval' means the 11th to the 17th centuries.

That honesty is worth noticing. A word borrowed from elsewhere is used, but its limits are clearly stated.

The chapter also explains its method. In the 'Tapestry of the Past' chapters it keeps as few dates as possible: only those that mark important reference points.

The timeline holds those points:

One practical note. Persian script is hard to write in English letters, so you will see different spellings of the same name: 'Khalji' and 'Khilji' are the same, and 'Mughal' is also written 'Mughul' or 'Moghul'. Both are correct.