History 101 by jjjean65

When in history did the events in AKT take place?

Well, the answer can be gathered from several comments in the movie itself. At one point, Chaucer refers to his "Book of the Duchess", written in September of 1368 to honor Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster (wife of John of Gaunt, brother of the Black Prince) who had recently died from the plague.

The second clue is more subtle -- in the final jousting scene, after Prince Edward knights William, he goes to sit in his royal box. At his side is a beautiful blonde lady, obviously intended to be Joan of Kent, his wife. Since Edward and Joan married in 1361, this meant this scene had to take place between then and June 8th, 1376, the day of the Black Prince's death.

But the next date messes this all up! About half-way through the
movie, Prince Edward and Count Adhemar leave to fight the Battle of Poitiers, which took place 18th of September, 1356. This puts the movie in 1356, well before the Black Prince married Joan or Duchess Blanche died. There is an obvious problem here.

In order to reconcile this timeline, let's bump the Battle of
Poitiers into the early 1370s or make it a completely different
Battle of Poitiers than the famous one! After all, that wasn't the
only Battle in Poitiers' history, surely? This would put AKT around 1370, six years before Edward's death.

Here's a cracking site for the Battle of Poitiers:
http://acasun.eckerd.edu/~oberhot/poitiers.htm

One for Chaucer's "Book of the Duchess":
http://www.auburn.edu/chaucer/bookduch.htm