Since Ghent was the biggest city in Europe in my chosen time period, I chose to develop a Flemish character from Ghent. De Liebaart is an historical re-enactment group in modern Belgium that has been a tremendous resource.
Their Web site is full of great information about medieval Europe in general and Flanders in particular. Of particular value was this sequence of photos of a knight's armor, layer by layer.
The year 1302 is, for the Flemish what 1776 is to the Americans. "The National Holiday of the Flemish Community in the European country known as Belgium is held every year on the 11th of July. Most of the people in our country hardly know why this particular day was chosen. When they were at school they might have learned about the Middle Ages and this one battle in which the Flemings once, long ago, won on the French. But it stops there most of the time. Very few people realise the importance of this battle, to which they owe the fact that they still talk Dutch and our country does not make part of France. That distant battle from long ago was the Battle of the Golden Spurs!"