what role did rats play in european history during the 1300's?
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They carried the fleas that spread the plague.
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Most medicines involved leeching, superstitions and old plant medicines. They were mainly based on tales and stories or myths from knowledge known. In the Elizabethan age, there were a few more medicines known but most of them were plants grounded into powders and tooken with wines.
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Are you asking about portraying characters from the 1400s?  If its for a particular play, that info would be very helpful.
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Rattlesnakes are important because they eat other animals considered vermin, like rats and mice.
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Too early for the Rennaisance. Look at the effects of the Bubonic Plague (1348-1352) on the production of food per person, specifically in Britain. This increase in "income" allowed resources to be allocated to the production of capital goods and the development of new technologies.
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In Eurasia in 1347 brought to Europe by the Mongolian warriors
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Bite_Fever
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A number of new weapons were introduced during the Hundred Years' War. Of these, the most famous was the Welsh (or English) longbow; while not a new weapon at the time, it was used in new ways. Gunpowder, firearms and cannons played significant roles as early as 1375. The last battle of the war, the Battle of Castillon, was the first battle in European history where artillery was the deciding factor. The early phase of the war triggered the development and rising popularity of the longsword.\n\n\nThe consequences of these new weapons meant that the nobility was no longer the deciding factor in battle; peasants armed with longbows or firearms could gain access to the power, rewards and prestige once reserved only for knights who bore arms. The composition of armies changed, from feudal lords who may or may not show up when called by their lord, to paid mercenaries. By the end of the war, both France and England were able to raise enough money through taxation to create standing armies, the first time since the fall of the Roman Empire that there were standing armies in Europe. Standing armies represented an entirely new form of power for kings. Not only could they defend their kingdoms from invaders, but standing armies could also protect the king from internal threats and also keep the population in check. It was a major step in early developments towards new monarchies and nations and entirely broke down the Medieval 3 orders.
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For much of the Middle Ages, Islamic culture was the only culture that promoted learning, science etc. They preserved a lot of older European texts which otherwise we would not have today.
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The rat is just not his usual self.
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in 1329 King Fernando V assembled The Court of Madrid
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Interesting reading here about 'The Development of the Codpiece'.\n\n Legend has it that Edward III, king of England from 1327-1377, had the codpiece of his armor ENLARGED to astounding proportions because he had heard that strength and military prowess were correlated with a man's endowment. As he was in the midst of the Hundred Years' War with the French at the time, it would not be surprising that he would try to seek any possible advantage available to him.\n\n He then ordered that the nobility and knights do the same to their armor. The legend goes on to say that the gullible French (from the nobility all the way down to the peasantry) were scared to death by the advance of the "WELL-EQUIPPED" men. If this legend is true, and the personality of Edward III would support it, it is an example of how the nobility can influence fashion. \nP.S. for the nicest codpiece go here: \n http://www.perrybrass.com/storypag.htm
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"It's raining cats and dogs" came from the actual common event, but you need to think about when and where to best understand.  England and Ireland in the 16th and 17th centuries had thatched roofs on their houses and pubs.  Rats tended to build houses in the thatch which drove the cats and therefore the dogs up to the rafters.  It also rained a lot, as it does now, in the UK; and if the thatch got particularly wet, it would come down along with the menagerie of animals.
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The Black Death was a devastating pandemic that first struck Europe in the mid-14th century (1347–50), killing about a third of Europe's population, an estimated 34 million people. A series of contemporaneous plague epidemics also occurred across large portions of Asia and the Middle East, indicating that the European outbreak was actually part of a multiregional pandemic. The same disease is thought to have returned to Europe every generation with varying degrees of intensity and fatality until the 1700s.\n\nThe most popular version was that it was spread by fleas on rats to humans although this is not universally accepted. It is believed that better sanitation eventually led to the plague no longer returning. No cure was ever found.
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It was the Elizabethan Age, the reign of Elizabeth I.  The explorations by the English began then, and the difficulties with Spain and the defeat of its Armada occured then.  There was a good deal of artistic fourishing, and also an increase in commerce and trade, and the usual political/religious bickering.  That was as far as England goes, but all of Europe was similarly in more or less the same phase of opening up to new worlds and new combinations of power and politics and economic growth.
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the plague killed about 1/3 of the population of europe.\nConsider that in our society.  What would it do?
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The two main group of pests that feed on food waste are rodents and insects such as flies and cockroaches. They are dangerous because they can spread disease. The most famous example is the role of the rat in spreading the black death which wiped out up to a third of Europe's population in the 14th century and was a recurring threat to populations until the 1700's. It is widely believed to have been caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis spread by fleas with the help of animals like the black rat (Rattus rattus).