A three-dimensional climate model was used to perform 25 simulations over the last millennium, which are driven by the main natural and anthropogenic forcing. The results are compared to available reconstructions in order to evaluate the relative contribution of internal and forced variability during this period. At hemispheric and nearly hemispheric scale, the impact of the forcing is clear in all the simulations and knowing the forced response provides already a large amount of information about the behaviour of the climate system. Besides, at regional and local scales, the forcing has only a weak contribution to the simulated variability compared to internal variability. This result could be used to refine our conception of Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age (MWP and LIA). They were hemispheric-scale phenomena, since the temperature averaged over the Northern Hemisphere was, respectively generally higher/lower during those periods because of a stronger/weaker external forcing at that time. Nevertheless, at local-scale, the sign of the internal temperature variations determines to what extent the forced response will be actually visible or even masked by internal noise. Because of this role of internal variability, synchronous peak temperatures during the MWP or LIA between different locations are unlikely. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.