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The History of English Literature

The Anglo-Saxon period - The Pre-renaissance period

Chișinău 2018
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 Contents

1. The Ancient Britons​____________________________________________4

2. The Roman period in British History​______________________________8
3. The Anglo-Saxon Period​________________________________________12
3.1 ​The Vikings​________________________________________________19
4. Old English literature​__________________________________________22
5. “Beowulf”​____________________________________________________24
6. Anonymous poetry​_​___________________________________________34
6.1. ​“The Wanderer”​____________________________________________34
6.2. ​“The Seafarer”​_____________________________________________36
7. Caedmon. “Hymn”​____________________________________________38
8. Cynewulf - a 9th-Century Poet​__________________________________41
8.1 ​“Elene”​___________________________________________________42
8.2 ​“Juliana”​__________________________________________________46
9. Old English prose​_____________________________________________49
9.1 ​Venerable Bede​_____________________________________________50
9.2 ​Alfred the Great​____________________________________________51
10. Anglo-Saxon period. Test​____________________________________56
11. ​The Norman Conquest. The Pre-Renaissance period in England​___61
12. ​The French influence on the English language​___________________64
13. ​The Romances​_____________________________________________69
13.1. ​“Guy of Warwick”​_________________________________________71
13.2. ​“Bevis of Hampton”​________________________________________74
14. ​Fables and the Fabliau​______________________________________78
14.1. ​Aesop’s fables​_____________________________________________78
14.2. ​The Fabliau​_______________________________________________81
15. ​England in the XIVth Century​________________________________83
15.1. ​William Langland​__________________________________________85
15.2. ​Sir Thomas Malory. “Le Morte d’Arthur”​_______________________87

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 15.3. ​King Arthur - a historical character​____________________________91
15.4. ​John Wyclif​_______________________________________________94
15.5. ​Geoffrey Chaucer. “The Canterbury Tales”​______________________96
16. ​England in the XVth Century​_______________________________102
16.1. ​The War of Roses​_________________________________________102
16.2. ​William Caxton​___________________________________________106
16.3. ​The Robin Hood Ballads​____________________________________109
17. Medieval Period. Test​______________________________________115
17.1. ​Test answers​_____________________________________________118

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 1. The Ancient Britons
Celts
The​ Iron Age​ is the age of the Celts in Britain. Over the 500 or so years leading
up to the first Roman invasion a Celtic culture established itself throughout the British
Isles. Who were these Celts?
The ​Celts​ were a group of people loosely tied by similar language, religion and
cultural expression. They lived across most of Europe during the Iron Age.

The name ​Iron Age​ comes from the discovery of a new metal called iron. The
Celts found out how to make iron tools and weapons. Before the Iron Age the only
metal used in Britain to make tools was bronze. The iron was relatively cheap and
available almost everywhere.
No-one called the people living in Britain during the Iron Age - ​Celts​, until the
eighteenth century. In fact the Romans called those people ​Britons​, not Celts. The name
Celts​ is a “modern” name and is used to collectively describe all the many tribes of
people living during the Iron Age. The Celts were warring tribes who certainly wouldn’t
have seen themselves as one people at the time.
The people we call Celts gradually infiltrated Britain over the course of the
centuries between about 500 and 100 B.C. There was probably never an organized
Celtic invasion; for one thing the Celts were so fragmented and given to fighting among
themselves that the idea of a concerted invasion would have been ludicrous.

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 The Celts loved bright dazzling colours of
their clothes. They dyed their woolen trousers and
tops bright colours. They wore jewellery made of
bronze, gold, tin, silver, coral and enamel.
Important people like nobles
wore a ​torc (​ neck ring), a
singular twisted metal
neckband. It was made of gold, silver and bronze.
The Celts ate vegetables (leeks, onions, turnips and carrots), wild nuts (hazelnuts
and walnuts), grains of which they made bread and porridge, herbs (fennel, wild garlic,
parsley), leaves (nettles and spinach), wild animals (deer, wild boar, fox, beaver and
bear), fish (trout, mackerel and salmon), domesticated animals (chicken, goats, sheep
and pigs), eggs from hens and wild birds eggs, honey from bees.
The Celtic tribes lived in scattered villages. They lived in round houses with
thatched roofs of straw or heather.
The walls of their houses were made
of local material. Houses in the south
tended to be made of wattle (woven
wood) and daub (straw and mud) as
there was an ample supply of wood
from the forests. The houses had no
windows. The roof was made of straw with mud placed on top to keep the warmth in.
The houses in the north were made of large stones held together with clay. The Celts
would light fire in the middle of the roundhouse for cooking
and heating. The smoke from the fire escaped through a hole
in the roof. Animals were often kept inside the house at night.
Most Celts lived in scattered farming communities
surrounded by a bank with wooden fencing and a ditch to
keep out intruders and wild animals.
The time of the "Celtic conversion" of Britain saw a huge
growth in the number of hill forts throughout the region.
These were often small ditch and bank combinations encircling defensible hilltops.
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Some are small enough that they were of no practical use for more than an individual
family, though over time many larger forts were built. The largest and most complex
Iron Age hill fort in Britain today is Maiden Castle in Dorset.
The Iron Age Celts of Europe and Britain were very superstitious people. They
believed in many gods and goddesses: ​Succelos​, the sky god, with a hammer that
caused lightning. ​Nodens​, who made clouds and rain. Many gods had no names but
lived in springs, woods and other places.
Druids​ were the link between the supernatural and the ordinary human one. They
were able to predict what would happen in the future by interpreting nature. It is likely
that they knew how to read and write, and they certainly had a good gasp of
mathematics. They knew something of medicine and law, and they could trace the stars
and the planets.
They were a sort of super-class of priests, political advisors, teachers, healers, and
arbitrators. They had their own universities, where traditional knowledge was passed on
by rote. They had the right to speak ahead of the king in council, and may have held
more authority than the king. They acted as ambassadors in time of war, they composed
verse and upheld the law. The main centre of the druids in Britain was Anglesey, in
Wales.
The Celts believed that the human soul had an afterlife, so when a person died
they were buried with many things they would need for the after life. The Iron Age is
the first time when we find cemeteries of ordinary people’s burials.
The Celts made many sculptures of human heads in stone or wood. They believed
that the human soul lived inside the head. They believed that capturing someone’s soul
gave you really powerful magic, which is why they collected the heads of their enemies
killed in battles.
The basic unit of Celtic life was the clan, a sort of extended family. The Celts
practiced a peculiar form of child rearing; they didn’t rear them, they farmed them out.
Children were actually raised by foster parents. The foster father was often the brother
of the birth-mother. Clans were bound together very loosely with other clans into tribes,
each of which had its own social structure and customs, and possibly its own local gods.

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 Celtic lands were owned communally, and wealth seems to have been based
largely on the size of cattle herd owned. The lot of women was a good deal better than
in most societies of that time. The women were technically equal to men, owned
property and chose their own husbands. They could also be war leaders, as Boudicca
later proved.
The Celts loved war. If one wasn't happening they'd be sure to start one. They
were scrappers from the word go. They arrayed themselves as fiercely as possible,
sometimes charging into battle fully naked, dyed blue from head to toe, and screaming
like banshees to terrify their enemies.
They took tremendous pride in their appearance in battle, if we can judge by the
elaborately embellished weapons and paraphernalia they used. Golden shields and
breastplates shared pride of place with ornamented helmets and trumpets.

The Celtic shields

There was a written Celtic language, but it developed well into Christian times, so
for much of Celtic history they relied on oral transmission of culture, primarily through
the efforts of bards and poets. These arts were tremendously important to the Celts, and
much of what we know of their traditions comes to us today through the old tales and
poems that were handed down for generations before eventually being written down.

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 2. The Roman Period in British History

The Roman period in British history: AD 43 - AD 410

● “Britain” comes from the word “​Pretani​”, which is the Greco-Roman word for the
inhabitants of Britain;
● the word was mispronounced;
● the island was called “​Britannia​”

Roman Occupation
● Julius Caesar came to Britain in ​55 BC
● A Roman army occupied Britain in ​AD 43​ (40.000 soldiers)
Reasons:
1. Celtic Britain was an important food producer;
2. the Romans could make use of British food for their enormous armies;
3. the Celts of Britain were supporting the Celts of Gaul who were the Roman’s
enemy
The Romans were determined to conquer the whole island, but…..
1. The Romans settled only in the present day England and ​Wales “Cambria”
2. The Romans never went to ​Ireland “Hibernia”
3. The Romans could not conquer ​“Caledonia” (Scotland)​ and built a ​Hadrian’s
WALL

The division of the Celts:

● Those who experienced the Roman rule (the Britons in England and Wales), (​the
Romanised Celts​)
● Those who did not experience the Roman rule (the Gaels, the Picts, the Scots, the
Irish in Ireland and Scotland)

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 The End of Roman Britain
● In ​AD 367​ the Celts of Caledonia started attacking the Roman armies;
● In A​ D 409​ Rome pulled its last soldiers out of Britain as the Empire began to
collapse;
● In ​AD 410​ Rome itself fell to raiders.

Roman Life in Britain

Language
The Romans brought the skills of reading and writing to Britain (Latin), but….
1. The Celtic peasantry​ remained illiterate and only Celtic-speaking;
2. Town-dwellers​ spoke Latin and Greek;
3. Rich landowners​ used Latin
Roman towns
There were three different kinds of town in Roman Britain. Two kinds were
established by Roman charter
1. Colonia (sing)​ (peopled by Roman settlers)
2. Municupium (sing) ​(the whole population was given Roman citizenship)
3. Civitas (sing)​ (were the old Celtic tribal capitals through which the Romans
administered Celtic population in the countryside)
The Romans left:
● about twenty large towns (5000 inhabitants)
● one hundred of smaller ones
Many of these towns were at first army camps. The Latin word for camp, ​castra​,
has remained
part of many town names to this day: ​Winchester​, ​Lancaster​, ​Leicester

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 Reconstruction of Roman Sichester

Roman Roads
All the Roman towns were connected by roads. They were so well-built that even
survived through out the long British history and became the main roads of modern
Britain. Six of these Roman roads met in London (Londinium – 20.000 people)

Roman Roads

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 Roman countryside
The face of the countryside has changed completely. There appeared a number of
large farms. Roman farms were called “​VILLAS​”.
Roman Villas
A Roman villa was originally a Roman country house built for the upper class
during the Roman Empire. There were two kinds of villas: the ​villa urbana​, which was a
country seat that could easily be reached for a night or two, and the ​villa rustica​, the
farm-house estate permanently occupied by the servants who were in charge of the estate.
Roman Villa Rustica Model

Reasons of the disappearing of Roman Britain:

1. The influence was largely confined to the towns.
2. In the countryside, where most people lived, farming methods had remained
unchanged.
3. Celtic speech continued to be dominant in the countryside.
4. The Roman occupation had been a matter of colonial control rather than large
–scale settlement.

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 3. The Anglo-Saxon Period
449-1066

Stonehenge (c. 2000 BC)

Celtic invasion
Between 800 and 600 BC, two groups of Celts moved into the British isles:
● The ​Britons​ settled in Britain.
● The G​ aels​ settled in Ireland.
Julius Caesar described the celts as:
● light-skinned, fair-haired, and blue eyed
● shepherds, farmers, fierce fighters
● artistic, imaginative, loved beauty
● skilled with tin and iron

The Celts:
● farmers and hunters
● organized into tightly knit clans
● skilled artisans
● introduced the use of iron to Europe
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 ● highly developed religion, mythology, and legal system that specified individual
rights
● disputes were settled by a class of priests known as druids
● druids presided over religious rituals (sacrifices and prayers)
● druids also memorized and recited long, heroic poems to preserve the people’s
history
● celtic legends are full of strong women, like Queen Maeve of Connacht in
Ireland.

Celtic religion​ - ​Animism:

● from the latin word for “spirit”
● saw spirit everywhere: in rivers, trees, stones, ponds, fire, and thunder
● spirits or gods controlled all aspects of existence and had to be constantly
satisfied.
● druids acted as intermediaries between the gods and people.

The Roman Conquest

In 55 BC and 56 BC, Julius Caesar
made hasty invasions. True conquest,
however, occurred 100 years later under the
Roman Emperor Claudius in 43 AD. Roman
rule of Britain lasted for nearly 400 years,
ending only when Rome was threatened in
Italy. The last roman legions left for Rome in
407 AD.

Roman rule
● constructed a system of well-paved
roads and founded cities
● erected ​Hadrian’s Wall​ to protect
from picts and scots
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 ● brought skills in the art of warfare
● introduced Roman law and order
● used Latin
● introduced ​Christianity
● failed to teach the britons much about self-defense

Early Anglo-Saxon life

The next invaders of Britain were the Anglo-saxons: the angles, saxons, and jutes.
The angles, saxons, and jutes came from Denmark, Holland, Germany, and Scandinavia.
The Celts resisted the invaders for a number of years under the leadership of a great
king, possibly the inspiration for the legendary King Arthur.

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 Dispersal of the Britons
To flee the Anglo-Saxons, the Britons fled to other parts of the island:
● Cornwall
● Wales
Some join the Gaels in Ireland and formed a splinter groups known as the Scots
(this group later settled in what is now Scotland). In all areas, the people spoke the
Celtic languages (Cornish, Welsh, Irish, and Scottish Gaelic). All but Cornish are still
spoken today.
Old-English dialects:
1. Mercian
2. Northumbrian
3. Kentish
4. West Saxon

Anglo-Saxon Society
● highly organized tribal units (kingdoms)
● each tribe ruled by a king chosen by a
Council of Elders (​Witan​)
● Thanes​: the upper class, earls, or free
warriors
● Thralls​: slaves who did the farming and
domestic work
● Freemen​: small group who earned
possessions and special favors

The Anglo-Saxons farmed, maintained local governments, and created fine crafts,
especially metalwork. Eventually, the small kingdoms developed into seven large ones:
Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex, Sussex, Essex, East Anglia, and Kent. This development
produced a new language: ​Old English​. They lived close to their animals (to protect

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animals and provide warmth), in single-family homes surrounding a communal hall and
protected by a wooden stockade fence.

Characteristics of the Anglo-Saxons

● hard fighters and bold sea warriors
● admired physical strength, bravery, loyalty, fairness, and honesty
● great love of personal freedom
● boastful, reckless, cruel, and bloodthirsty
● enjoyed conflict, swimming matches, horse races, banqueting, drinking mead,
singing songs, and storytelling
● also ​Flyting​, a conflict of wits between two warriors where each praises his own
deeds and belittles the other’s

Role of women
The wife of an earl or thane supervised weaving and dyeing of clothes, the
slaughter of livestock, the making of bread, beekeeping, and the brewing of mead
(fermented honey). Women inherited and held property. Married women retained

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control over their property. With the coming of Christianity, many women entered
religious communities, and some became powerful abbesses.

Types of Anglo-Saxon verse

● heroic poetry: recounts the achievements of warriors involved in great battles
● elegiac poetry: sorrowful laments that mourn the deaths of loved ones and the loss
of the past
● Anglo-Saxon poets: Caedmon, Cynewulf

The Beowulf Legend

Beowulf​ is an epic, a long, heroic poem, about a great
pagan warrior renowned for his courage, strength, and
dignity. Beowulf is the national epic of England, because it
was the first such work composed in the English Language.
The poem includes references to Christian ideas and Latin
classics but there are also present the values of a warrior
society, dignity, bravery, and prowess in battle.

Anglo-Saxon Beliefs
● pagan, polytheistic
● very pessimistic view of life (due to the ever-present dangers of death by accident
or warfare)
● human life in the hands of fate (​wyrd​)
● did not believe in an afterlife
● immortality only earned through heroic actions
● sharp contrast to the christian belief in an individual’s free will

Christianity and literature

● the Church brought education and written literature to England.

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● monks established churches, monasteries, and libraries.
● monks recorded and duplicated illuminated manuscripts, at first only written in
Latin.
● oral literature was transcribed into written form.
● monks preserved not only Latin and Greek classics but also popular literature
(​Beowulf​).
The Venerable Bede (673-735)
● a monk
● considered the “Father of English History”
● wrote a history of the English Church and people: the
clearest account we have of Anglo-Saxon times

Anglo-Saxon Manuscript

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 3.1. The Vikings
Where were they from?
The Vikings came from the three countries
which make up Scandinavia: ​Denmark, Norway,
Sweden.
Who were they?
AD 700 to 1100 – that’s over 1000 years
ago!
Many Vikings left Scandinavia and
travelled to other countries, such as Britain and
Ireland. Some went to fight and steal treasure.
Others settled in new lands as farmers, craftsmen or traders. Vikings were brave sailors
and explorers. Vikings were ‘Norsemen’​.
What did they do?
● Traders
● Boat-builders, blacksmiths, potters and leather-workers
● Most Viking men knew how to handle a boat and most could fight.
● Viking women looked after the children, made the family's clothes and cooked
the two meals a day most families ate. On the farm, women milked the cows and
made cheese.
● Viking children didn’t go to school but helped their parents at work and were
adults by the age of 16

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 Viking ships
‘​Longships​’ were very fast and were
sometimes called dragon ships. They found
their way by watching the sun and stars. Figure
head – Spirit of the boat.

Viking Beliefs
● Pagan religion
● Vikings had many gods
● Odin​ - the leader of the gods - god of knowledge and war
● Thor ​is the god of thunder and protection against the Giants
● Frey​ was the god of agriculture and fertility
● Freya​ - goddess of love and beauty

Viking raids
First Raid was in AD 793 near the English
border in a monastery. Monks recorded all of
the Viking attacks. Raids started small and
unorganised, soon thousands of Vikings left
their homelands to raid other countries.

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 The Swedish Vikings looked east for trade. They used river routes to go to other
countries. They traded in Istanbul and even Baghdad. The Norwegian Vikings wanted
more land. They travelled westward settling in Scotland, Ireland, Iceland and even
Greenland. The Danish Vikings (the Danes) were interested in Ireland, Wales and
especially the east of England.
The Vikings wanted jewels, silks, furs, silver, slaves, spices, food, drink and gold.

Viking Sagas
This is an extract from a Viking’s Saga:
”When Thorald was about twenty years old he made up his mind to go on a
Viking expedition, so his father gave him a longship. Evind and Obir joined him with
another longship and a good number of men, and they spent the summer plundering.
There was plenty of loot so each man got a good share. That's how things were for a
number of years - every summer they'd go on Viking expeditions and every winter they
would stay at home with their families and parents. Thorold brought his parents a lot of
valuable things.”
What the Monks thought
This is what a French monk wrote about Viking raids in France:
“The endless flood of Vikings is on the increase. Everywhere, Christ's people are
the victims of massacre, burning and theft. The Vikings destroy everything. Towns are
emptied and evil triumphs! Monks, townspeople and everyone else have been killed or
taken prisoner. Monasteries along the river Seine have been destroyed. The Vikings
have left the remaining people in a state of terror.”
Along the margins of another manuscript are these words. They were probably
written by an Irish monk.
Rough is the wind tonight
Tossing the sea's white hair.
I need not dread the fierce Viking
Crossing the Irish Sea.

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 4. Old English Literature

Old English is term used to refer to the language and literature spoken and written
in “England” during the rule of Anglo-Saxons.
Old English Poetry
Old English poetry falls broadly into two styles or fields of reference, the heroic
Germanic and the Christian. With a few exceptions, almost all Old English poets are
anonymous. Even though all extant Old English poetry is written and literate, it is
assumed that Old English poetry was an oral craft that was performed by a scop and
accompanied by a harp.
Related to the heroic tales are a number of short poems from the Exeter Book
which have come to be described as "​elegies​" or "​wisdom poetry​". They are lyrical and
Boethian in their description of the up and down fortunes of life. Gloomy in mood is
The Ruin​, which tells of the decay of a once glorious city of Roman Britain (cities in
Britain fell into decline after the Romans departed in the early 5th century, as the early
English continued to live their rural life), and ​The Wanderer​, in which an older man
talks about an attack that happened in his youth, where his close friends and kin were all
killed; memories of the slaughter have remained with him all his life. He questions the
wisdom of the impetuous decision to engage a possibly superior fighting force: the wise
man engages in warfare to preserve civil society, and must not rush into battle but seek
out allies when the odds may be against him. This poet finds little glory in bravery for
bravery's sake. ​The Seafarer​ is the story of a somber exile from home on the sea, from
which the only hope of redemption is the joy of heaven. Other wisdom poems include
Wulf​ ​and Eadwacer​, ​The Wife's Lament​, and ​The Husband's Message​. Alfred the Great
wrote a wisdom poem over the course of his reign based loosely on the neoplatonic
philosophy of Boethius called ​the Lays of Boethius​.
Several Old English poems are adaptations of late classical philosophical texts.
The longest is a 10th-century translation of Boethius' ​Consolation of Philosophy
contained in the Cotton manuscript Otho A.vi. Another is The Phoenix in the Exeter
Book, an allegorisation of the De ave phoenice by Lactantius.

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 Old English Poetry and the oral tradition
The hypotheses of Milman Parry and Albert Lord on the Homeric Question came
to be applied (by Parry and Lord, but also by Francis Magoun) to verse written in Old
English. That is, the theory proposes that certain features of at least some of the poetry
may be explained by positing oral-formulaic composition. While Anglo-Saxon (Old
English) epic poetry may bear some resemblance to Ancient Greek epics such as the
Iliad and Odyssey, the question of if and how Anglo-Saxon poetry was passed down
through an oral tradition remains a subject of debate, and the question for any particular
poem unlikely to be answered with perfect certainty.
Beowulf ​is the oldest poem in the English language, so everything written since
Beowulf stems from it in some way. The story of Beowulf encompasses common
themes that we still see in English literature today.

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 5. “Beowulf”

Beowulf​ is the longest and greatest surviving Anglo-Saxon poem. It’s ​3182 lines
long​. Beowulf is the oldest surviving epic in English literature. An unknown bard
composed it around the 7th or 8th century, and probably recited it to the accompaniment
of harp music. The setting of the epic is the sixth century in what is now known as
Denmark and southwestern Sweden.
Manuscript
By the tenth century, the words were first written in Old English. This would be a
foreign language to us, although a few
words are familiar: scyld (shield),
sweord (sword), Gode (God) and
strong. Beowulf now exists in only one
manuscript. This copy survived a
disastrous fire which destroyed the
library of Sir Robert Bruce Cotton
(1571-1631). The Beowulf manuscript
is now housed in the British Library,
London. The world of warriors in
Beowulf is based on loyalty and
bravery, and combines pagan customs
of revenge with Christian faith in the
will of God.

Summary
Scyld Scefing
The poem opens with a brief genealogy of the Scylding (Dane) royal dynasty,
named after a mythic hero, Scyld Scefing. Many years ago he came to them, the Danish
people. They found him on the beach in a boat no bigger than a shield, a child without
clothing, surrounded by treasure. No one knew who had sent him across the sea, but he

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lived and grew and gained respect until they made him their King, and all the tribes
living nearby had to obey him. No enemy dared to attack , and he gave gifts gladly to
his followers. He was a good King.
Scyld’s funeral
Scyld’s funeral is a memorable early ritual in the Work. The men who have been
his sword-companions carry him to the water's edge - as he told them to do while he
could still speak. In the ship's middle, by the mast, they lay down their lord and master,
and round him they make a mound of treasure, shining shields, weapons and warrior's
armour. The men leave the ship full of sorrow, leave the old king to his far journey.
They let the seas take him as the ship sails. However wise they may be, no-one can say
for sure who received that ship's load in the end.

Heorot
Heorot​ (pronounced /hay oh roht) is a ​mead hall​ described in the ​Anglo-Saxon
epic ​Beowulf​ as "the foremost of halls under heaven." It was built and presided over by
King ​Hrothgar​, a ​legendary Danish king​ of the sixth century. Heorot means "Hall of
the Hart" (male deer). The ​Geatish​ (Swedish) hero ​Beowulf​ defends the royal hall and
its residents from the demonic ​Grendel​.

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 Grendle
For 12 years, a huge man-like ogre named Grendel, a descendant of the biblical
murderer Cain, has menaced the aging Hrothgar, raiding Heorot and killing the king’s
thanes (warriors). Grendel rules the mead-hall nightly.

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 Grendle

Rescue
Beowulf, a young warrior in Geatland
(southwestern Sweden), comes to the Scyldings’ aid,
bringing with him 14 of his finest men. Hrothgar once
sheltered Beowulf’s father during a deadly feud, and the
mighty Geat hopes to return the favor while enhancing
his own reputation and gaining treasure for his king,
Hygelac.
Unferth
At a feast before nightfall of the first day of the
visit, an obnoxious, drunken Scylding named Unferth
insults Beowulf and claims that the Geat visitor once
embarrassingly lost a swimming contest to a boyhood acquaintance named Breca and is
no match for Grendel. Beowulf responds with dignity while putting Unferth in his place.
In fact, the two swimmers were separated by a storm on the fifth night of the contest,
and Beowulf had slain nine sea monsters before finally returning to shore.

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 Geats Sailed for Denmark

Grendle arrives
While the Danes retire to safer sleeping
quarters, Beowulf and the Geats bed down in
Heorot, fully aware that Grendel will visit them.
He does. Angered by the joy of the men in the
mead-hall, the ogre furiously bursts in on the
Geats, killing one and then reaching for Beowulf.
Grendle’s arm
With the strength of 30 men in his
hand-grip, Beowulf seizes the ogre’s claw and
does not let go. The ensuing battle nearly destroys the great hall, but Beowulf emerges
victorious as he rips Grendel’s claw from its shoulder socket, sending the mortally
wounded beast fleeing to his mere (pool).

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 Grendle’s arm
The arm trophy hangs high under the roof of Heorot.

Celebration
The Danes celebrate the next day with a huge feast
featuring entertainment by Hrothgar’s scop (pronounced
“shop”), a professional bard who accompanies himself on
a harp and sings or chants traditional lays such as an
account of the Danes’ victory at Finnsburh. This bard also
improvises a song about Beowulf’s victory.
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 Queen Wealhtheow
Hrothgar’s wife, Queen Wealhtheow, proves to be a perfect hostess, offering
Beowulf a gold collar and her gratitude. Filled with mead (drink made from honey),
wine, and great food, the entire party retires for what they expect to be the first peaceful
night in years.
Revenge
But Grendel’s mother—not quite as powerful as her son but highly
motivated—climbs to Heorot that night, retrieves her son’s claw, and murderously
abducts one of the Scyldings (Aeschere) while Beowulf sleeps elsewhere. The next
morning, Hrothgar, Beowulf, and a retinue of Scyldings and Geats follow the mother’s
tracks into a dark, forbidding swamp and to the edge of her mere.

Diving into the mere

Carrying a sword called ​Hrunting​, a gift from the
chastised ​Unferth​, Beowulf dives into the lake to seek
the mother.
Fight Underwater
The slaughtered Aeschere’s head sits on a cliff by
the lake, which hides the ogres’ underground cave. Near
the bottom of the lake, Grendel’s mother attacks and
hauls the Geat warrior to her dimly lit cave. Beowulf
fights back once inside the dry cavern, but the gift sword,

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 Hrunting​, strong as it is, fails to penetrate the ogre’s hide.
Encounter
Beowulf wrestles with Grendle’s mother. The mother moves to
kill Beowulf with her knife, but his armor, made by the
legendary blacksmith Weland, protects him.
Magical sword
Suddenly Beowulf spots a magical, giant sword and uses it to
cut through the mother’s spine at the neck, killing her. A
blessed light unexplainably illuminates the cavern, disclosing
Grendel’s corpse and a great deal of treasure. Beowulf
decapitates the corpse. The magic sword melts to its hilt.
Beowulf returns to the lake’s surface carrying the head and hilt
but leaving the treasure.
Return to Geatland
After more celebration and gifts and a sermon by Hrothgar warning of the
dangers of pride and the mutability of time, Beowulf and his men return to Geatland.
There he serves his king well until Hygelac is killed in battle and his son dies in a feud.
Beowulf is then named king and rules successfully for 50 years. Like Hrothgar,
however, his peace is shattered in his declining years.
Beowulf must battle one more demon.
Dragon
A fiery dragon has become enraged because a lone
fugitive has inadvertently discovered the dragon’s
treasuretrove and stolen a valuable cup. The dragon
terrorizes the countryside at night, burning several homes,
including Beowulf’s.
The final fight
Led by the fugitive, Beowulf and eleven of his men
seek out the dragon’s barrow. Beowulf insists on taking on

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the dragon alone, but his own sword, Naegling, is no match for the monster.

Wiglaf
Seeing his king in trouble, one thane, Wiglaf, goes to
his assistance. The others flee to the woods.

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 Death
Together, ​Wiglaf​ and Beowulf kill the dragon, but the mighty king is mortally
wounded. Dying, Beowulf leaves his kingdom to Wiglaf and requests that his body be
cremated in a funeral pyre and buried high on a seaside cliff where passing sailors might
see the barrow. The dragon’s treasure-hoard is buried with him. It is said that they lie
there still.

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 6. Anonymous poetry
6.1. “The Wanderer”

“​The Wanderer​” is an Anglo-Saxon poem

about a lonely wanderer hopelessly alleviating his
woes in the posthumous period of his fallen lord.
Characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon period, the poem
portrays themes of fraternity and loyalty, allegiance
and the tradition of a warrior’s passing. Imagery of
the warrior, “the byrny-clad warrior, / The prince in
his splendor” (86/87) comes traditional as well as
communal gatherings of thanes and kings: “he dreams
of the hall-men. / The dealing of treasure, the days of
his youth. / When his lord bade welcome to wassail
and feast.” (30-33).
The death of a king, as assumed to be the rank
of the fallen kin, is a traditional subject matter for Anglo-Saxon culture; being a warlike
culture they feature battle as a daily test of ability centered around the protection and
allegiance to one’s king. The poem itself is centered on a very lonely and lamentable
atmosphere. Cold, bitter, forlorn, the wanderer himself roams in scenery similar to his
emotional weariness, and these themes of solitude are addressed consistently by the
imagery and the personal reflection of the wanderer. The atmosphere is dreary and
interpreted by the speaker “Beholding gray stretches of tossing sea. / Sea-birds bathing,
with wings outspread, / While hailstorms darken, and driving snow.” (40-43). The setting
is hardly a solace for the wanderer’s weary heart but it is clear that the imagery in not
intended to be a natural reflection of a traditional day but a symbolic reflection of the
wanderer’s inner torment; harborer of the sage’s lament.
The style of the poem has the necessary elements of an Anglo-Saxon poem. The
Caesura splitting apart two half-lines and in phrases such as “Homeless and helpless he
fled from fate.” (5) you have the necessary alliteration to organize the content of the poem.
The poem also reflects elements of an Elegy. An Elegy, defined as a poem about the
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passing of life and the eternal lament of the main character, reveals itself in the cold aura
of the imagery and the main subject of the poem itself: sadness of a deceased kinsman.
Elements of an Ubi Sunt, another specific form of Anglo-Saxon poetry, are evident in
“The Wanderer” for its nostalgic memories of feasts in the meadhalls and “Even in
slumber sorrow assaileth. / And, dreaming he claspeth his dear lord again.” (35/36).
The sage, as characterized as the speaker of the poem, regrets when he “Fettered my
feelings, far from my kin,” (19). His physical and emotional exile consume the better part
of his days, which once upon a time were spent in comfort with happy lords and plentiful
comrades. The imagery is most suitable, but what should be noted is its more crucial
importance in this specific poem, for what makes him a wanderer is the vast scenery of
seas, shores, halls, earth, night, day, which are all apparent in the poem. Descriptive
though they are, what is more essential is the variety that characterizes the character as a
wanderer indifferent to his surroundings due to inner turmoil. So the imagery is subtle, yet
plentiful.
The other speaker, the narrator, adds his little footnote of the “happy man who
seeketh for mercy / From his heavenly Father, our fortress and strength.” (107/108) which
comes unexpected for its offer of hope and romantic faith but perhaps serves more as a
pitiable solace for the wanderer. It is a reflection of weariness and emotional cruelties that
bitterly immortalize the wanderer and his forlorn exile. Immortal woe and restlessness
relentlessly encompass the wanderer of this Anglo-Saxon poem.
Fragment of the poem:
“Oft him anhaga “Often the solitary one
are gebideð, finds grace for himself
metudes miltse, the mercy of the Lord,
þeah þe he modcearig , Although he, sorry-hearted
geond lagulade must for a long time
longe sceolde move by hand [in context = row]
hreran mid hondum along the waterways,
hrimcealde sæ (along) the ice-cold sea,
wadan wræclastas. tread the paths of exile.
Wyrd bið ful aræd!” Events always go as they must!”

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 6.2. “The Seafarer”

This poem tells about a seafarer who drifts away from human companionship. Even
though he “is drowning in desolation” he continues to return to the sea. Life, no matter
where it is spent, is exile. The only home is heaven.
“The Seafarer” Regular Rhythms
“This tale is true, and mine. It tells”
“But there isn’t a man on earth so proud”
Purpose to oral tradition: helps with memorization of lines.
“The Seafarer” Kennings
● Eagle’s screams: caw
● Summer’s sentinel: the cuckoo
● The whale’s home: the sea
Purpose to oral tradition: poetic words used for imagery and memorization.
“The Seafarer” Assonance
“To the open ocean, breaking oaths”
Purpose to oral tradition: helps with rhythm and memorization.
“The Seafarer” Alliteration
“This tale is true, and mine. It tells”.
“My soul roams with the sea, the whale’s
Home, wandering to the widest corners
Of the world, returning ravenous with desire,
Flying solitary, screaming…”
Provides rhythm and repetition.
“The Seafarer” Theme
● Wandering​. With the Anglo-Saxon belief of home, to be wandering was to have
nothing.

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 ● Exile​. The Anglo-Saxons did not have patriotism to their country, but to their lord,
so to be exiled was to be forsaken and they feared this.

Fragments of the poem:

”Mæg ic be me sylfum “I can make a true song
soðgied wrecan, about me myself,
siþas secgan, tell my travels,
hu ic geswincdagum how I often endured
earfoðhwile days of struggle,
oft þrowade, troublesome times,
4a bitre breostceare [how I] have suffered
gebiden hæbbe, grim sorrow at heart,
gecunnad in ceole have known in the ship
cearselda fela, many worries [abodes of care],
atol yþa gewealc, the terrible tossing of the waves,
þær mec oft bigeat where the anxious night watch
nearo nihtwaco often took me
æt nacan stefnan, at the ship's prow,
þonne he be clifum cnossað.” when it tossed near the cliffs.”

“Stieran mon sceal strongum mode, “Man must control his passions
ond þæt on staþelum healdan, and keep everything in balance,
ond gewis werum, keep faith with men,
wisum clæne. and be pure in wisdom.
Scyle monna gehwylc Each of men must
mid gemete healdan be even-handed
wiþ leofne ond wið laþne” with their friends and their foes.”

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 7. Caedmon. “Hymn”

Caedmon
Caedmon is the earliest English poet whose name is known. His only known
surviving work is Caedmon Hymn - a nine-line alliterative vernacular praise poem in
honour of God he supposedly learned to sing in his initial dream. The poem is one of the
earliest attested examples of Old English and is one of the candidates for the earliest
attested examples of Old English poetry.
The sole source of original information about Caedmon’s life and work is Bede’s
Historia ecclesiastica - Book IV​. For most of his life Caedmon worked in an animal
husbandry for a monastery, living with the non-religious, and reporting to the reeve, a
steward who supervised abbess’ estate. When the workers routinely ate together in a hall
at a table, they entertained each other by singing lyrics to a hand-held harp, passed around.
Before Caedmon’s turn to sing came, he left for the stable where he kept the livestock
overnight. One time when his turn came to sleep with the animals, he had a dream. In it a
man called him by name and told him to sing. When Caedmon explained that he could not
sing to the others, the man asked him to sing to him instead.
When Caedmon said that he did not know what to sing about, the man told him, ‘the
Creation of all things’. In the dream, Caedmon did so, with verses he had never heard
before. Awaking, he remembered his dream and the song, and added more to it.
The religious to whom Caedmon performed his song later attributed his singing as a
gift by God’s grace. He must have seemed to them like one of the disciples in the gospels
whom Jesus had called by name to God’s service. Creativity in making songs, to them,
happened when a greater power took over the poet and made him its voice. However, the
monastic brothers were wrong about Caedmon’s ‘gift’. The man in his dream gave him,
not the verses, but the subject matter. Caedmon, and only he, composed the verses. What
astonished the monastery scholars was the immediacy of his composition. The verses
came out without work or prompting of memory.

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 Caedmon does not say that he created his song after waking up, but that he
remembered it. Bede clearly explains that one of Caedmon’s abilities was to store up what
he was taught in his memory.
Later on Caedmon was ordered to take monastic vows. The abbess ordered her
scholars to teach him sacred history and doctrine.
After a long and pious life, Caedmon died like a saint: receiving a premonition of
death, he asked to be moved to the abbey’s hospice where, having gathered his friends
around him, he expired just before nocturns.

Caedmon’s Hymn
Caedmon’s poetry is said to have been exclusively religious. Bede reports that
Caedmon could never compose any foolish or trivial poem, but only those which were
concerned with devotion. And his list of Caedmon’s output includes work on religious
subjects only: accounts of Creation, translations from the Old and New Testaments, and
songs about the terrors of future judgement, horrors of hell, joys of the heavenly kingdom
and divine mercies and judgements. Of this corpus, only the opening lines of his first
poem survived - ​The Hymn​.
Now [we] must honour the Guardian of heaven,
The might of the Architect, and His purpose,
The work of the Father of Glory
As He, the Eternal Lord, established the beginning of wonders;
He first created for the children of men
Heaven as a roof, the Holy Creator
Then the Guardian of mankind,
The Eternal Lord, afterwards appointed the middle earth,
The lands for men, the Lord Almighty.
The Hymn has by far the most complicated known textual history of any surviving
Anglo- Saxon poem. It is found in two dialects and five distinct recensions.
Each Old English line has two balanced phrases with four stressed syllables, three
of which alliterative. Each half line if uttered musically, in time to the plucking of a harp,
would fit nicely into our memory. Caedmon’s hymn has just two sentences, which can be
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summarized: ‘ Let me now praise God the Creator’ – lines 1-4, and ‘God created Heaven,
earth and man’ – lines 5-9.
Caedmon’s Hymn was composed orally in Old English alliterative verse by an
illiterate cowherd named Caedmon sometime between 658 and 860 - possibly before
Bede’s birth, and long before Bede wrote the Ecclesiastical History (completed 731). Note
that Old English was not a written language: poetry was composed in an oral - formulaic
style and recited aloud, from memory, to an illiterate public.

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 8. Cynewulf - a 9th-Century Poet.

The details of the life of Anglo-Saxon poet ​Cynewulf​ (flourished 8th or 9th
century) are shrouded in mystery. What is known is that he was one of the earliest
religious poets and wrote beautiful verses steeped in Christian belief. Cynewulf is
recognized as the second Anglo-Saxon poet (after Caedmon) to write Old English
Christian verse.
Cynewulf flourished around the mid-8th or early 9th century around the
Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Northumbria or Mercia. There are two schools of thought on
his sketchy personal history. He is sometimes identified with Cynewulf, Bishop of
Lindisfarne. Others claim an association with Cynulf, an ecclesiastic who may have been a
priest of the Diocese of Dunwich, whose signature is found on the Decrees of the Council
of Clovesho signed in 803.
Regardless of which theory proves true, Cynewulf is undeniably the author of four
poems, having signed his name to these manuscripts in runic letters. His writing is
graceful and masters rhetoric. Cynewulf speaks of gifts he received in a celebration, which
leads one to believe that he may have been a gleeman or minstrel at the court of one of the
Northumbrian kings.
He was converted to Christianity as an adult and, throughout his life, devoted
himself to writing religious poems. In the pieces that are unquestionably credited to him,
he left 2,600 lines of poetry.
Cynewulf and his followers, drew on the New Testament, as well as historical
events connected with Christianity. His works include ​The Fates of the Apostles​, a short
martyrology, ​The Ascension (or Christ II)​, a homily (lecture on moral conduct) and
biblical narrative, and ​Juliana​, the story of a saint. The most famous is ​Elene (Helene).

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 8.1 “Elene”

The poem considered to be Cynewulf's masterpiece is the ​"Elene."​ This manuscript,

uncovered in Vercelli, Italy in 1836 with the discovery of the ​Vercelli Book​ (a collection
of Old English Manuscripts) was written in both prose and poetry.

It contains a narrative based on the Latin legends of the

discovery of the true cross by St. Helena, mother of
Constantine the Great. The poem is sometimes known as ​Saint
Helena Finds the True Cross​. It was translated from a Latin
text and is the longest of Cynewulf's four signed poems.
The poem was written by Cynewulf some time between
750 and the tenth century. It is written in a West Saxon dialect,
but certain Anglianisms and metrical evidence concerning false
rhymes suggest it was written in an Anglian rather than Saxon
dialect. It is 1,321 lines long.
Plot summary
The story is loosely based on historical events and takes place within an
anachronistic setting that amalgamates wars of the fourth-century involving the Romans,
the Huns and the Franks. ​Elene​ fits into a subgenre of inventio,
the search for sacrosanct relics of the saints. Cynewulf’s source
for the legend of St. Helena's Finding of the Cross was probably
the ​Acta Cyriaci​ and a version of it is written in the Acta
Sanctorum for May 4.
The poem begins with ​Constantine​, emperor of Rome, riding
out to battle the Huns and Hrethgoths. He is a mighty king made
strong by God, though he is not aware of the Christian God yet.
He sees a vision in the sky and he is told that he will halt his
enemies with the symbol that is shown to him by the heavens.
The battle begins and Constantine reveals the symbol that he was

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shown, a cross. The cross sends his enemies running in all directions and they are easily
defeated by the Romans.
Constantine returns home and addresses an assembly on whether they know the
meaning of the symbol that saved his people. Only the wisest know that the cross is the
symbol of the Lord in Heaven, Jesus Christ. Constantine is baptized and becomes a devout
Christian, due to his experience.
He learns from the Bible how and where Christ was killed, so he orders ​Helen​, his
mother, to lead an army to the land of the Jews to find where the true cross is buried. She
leads an army of men onto a ship and begins the journey to Israel.
Once in the city of Jerusalem, she calls an assembly of sage Jews and scorns them
for having condemned Jesus to death, leaving them wondering what they have done to
anger the queen. ​Judas​ tells his fellow Jews that he knows the queen searches for the
cross. Judas was brought up on Christian teachings, and his brother Stephen was stoned to
death for being a Christian. The Jews refuse to help Helen find the cross, so she threatens
them with death.
Frightened, they hand over Judas. He also refuses to tell her where it is, so she locks
him in a dark prison for seven days without food. On the seventh day he cries out that he
cannot take the torture any longer and will reveal where the cross is. He leads the queen to
the hill where Jesus was crucified.
Judas converts to Christianity in a passionate speech to God acknowledging Jesus as
his Savior. God gives Judas a smoke sign in the sky, which convinces him of his
new-found belief. He digs and finds three crosses.
A crowd forms, but no one knows which of the three was the cross of Christ. They
set the crosses up in the city hoping that Christ would show them the truth. A corpse is
brought forth, and each cross is held over him. The third cross brings him back to life.
Satan appears in grotesque form angry that he has had a soul stolen from him. Judas
cleverly argues with Satan with his new faith, but Satan leaves with a threat that he will
raise up a king to retaliate.
Helen sends word home to Constantine, who tells her to build a church on the
hillside where the crosses were found. She encases the true cross in gold and jewels and

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places it in the church. Judas is baptized and puts away his false religion. He is appointed
to priesthood and is renamed Cyriacus because of his rebirth.
Helen then decides she needs to find the nails that held Christ up on the cross.
Cyriacus searches for them, and God again gives him a sign in the form of fire to show
where they are buried. Helen receives the gift with tears of joy, and the Holy Spirit fills
her with the gift of wisdom and forever protects the saint. She goes to a wise man to find
out how she should use the nails, and he advises her to use them in the bit of Constantine’s
horse so that he would always be victorious in battle.
The epilogue of the poem is devoted to the personal reflection of Cynewulf and his
interpretation of Doomsday. Cynewulf tells of how he has experienced a spiritual
metamorphosis. His depiction of the Last Judgement resembles a sort of Purgatory where
people are divided into three groups, two of which undergo cleansing to reach salvation,
while the third is damned to eternal Hell.

Analysis
Helen is not the typical passive Old English heroine. She is strong and autonomous,
more like the women in Old Norse literature rather than the Graeco-Roman saints. Old
Norse heroines are strong, assertive, and persuade physically instead of verbally.
Cynewulf purposely wanted his audience to view Helen as a strong individual. He does
not include her death in the poem as the Latin version does and he does not have her
submitting to Constantine and Cyriacus as she does in the Latin version. In fact it is the
opposite.
We see Cyriacus completely submitting himself to Helen: ​hæfde Ciriacus / eall
gefylled swa him seo æðele bebead, / wifes willan​ (line 1129b), ('Cyriacus had completely
done as the noble woman bade him to do, the will of the woman').
Helen can be understood as an allegory of the Christian Church and its mission to
lead men to salvation through acceptance of the Cross. Literally, her mission is to find the
true cross, but allegorically, her mission is to evangelize the Jews.
Helen is referred to as a warrior queen and she has an army of warriors, but they
never fight. The warriors are there to subjugate a powerful enemy, which could be Satan
or non-believers. Judas and Helen are an allegory for the relationship of the Church with
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its members. Judas’s dialogue reveals him to be of the human condition; he has the
capacity for saintliness and wickedness.
In terms of symbolism, the good-bad dichotomy, which is prevalent in Old English
verse, finds itself in the oppositions of light and dark imagery in the poem. For instance, it
is observed in the poem that Judas spends seven nights in a pit, and the 'darkness' can be
seen to convey his obstinacy in refusing to see the 'light' of Christianity.
Along with alliteration, which is a key part to all Old English poetry, there are also
places in the poem where Cynewulf applies rhyme in order to emphasize certain words,
such as in the battle scene (50-55a):
“Ridon ymb rofne, ðonne rand dynede,
camp wudu clynede, cyning ðreate for,
herge to hilde. Hrefen uppe gol,
wan ond wælfel. Werod wæs on tyhte.
Hleopon hornboran, hreopan frican,
mearh moldan træd.”
('They rode about the famous one; then the shield dinned, the battle-tarp clanged,
the king advanced with a troop, a battalion to the battle. The raven yelled from above, dark
and greedy for carrion. The troop was on the march. The horn-bearers ran, the heralds
called out, the horse trod the earth)
In this example, the rhymes emphasize the din of voices and the crash of weapons,
which builds excitement throughout the battle scene.

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 8.2. “Juliana”

Juliana​ is one of the four signed poems scribed to the mysterious poet, Cynewulf,
and is an account of the martyring of St. Juliana of Nicomedia. The one surviving
manuscript, dated between 970 and 990, is preserved in the ​Exeter Book​ between the
poems ​The Phoenix​ and ​The Wanderer​. ​Juliana​ is one of only five Old English poetic
texts that describe the lives of saints. (The others include ​Elene​, ​Andreas,​ and​ Guthlac A
and B​.)
Juliana​ is Cynewulf's second longest work, totaling 731 lines. However, due to
damage to the ​Exeter Book​ over time - such as staining, charring, and the loss of pages -
there are two gaps in the text of ​Juliana,​ amounting to a loss of 130 to 140 lines.
Cynewulf’s ​Juliana​ is presented entirely in Old English alliterative verse and is
transmitted in a late West-Saxon dialect.
Plot summary
The Juliana story takes place during the Diocletian persecution and was probably
first set in writing during the rule of Constantine I. The story begins by illustrating the
harsh life for Christians under the rule of Galerius Maximian, describing various acts of
violence visited upon Christians. ​Juliana​ is introduced as the daughter of ​Africanus of
Nicomedia​, who has promised Juliana’s hand in marriage to ​Eleusias​, a wealthy senator
and friend of Maximian.
Although Juliana was born a pagan, she has converted to Christianity, and so she
vehemently resists being married to the pagan Eleusias, not wanting to violate the
relationship she shares with God. When she publicly voices her dissatisfaction, Eleusias
becomes outraged and insists that he has been publicly insulted.
Africanus, upon hearing of this, becomes similarly outraged, believing his daughter
has embarrassed him by refusing the hand of a man of much higher status. As a result,
Africanus declares that Eleusias is free to punish Juliana in whatever way he wishes.
Eleusias proceeds to have Juliana stripped naked, hung from a tree by her hair, whipped,
and beaten with rods for over two hours. Then she is thrown into prison.

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 While in prison, Juliana is visited by a demon pretending to be an angel of God,
who tries to trick her into blasphemy. Juliana, being the epitome of unwavering Christian
faith, doesn’t fall for the charade and prays to God for
guidance. A voice tells her to reach out and grab the
demon, and Juliana obeys. This point forward contains
the bulk of the story, in which Juliana and the demon
have a lengthy war of words, with Juliana clearly
dominating. She holds the demon and forces it to confess
all of its wicked deeds several times over, ostensibly
humiliating him forever in the kingdom of Hell.
After her victory over the visiting demon, Eleusias
comes back for Juliana and seems to offer her a chance to
change her mind. Not surprisingly, Juliana refuses him
once again, and just as scathingly as before. Eleusias then attempts to have Juliana burned
alive in hot lead. Yet, even though he has Juliana placed in the fire, not a spot on her body
or clothes is touched by the flames. Angrier than ever, Eleusias finally resolves to have
Juliana beheaded, for which she becomes a Christian martyr.
Assessment
The entire story as told by Cynewulf deviates little from the Latin source he likely
used, with the same “progress of action” and “phraseology” observed in both texts.
However, there are some unsubtle differences worth mentioning. One is that the character
of Eleusius is portrayed in Cynewulf’s text with a much more sinister and intolerant
manner to his behaviour.
In the ​Acta Sanctorum​, Eleusius is presented as an “easy-going man,” willing to
accept Christianity just as long as he is not baptized: a practice that would compromise his
position as a powerful senator. In Cynewulf’s version, however, Eleusias eagerly worships
the heathen gods, and his faith in the “devil-inspired idols” is equitable to Juliana’s faith in
her own Christian God.
Thus, Cynewulf polarizes Juliana and Eleusius in a way that is analogous to the
conflict of good and evil. In fact, Cynewulf may have been trying to play on an
Anglo-Saxon idea of a social construct called a ​dryht​. The argument goes that, according

47
to Anglo-Saxon ethos, a good king is a provider who earns the loyalty of those he governs.
Cynewulf could have used this notion to illustrate a clear difference between Juliana’s
God (the “good king”) and Satan\pagan gods (the "bad king"). This is evident in the fact
that Juliana is repeatedly guided and protected (with the one exception of the beheading)
while the demon, an agent of Satan, is coerced into serving his master and is offered no
guidance or protection.
A further difference to be noted between Cynewulf's Juliana and its counterpart in
the ​Acta Sanctorum​ include the author's omission of Juliana's insistence that she will only
marry Eleusius if he becomes a prefect. This was likely left out by Cynewulf to show
Juliana as a polished saint and further magnify her polarization to Eleusius.
There is also an important stylistic difference attributed to the adaptation efforts of
Cynewulf; namely, the importing of military or battlefield language into the story.
Although this is a recurring theme in both Latin and Old English literature, the military
language does not appear in the Latin counterparts, such as the ​Acta Sanctorum​, and so it
is believed that Cynewulf probably wove it in for two possible reasons:
● the first being to make Juliana easier to relate to;
● the second, to create the metaphor that Juliana’s spirit was a sort of impenetrable
fortress, impervious to the attacks of Satan and his demonic henchmen.
It is said that Cynewulf's ​Juliana​ seems to lack the emotional vigour and
imagination of some of the poet’s other compositions. The language is thought to be “less
elaborate,” but still maintains the rhetorical cunning that Cynewulf is accustomed to.
As in his ​Elene​, the Old English tradition of placing the characters and events of the
story in a heroic setting is upheld; Juliana is celebrated as a martyr who defeats the
advances of the devil. The idea of a woman figuring prominently in a tale such as this was
not new to Anglo-Saxons. Germanic literature often permitted women to play instrumental
roles in the heroic setting of events. For instance, through Bede’s writings we hear of such
women providing the stimulus for political and religious developments in Britain.

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 9. Old English Prose

Prose developed later than poetry – in the ninth century. But sometimes it also
partly contained the characteristics of poetry. It was influenced by Latin, the language of
the church and the educated people. It consisted of factual, historical, and religious
writings.
King Alfred the Great​ (reigned 871-900), one of the
most significant rulers of the first millenium, after making
peace with the Vikings, made his kingdom into a cultural
centre. He translated many works from Latin, especially in
the areas of religion, history, philosophy. This was the
foundation of the written national language. The first
translated was included ​The Pastor’s Book​ containing ideals
for a pastor, with which Alfred as a secular ruler identified.
He also traslated ​Bede’s Church History​ and other historical
accounts. In addition, Alfred compiled medical information,
annals, chronicles, and information for law books. His
works lacked originality, and were more instructive and
educational than artistic.
King Alfred sought to repair the damage that the Viking invasions had inflicted on
English culture and learning, especially among the parish clergy. He supervised
translations of classics of theology and history by ​Gregory the Great​, ​Augustine of Hippo
and ​the Venerable Bede​.
Later Annals and Religious writings
The first half of the tenth century saw Alfred’s successors expand politically and
militarily, but not culturally due to exhaustion from frequent battles with the Vikings. ​The
Chronicle​ is the best-known work of historical records spanning even beyond the Norman
conquest. It contains both prose and poetry.
In the second half of the tenth century came cultural enlivenment through the
Benedictian reform, a monastic reform which resulted in a religious revival. The main

49
literary styles included homilies, sermons, stories of saints’ lives, and Bible translations.
The chief autors were ​Aelfric​ and ​Wulfstan​.
Aelfric​, abbot of Eynsham, wrote three cycles of forty homilies each (two volumes
of Catholic Homilies and Lives of the Saints), as well as other homilies, pastoral letter,
and several translations. His writings were clear to understand and beautiful in style. His
alliterative prose, which loosely imitated the rhythms of Old English poetry, influenced
writers long after the Norman conquest.
Wulfstan​, the archbishop of York, wrote civil and church-related legal codes as
well as homilies. He denounced the morals of his time and exhorted people to repentance.
The belief was that the Viking occupation and the resulting oppression and suffering were
the result of sin.

9.1. Venerable Bede

Bede​ referred to as ​Saint Bede​ or the ​Venerable

Bede​ was a monk at the Northumbrian monastery of
Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth. He is well known as an
author and scholar, and his most famous work, ​Historia
ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum​ (​The Ecclesiastical
History of the English People​) gained him the title "​The
Father of English History​". In 1899, Bede was made a
Doctor of the Church by Leo XIII, a position of
theological significance; he is the only native of Great
Britain to achieve this designation. Almost everything
that is known of Bede's life is contained in the last
chapter of his Historia Ecclesiastica.
Bede's best-known work is the ​Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum​. ​The first of
the five books​ begins with some geographical background, and then sketches the history
of England, beginning with Caesar's invasion in 55 B.C. ​The second book​ begins with the
death of Gregory the Great in 604, and follows the further progress of Christianity in Kent
50
and the first attempts to evangelise Northumbria. The climax of ​the third book​ is the
account of the Council of Whitby, traditionally seen as a major turning point in English
history. ​The fourth book​ begins with the consecration of Theodore as Archbishop of
Canterbury, and recounts Wilfrid's efforts to bring Christianity to the kingdom of Sussex.
The fifth book​ brings the story up to Bede's day, and includes an account of missionary
work in Frisia, and of the conflict with the British church over the correct dating of Easter.
His scholarship and importance to Catholicism were recognised in 1899 when he
was declared a Doctor of the Church, and was declared a sanctus in 1935. He is the only
Englishman named a Doctor of the Church. He is also the only Englishman in Dante's
Paradise mentioned among theologians and doctors of the church in the same canto as
Isidore of Seville and the Scot Richard of St. Victor.
Bede became known as Venerable Bede by the 9th century, but this was not linked
to consideration for sainthood by the Roman Catholic Church. According to a legend the
epithet was miraculously supplied by angels, thus completing his unfinished epitaph. It is
first utilised in connection with Bede in the 9th century, where Bede was grouped with
others who were called "venerable" at two ecclesiastical councils held at Aix in 816 and
836. Paul the Deacon then referred to him as venerable consistently. By the 11th and 12th
century, it had become commonplace. However, there are no descriptions of Bede by that
term right after his death.

9.2. Alfred the Great

(AD 849- 899)
(reigned 871-899)

Alfred​ was born in Wantage, Berkshire in 849 as the

fifth son of Aethelwulf (Ethelwulf), King of Wessex and
Osburh (Osburga), his queen. He was of the royal house of
the Jutes of Wight. Alfred was born into England which was
suffering from Danish attacks.
At the age of five Alfred was sent to Rome where he
was received with honour by Pope Leo IV. The purpose of

51
his visit is not known. Two years later Alfred went on pilgrimage to Rome again with his
father who thought he was close to death. They returned to England after a year in Rome
and also visited Charles the Bald, King of the Franks.
In 858 Ethewulf died and Wessex was governed by his sons, Aethelbald,
Aethelbert, and Aethelred, successively, until 871, when ​Alfred​ came to the throne.
During the reigns of Aethelbald (855-860) and Aethelbert
(860-866) nothing much is heard of Alfred. With the accession of
his brother Aethelred I (866-871) Alfred’s public life began. In 868
Alfred married Ealswith, daughter of Aethelred.
Alfred fought with his brother against the Danes to relieve Mercia
from their pressure. In 871 Aethelred was killed in battle at
Ashdown and ​Alfred​ became the King of Wessex.
Alfred did not want to go into battle, so he kept the peace by
paying tribute to the Danes for four years. But in 876, the Vikings,
under a new leader, Guthrum, slipped past him and attacked the
lands of the Saxons. In 877 ​Alfred the Great​ blockaded them and
the Danes whose fleet had been scattered by the storm had to
submit and withdraw to Mercia. The next year another invasion
took place. The Danes went on killing people and forced Alfred to flee to Somerset
marshes.
The Vikings used fast mobile armies, raided the coasts and inland waters of
England and overcame East Anglia and Mercia. Because of that, ​Alfred ​reorganised the
army, created a series of fortifications, constructed a fleet of ships.
In 878 the King won the Vikings at the Battle of Edington. As a result England
became split in two: 1) ​The Danelaw​; 2) ​Land of the Saxons​ which now included West
Mercia and Kent. The King Guthrum was converted to Christianity.
By 886 he had captured the city of London and Welsh kings sought alliances with
him. Soon afterward he was referred to as ‘King of the English' . Alfred's charters and
coinage referred to him as 'king of the English'.
Alfred the Great was a wise king. He started the ultimate unification of
Anglo-Saxon England, established a legal code, promoted education, supported the arts,

52
translated Latin books into Anglo-Saxon, translated ​Ecclesiastical History of the English
People. ​He was patron of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle ​"Father of the English Navy"​.
Alfred increased the royal navy and a lot of ships were built in the Danish style to
beat the Vikings. He built fortresses (burh’s) all over Southern England to protect the
country. Soon these places became the centres of trade and local government. He also
created ​the fyrd​ - the regular army of the peasants.
Alfred valued education. He thought that the illiteracy and the fall in religion was
caused by the Vikings who destroyed the monasteries. To improve literacy he arranged the
translation of many books from Latin into Anglo-Saxon. Alfred was the patron of the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle​, a patriotic history of the English. He also put down a definite
body of the Anglo-Saxon law.
Alfred the Great died on the 26 October 899 at the age of 50 and was buried in
Winchester.

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle​ is a collection of annals in Old English chronicling the

history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the Chronicle was created late in
the 9th century, probably in Wessex. Multiple copies were made of that one original and
then distributed to monasteries across England, where they were independently updated.
In one case, the Chronicle was still being actively updated in 1154.
All of the surviving manuscripts are copies, so it is not known for certain where or
when the first version of the Chronicle was composed. It is generally agreed that the
original version – sometimes known as the Early English Annals – was written in the late
9th century by a scribe in Wessex. It is difficult to fix the date of composition, but it is
generally thought that the chronicles were composed during the reign of Alfred the Great
(871–99), as Alfred deliberately tried to revive learning and culture during his reign, and
encouraged the use of English as a written language.​ The Chronicle​, as well as the
distribution of copies to other centres of learning, may be a consequence of the changes
Alfred introduced.
Of the nine surviving manuscripts, seven are written entirely in Old English (also
known as Anglo-Saxon). One, known as the ​Bilingual Canterbury Epitome​, is in Old
English with a translation of each annal into Latin. Another, the​ Peterborough Chronicle,

53
is in Old English except for the last entry, which is in early Middle English. The oldest is
known as the ​Winchester Chronicle​ or the ​Parker Chronicle​ (after Matthew Parker, an
Archbishop of Canterbury, who once owned it). Six of the manuscripts were printed in an
1861 edition for the Rolls Series by Benjamin Thorpe with the text laid out in columns
labelled A to F. He also included the few readable remnants of a burned seventh
manuscript, which he referred to as [G]. Following this convention, the two additional
manuscripts are often called [H] and [I].
The ​Chronicle​ incorporates material from multiple sources. The entry for 755,
describing how Cynewulf took the kingship of Wessex from Sigebehrt, is far longer than
the surrounding entries, and includes direct speech quotations from the participants in
those events. It seems likely that this was taken by the scribe from existing saga material.
Early entries, up to the year 110, probably came from one of the small encyclopaedic
volumes of world history in circulation at the time the Chronicle was first written. The
chronological summary to Bede's Ecclesiastical History was used as a source. The
Chronicle gives dates and genealogies for Northumbrian and Mercian kings, and provides
a list of Wessex bishops; these are likely to have had separate sources. The entry for 661
records a battle fought by Cenwalh that is said to have been fought "at Easter"; this
precision implies a contemporary record, which survived and was re-used by the
Chronicle scribe.
Contemporary annals began to be kept in Wessex during the 7th century. The
material compiled in Alfred's reign included annals relating to Kentish, South Saxon,
Mercian and, particularly, West Saxon history, but, with the exception of the Cynewulf
entry, does not gather momentum until it comes to the Nordic invasions of the late 8th
century onwards.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle​ is the single most important source for the history of
England in Anglo-Saxon times. Without the Chronicle and Bede's Historia ecclesiastica
gentis Anglorum (the Ecclesiastical History of the English People), it would be impossible
to write the history of the English from the Romans to the Norman conquest; Nicholas
Howe called them "the two great Anglo-Saxon works of history". It is clear that records
and annals of some kind began to be kept in England at the time of the earliest spread of
Christianity, but no such records survive in their original form. Instead they were
incorporated in later works, and it is thought likely that the Chronicle contains many of

54
these. The history it tells is not only that witnessed by its compilers, but also that recorded
by earlier analists, whose work is in many cases preserved nowhere else.
Its importance is not limited to the historical information it provides, however. It is
just as important a source for the early development of English. The Peterborough
Chronicle changes from the standard Old English literary language to early Middle
English after 1131, providing some of the earliest Middle English text known.
The Chronicle is not without literary interest. Inserted at various points since the
10th century are Old English poems in celebration of royal figures and their achievements:
"​The Battle of Brunanburh​" (937), on King Æthelstan's victory over the combined forces
of Vikings, Scots and the Strathclyde Britons, and five shorter poems, "​Capture of the
Five Boroughs​" (942), "​The Coronation of King Edgar​" (973), "​The Death of King Edgar​"
(975), "​The Death of Prince Alfred​" (1036), and "​The Death of King Edward the
Confessor​" (1065).

55
 10. Anglo-Saxon Period. Test

1. The Anglo-Saxon period is said to date from:

A. 55 BC to AD 43C. C. 449 to 1066

B. AD 1 to 449 D. 1066 to 1485

2. During the Anglo-Saxon Period, England was invaded by all of the following
EXCEPT the

A. Celts C. Vikings

B. Jutes D. Saxons

3. Much of the Anglo-Saxon poetry that has survived is

A. Latin legends C. Irish history

B. Roman, with Christian additions D. Pagan, with Christian additions

4. The two most-important traditions of Anglo-Saxon poetry are

A. oral and written C. lyric and elegiac

B. narrative and alliterative D. heroic and elegiac

5. What group of invaders landed on the islands in 1066?

A. The Normans C. The Vikings

B. The Romans D. The Greeks

6. The first Archbishop of Canterbury was

A. Thomas a Becket C. Thomas Aquinas

B. Saint Augustine D. The Venerable Bede

7. What is another term for the Anglo-Saxon language?

56
 A. Middle English C. Modern English

B. Frisian English D. Old English

8. Two-word poetic renamings in Medieval poetry.

A. Kennings C. Jennings

B. Caesuras D. Alliteration

9. Chiefly, who introduced Christianity to Britain?

A. Vikings C. Romans

B. Germans D. Anglo-Saxons

10. Anglo-Saxon literature survived in the form of _____________.

A. Spoken verse C. Books

B. Pictures D. Magazines

11. Which is an example of a kenning?

A. The weather was super hot in the desert.

B. With gas prices dropping, I'm going to buy a gas-guzzler.

C. Water flowed from the fountain like syrup.

D. The drinks in the fridge were ice-cold.

12. In what century did the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes migrate to the British Islands?

A. 4th Century C. 5th Century

B. 6th Century D. 11th Century

13. True or False: Beowulf is the oldest known English epic poem.

A. True B. False

57
14. By what ancient culture was Beowulf composed?

A. Anglo-Saxon B. Germanic

C. Celtic D. Roman

15. Through what means was the poetry of the Anglo-Saxon period passed down?

A. Books C. Oral Tradition

B. Scrolls D. Teachers

16. Anglo-Saxon culture relied heavily on one's ____________ to the king.

A. admiration D. payments

B. loyalty C. contributions

17. Considering this story is based on a pagan culture, it seems odd that there are so
many Christian themes. What is an explanation for this?
A. It was written later than originally thought.
B. The scribes who wrote it down were Christian monks who related it to the
religion of their time.
C. It's origins are in the Roman empire rather than the Germanic tribes.
D. The scop who passed the tale on changed it to please the king he told it to.
18. The Anglo-Saxon period is one mainly characterized by _________________.
A. invasion C. peace
B. unity D. famine
19. Which two religions collided in England during this time period?
A. Islam and Christianity C. Paganism and Islam
B. Paganism and Catholicism D. Christianity and Judaism
20. Paganism is the worship of ______________.
A. Christ C. Spirits in Nature
B. Priests D. Oneself

58
21. Which of the following is NOT a quality of an epic hero?
A. He does superhuman deeds.
B. He does everything for glory and is not afraid to boast of his accomplishments.
C. He goes on a journey to defeat a monster and prove himself.
D. He will sacrifice his honor for the greater good.
22. Who were the ancient people of Britain?
A. Celts C. Romans
B. Anglo-saxons
23. The Celts’ belief was
A. Monotheistic B. Polytheistic
24. What language do the Anglo- Saxons speak?
A. Old English C. Spanish
B. Romanian
25. How did the Anglo-Saxons call Britain?
A. Britain-land C. Anglo-land
B. Saxons-land
26. Which religion did the Romans believe in?
A. Islam C. Buddhism
B. Christianity D. All of the Above
27. What did the Romans bring to England?
A. Infrastructure C. Art
B. Scientific Study D. Architecture
28. What was a belief at the heart of Roman expansion?
A. Romans were superior to others C. Polytheism should be spread.
B. Anglo-Saxons were too great a threat to ignore.
29. Who did warriors give their loyalty to in Germanic society?
A. Church leader C. Chieftain
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 B. Local farmer D. Roman emperor
30. Who was the leader of the Anglo-Saxons?
A. King C. Chieftain
B. Sailor D. Council of Nobles and Peasants

60
 11. The Norman Conquest. The Pre-Renaissance
period in England

The development of written literary tradition in European literature is closely

connected with the spread of Christian religion. It became the official religion of Rome in
306 and was brought to all Roman colonies, including Britain. Together with their religion
early Christians brought the Latin language, the official language of the Church all over
Europe.
In the 4th century the Germanic tribes of the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes came
to the British Isles. They were pagans, and most of British Christians were either put to
death or driven away to Wales and Ireland. That is why the stories of Christian martyrs
and saints were typical of the literature of that time.
At the end of the 6th century Roman monks came to Britain again in order to
convert people to Christianity. They landed in Kent and built their first church in
Canterbury. Latin words entered the language of the Anglo-Saxons because the religious
books were all in Latin. The monasteries became centres of education and learning. Poets
and writers imitated Latin books about the early Christians and saints. The names of old
English poets were ​Caedmon​ (the 7th century) and ​Cynewulf​ (the 8th century).
The earlier prose writers and chronicles were ​the Venerable Bede​ (673 – 735) who
wrote “​The Ecclesiastical History of the English People​, the English king ​Alfred the Great
(871 – 901) who wrote “​The Anglo- Saxon Chronicle”​ .
After the death of Alfred the Great fighting with the
Danes began again. Some of them settled in Scotland and
Ireland, others sailed across the English Channel and settled
in France, in Normandy. That’s why they are called ​the
Normans​.
In 1066 ​William​, Duke of Normandy (​William the
Conqueror​) defeated the English at ​Hastings​, and the
English became an oppressed nation. The Norman-French

61
language was spoken by the ruling class and at court. But common people spoke the
Anglo-Saxon dialects.
So, over 2 centuries communication in Britain went on in three languages – ​Latin
(was used in monasteries and churches), ​French​ (was the official language of the state),
Anglo-Saxon​ (was spoken by common people).
About a century after ​the Norman Conquest​ the first English universities were
founded. A fully developed university had 4 faculties: Theology (the study of religious
books), Canon Law (church laws), Medicine, Art. At the faculty of Arts the students
studied Latin Grammar, Rhetoric (expressive speaking), Logic, Arithmetic, Geometry,
Astronomy and Music. The most famous universities of Great Britain were established at
that time.
Oxford University​ was founded in 1168. ​Cambridge University​ was founded in 1209.

During the Norman period feudal culture was at its

height. The medieval poets came from France with the
conquerors and brought tales in verse and lyrical poems
about brave and gallant knights and beautiful ladies. They
were sung to the accompaniment of musical instruments,
such as a lute. The name of this genre is ​romance​.

62
 A number of romances were based on Celtic legends, especially those about ​King
Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table​. They were collected and arranged in a series
of stories in prose by ​Sir Thomas Malory​ in the 15th century. There are 21 books in this
epic.
In the literature of townsfolk we find ​the fable​ and ​the fabliau​. ​Fables​ were short
stories with animals for characters and having a moral. ​Fabliaux​ were funny metrical
poems, full of indecent jokes, about cunning humbugs, silly old merchants and their
unfaithful wives. The literature of the town did not idealize characters as romances did.
In the first part of the 14th century the Normans made ​London​ their residence and
the capital of the country. The London dialect gradually became the foundation of the
national language.

In 1337 the ​Hundred Years’ War​ with France began. At that time there appeared
poor priests who wandered from village to village and talked to the people. They protested
against rich bishops and churchmen who were ignorant and could not teach people
anything. Such poor priests were the poet ​William Langland​ (1332 – 1400) and ​John
Wycliff​ (1320 – 1384) who translated part of the Bible into English.

63
 12. The French influence on the English language

In 1066 Normans arrived in England, near Hastings. ​William the Great​ (Duke of
Normandy) leaded them. ​Harold​ was defeated. When ​King Edward “the Confessor”
died in, three pretenders fought for the throne:
● Harold Godwinson: Edward’s brother-in-law, actually crowned King.
● Harald Hardrada: King of Norway, attacked first.
● William, Duke of Normandy: supposedly, he was designated successor directly by
Edward.
By 1072, England was effectively subdued. William preserved much English
government machinery: Anglo-Saxon England had one of the most sophisticated
governmental systems in Western Europe.
● Administrative units ruled by “shire reeves” or “sheriffs”
● Use of written documentation
● Permanent physical locations of government
● Permanent treasury at Winchester
The Normans made this grow stronger.
● They centralised the autonomous shire system.
● Domesday Book: the first central kingdom-wide census taken in Europe since the
Romans, and enabled more efficient taxation.
The Use of the French language
Old English
● Highly inflected language
● Syntax only partially dependant on word order
● Phonetic spelling
● Four major dialects: Northumbrian, Mercian, Kentish and West Saxon (which
dominated the written form of the language)
Norman French

64
 ● It came from Vulgar Latin, original Gauls who occupied the land, Germanic tribes,
Goths, Vandals and Franks. Finally, the Northmen (Danish and Norwegians) also
influenced it.
● The language of the ruling classes in England.
● Status of prestige.
Middle English
● Extreme loss of inflections.
● Standardisation of plural to “s”
● Less freedom in word order
● Loss of grammatical gender
● More phonetic spelling
● Final -e pronounced, as well as all consonants
● Resurrection of English in 13th and 14th c.
● Dialects: Northern, Midland, Southern, Kentish
● Dominance of London dialect (East Midland)
● Simplification of grammar because English was no longer a written language.
● Mixture of Old English, French and Low German
● Brut’s The Owl and the Nightingale is the starting point
● Of the rebirth of English as a written language.
At this time Latin was the second language of monks, diplomats, scholars, and was used in
official documents, chronicles, liturgy. Norman French was the mother tongue of
aristocracy and royalty into 14th century. And English was the language of the usually
illiterate common people. In 1362 the Parliament is opened in English, and from 1423
onwards Parliamentary records are kept in English.

65
 The influence of French

French loan words

Courtly life​: ​food, fashion, leisure & arts​: appetite, beef, biscuit, dinner, fruit,
poultry, boots, button, fashion, wardrobe, art, beauty, literature, painting, etc.
Administration, Government, Military & Law​: authority, baron, council, court,
crown, government, parliament, noble, minister, prince, tax, treaty, liberty, archer, enemy,
soldier, accuse, arrest, crime, guard, warden, jury, prison, punishment, etc.
Religion & Church​: abbey, catherdral, charity, clergy, confess, prayer, religion,
saviour, virgin, Virtue, create, creator, divine, faith, etc.
It is said that English has a synonym at each level: popular, literary and learned.
English French Latin
Ask Question Interrogate
Time Age Epoch
Kingly Royal Regal
Rise Mount Ascend

66
 The abandonment of English, and the necessity to learn French to improve social
status, was criticised by ​Robert of Gloucester​ in his ​Chronicle​.
“Þus com, lo, Engelond in-to Normandies hond: And Þe Normans ne couÞe speke
Þo bote hor owe speche, And speke French as hii dude atom, and hor children dude also
teche, So Þat heiemen of Þis lond, Þat of ho blod come, HoldeÞ alle Þulke speche Þat hii
of hom nom: Vor bote a man conne Frenss me telÞ of him lute. Ac lowe men holdeÞ to
Engliss, and to hor owe speche-ute. Ich wene Þer ne beÞ in al the world contreyes none
Þat ne holdeÞ to hor owe speche, bote Engelond one. Ac wel me wote uor to conne boÞe
wel it is, Vor Þe more Þat a mon can, Þe more wurÞe he is.”
“Thus came, lo, England into Normandy's hand: and the Normans then knew how
to speak only their own language, and spoke French as they did at home, and also had
their children taught it, so that noblemen of this land, that come of their stock, all keep to
the same speech that they received from them; for unless a man knows French, people
make little account of him. But low men keep to English, and to their own language still. I
think that in the whole world there are no countries that do not keep their own language,
except England alone. But people know well that it is good to master both, because the
more a man knows the more honoured he
is.” (Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester,
~1300)
The London dialect began to
dominate. It was the dialect that gained
social prestige. At the same time the
Great Vowel Shift​ occurred.
Norman-French loans in the
English vocabulary may be subdivided
into two main groups: 1)​early loans​ – 12
– 15th centuries; 2)​later loans​ – beginning
from the 16th century.
Early French loans were thoroughly
naturalized in English and made to conform to the rules of English pronunciation. The
early borrowings from French were simple short words as distinguished from later
introductions. This will be seen from an examination of the number of common
67
monosyllabic words derived from early French, e.g. ​age, air, arm, bolt, brace, breeze,
brush, cage, calm, cape, car, case, cause, cease, cell, chain, chance, chase, chief, chaise,
claim, clear, close, corpse, course, court, crime, cry​ etc. All these words have become an
integral part of the language, being as truly a part of common speech as words native by
origin. They have been so assimilated in sound and inflection as to be recognized as
foreign only to the eye of a philologist.
So, the unprecedented enrichment of the lexicon through borrowing altered the
etymological composition of English after the conquest. Data on the exact number of
words borrowed from French is difficult to obtain, but according to one estimate the
number of French words adopted during the Middle English period was slightly over
10,000. Of these, about 75 percent have survived and are still used in present-day English.
There is a predominance of French words in the vocabulary of cookery, which is
shown by a great many words, such as:​ lunch, dinner, appetite, to roast, to stew, to boil, to
fry, dainty, jelly, pasty, pastry, sauce, sausage, soup, toast​ etc Among French borrowings
there are also such semantic groups of words: a)​words denoting family relations​: parent,
cousin, uncle, aunt, nephew, niece; b)​words relating to fashion​: luxury, coat, lace, pleat,
embroidery; c)​words belonging to jewelry​: topaz, emerald, pearl.
In many cases words borrowed from the French language have more derivatives in
English than in French. For instance,​ mutin​ has only two derivatives in French (mutiner,
mutinerie) while in Modern English there are four well-known derivatives of ​mutiny​,
namely: ​mutineer, mutinous, mutinously, mutinousness​.
Early French loans are known as ​Norman French borrowings​, because they were
borrowed from Norman French (also known as Anglo-French or Anglo-Norman), which
was one of the provincial dialects of the French language.

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 13. The Romances

Anglo-Norman literature was well provided with romances. In the 12th century one
Thomas wrote a courtly version of the Tristan story, which survived in scattered fragments
and was used by Gottfried von Strassburg in ​Tristan und Isolde​ as well as being the source
of the Old Norse, Italian, and Middle English versions of the story. ​Béroul’s ​Tristan, also
12th century, was probably written in England, but by a Norman; ​Waldef​, a long, confused
story of an imaginary king of East Anglia and his sons, has passages of remarkable
originality. In the 12th century some romances were composed in the form of the chanson
de geste; for example, ​Horn​, by ​Master Thomas​, which is connected with the Middle
English Horn Childe and Maiden Rimnild. Yet another Thomas wrote the Roman de toute
chevalerie (“​Romance of All Chivalry​”), an independent version of the Alexander romance
and the source of the Middle English romance ​King Alisaunder.​ In the 13th century the
more courtly type of romance reappeared in ​Amadas et Idoine​ and in ​Amis et Amiloun​.
The interinfluence of French and English literature can be studied in the Breton
romances and the ​romans d'aventure​ even better than in the epic poetry of the period. ​The
Lay of Orpheus​ is known to us only through an English imitation, ​Sir Orfeo​; the ​Lai du
cor​ was composed by ​Robert Biket​, an Anglo-Norman poet of the 12th century (Wulff,
Lund, 1888). ​The Lais of Marie de France​ were written in England, and the greater
number of the romances composing ​the matière de Bretagne​ seem to have passed from
England to France through the medium of Anglo-Norman.
The legends of Merlin and Arthur,​ collected in the ​Historia Regum Britanniae​ by
Geoffrey of Monmouth​ (died c. 1154), passed into French literature, bearing the
character which the bishop of St Asaph had stamped upon them. ​Chrétien de Troyes's
Perceval​ (c. 1175) is doubtless based on an Anglo-Norman poem.
Finally, the most celebrated love-legend of the Middle Ages, and one of the most
beautiful inventions of world-literature, the story of ​Tristan and Iseult​, tempted two
authors, ​Béroul​ and ​Thomas​, the first of whom is probably, and the second certainly,
Anglo-Norman. ​One Folie Tristan​ was composed in England in the last years of the 12th
century.

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 Less fascinating than the story of ​Tristan and Iseult​, but nevertheless of
considerable interest, are the ​two romans d'aventure of Hugh of Rutland​, ​Ipomedon
(published by Eugen Kölbing and Koschwitz, Breslau, 1889) and ​Protheselaus​ (published
by Kluckow, Göttingen, 1924) written about 1185. The first relates the adventures of a
knight who married the young duchess of Calabria, niece of King Meleager of Sicily, but
was loved by Medea, the king's wife.
The second poem is the sequel to Ipomedon, and deals with the wars and
subsequent reconciliation between Ipomedon's sons, Daunus, the elder, lord of Apulia, and
Protesilaus, the younger, lord of Calabria. Protesilaus defeats Daunus, who had expelled
him from Calabria. He saves his brother's life, is reinvested with the dukedom of Calabria,
and, after the death of Daunus, succeeds to Apulia. He subsequently marries Medea, King
Meleager's widow, who had helped him to seize Apulia, having transferred her affection
for Ipomedon to his younger son (cf. Ward, Cat. of Rom., i. 728).
To these two romances by an Anglo-Norman author, ​Amadas et Idoine​, of which
we only possess a continental version, is to be added. Gaston Paris has proved indeed that
the original was composed in England in the 12th century.
The Anglo-Norman poem on the ​Life of Richard Coeur de Lion​ is lost, and an
English version ​only has been preserved. About 1250 Eustace of Kent introduced into
England the roman d'Alexandre in his ​Roman de toute chevalerie​, many passages of which
have been imitated in one of the oldest English poems on Alexander, namely, King
Alisaunder.

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 13.1. “Guy of Warwick”

Guy of Warwick​ is in many respects "England's

other Arthur". He is a romance hero whose abiding
popularity in medieval England spanned both high and low
culture, and whose story survives in a polyvalent narrative
tradition that includes numerous iterations in a variety of
languages and dialects.
The Anglo-Norman French romance was edited by
Alfred Ewert in 1932 and published by Champion, and is
described by Emile Littré in ​Histoire littéraire de la
France​ (xxii., 841-851, 1852). A French prose version was
printed in Paris, 1525, and subsequently; the English
metrical romance exists in four versions.
Velma Bourgeois Richmond has traced the career of ​Guy of Warwick​ from the
legends of soldier saints to metrical romances composed for an aristocratic audience that
widened in the sixteenth century to a popular audience that included Guy among the Nine
Worthies, passing into children's literature and local guidebooks, before dying out in the
twentieth century. The kernel of the tradition evidently lies in the fight with Colbrand,
which symbolically represents some kernel of historical fact.
The religious side of the legend finds parallels in the stories of St Eustachius and St
Alexius, and makes it probable that the Guy-legend, as we have it, has passed through
monastic hands. Tradition seems to be at fault in putting Guy's adventures
anachronistically in the reign of Athelstan; the Anlaf of the story is probably Olaf
Tryggvason, who, with Sweyn I of Denmark, harried the southern counties of England in
993 and pitched his winter quarters in Southampton; this means the King of England at the
time was Æthelred Unready II.
Summary
While many versions of Guy of Warwick exist, the core narrative remains largely
the same as the Anglo-Norman original, summarized here:

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 Guy falls in love with Felice, daughter of
Earl Rohaut of Warwick. In order to win
her love, Guy must prove himself in
knightly combat. He travels to France
and wins renown at a tournament in
Rouen, where he is offered the hand of
Blancheflour (daughter of the German
emperor). He declines the offer and
returns home to claim Felice instead.
Felice, however, sends him away once
more, saying that she will be his once he proves himself superior to all other knights. Guy
journeys overseas again and participates in a series of tournaments throughout continental
Europe. Afterwards, he travels to Constantinople, where he defeats a Saracen sultan. Here,
as in Rouen, he is offered the hand of the emperor's daughter as a reward for his
accomplishments. Various other adventures ensue, including Guy slaying a dragon who
had ravaged Northumberland.
With Guy's prowess and prestige fully established, Felice gladly accepts him as her
husband, and they conceive a child almost immediately after they are wed. Shortly
thereafter, Guy becomes ashamed of his previous lifestyle of fighting, fame-seeking, and
secular devotion to Felice. He decides to embark on a pilgrimage to atone for his past
actions. He journeys to Bethlehem and Jerusalem, and eventually defends King Triamour
against Amourant, a Saracen giant. He journeys back to Winchester, and he prevents the
Danes from ruling in England by defeating their champion, the giant Colebrond. From
Winchester, he journeys to Warwick, where he lives as a hermit—unbeknownst to his wife
Felice. Near death, he sends for Felice and the two are reunited just before he passes away.
She dies shortly thereafter.

Analysis
Romances of Guy—even ones that are not written in the English vernacular—are
typically invested in the project of English identity formation and proto-nationalism. They
are also consistently invested in matters of crusading, especially in terms of the binaries

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that they establish between Christians and Saracens, and in terms of Guy's "one-man
crusade in the Middle East".
Guy's development as a preeminent secular knight are inextricably bound to his
wars against the Saracens, made clearest in his defense of Constantinople against an
invading Saracen army. As Rouse articulates, "this 'adventure' has a markedly different
tone to those that Guy has undertaken thus far. Here Guy's actions turn from his earlier
individual tournaments and the squabblings of European princes to the defence of a larger
religiously delineated geo-political entity: he seeks to defend 'cristendom' from its heathen
enemies"
The hero's motivations are still largely secular at this point, however, and it is only
in the second portion of the narrative that he truly comes to embody the role of a martial
pilgrim, a role that—as seen in Sir Isumbras—carries strong connotations of crusade.
As Rouse explores, Amourant, as a giant, is an "avatar of bodily excess" who
"embodies all those things that the romance hero by necessity approaches, but must not
become: he is michel & unread, huge and uncontrolled—an image of unrestrained
masculine power, which Western heroes such as Guy must seek to control and sublimate
within chivalric codes of behavior and honour". The process of defeating and killing the
giant, then, affirms Guy's martial and cultural superiority and, as a result, the superiority of
England as well.
Guy's relationship with Felice and his deprioritization of his marriage, however, set
this romance tradition apart from other crusades romances, even as the prioritization of
crusading and pilgrimage echoes themes from other generically similar texts. Guy's
devotion to Felice and his desire for domestic stability are positioned as aspirations less
worthy than and contradictory to those of holy pilgrimage and crusading. In this way, the
Guy of Warwick tradition forms a starker binary between domestic and martial spheres
that seen elsewhere in this sub-genre of romance, elevating the latter while necessarily
denigrating the former.

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 13.2. “Bevis of Hampton”

Beves of Hamtoun​, also known as ​Beves of

Hampton​, ​Bevis of Hampton​ or ​Sir Beues of Hamtoun​,
is an anonymous Middle English romance of 4620 lines,
dating from around the year 1300, which relates the
adventures of the English hero Beves in his own country
and in the Near East. It is a paraphrase or loose
translation of the Anglo-Norman romance ​Boeuve de
Haumton​, and belongs to a large family of romances in
many languages, including Welsh, Russian and even
Yiddish versions, all dealing with the same hero.
For centuries ​Beves of Hamtoun​ was one of the
most popular verse romances in the English language,
and the only one that never had to be rediscovered, since
it has been circulated and read continuously from the Middle Ages down to modern times,
in its original form, in prose adaptations, and in scholarly editions. It exercised an
influence on, among others, Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare and Bunyan.
Summary
Beves's father, the aged nobleman Guy of Hampton, is murdered by his mother and
her lover, the Emperor of Germany. The guilty pair marry, and are soon plotting to kill
Beves, the seven-year-old heir to Guy's earldom. When the plot fails they instead sell him
to merchants, who send him off to the Levant by ship. There he finds refuge at the court of
Ermin, king of Armenia. As he grows up he proves his valour in various exploits, the
king's daughter Josian falls in love with him, and the king makes Beves a knight and
presents him with a sword called Morgelai and a horse called Arondel. Beves repels an
invasion by the Saracen king Brademond, but falls out with Josian, whom he finds too
independent-minded. The two are reconciled when Josian declares she will be a Christian.
A guard loyal to Brademond sees Josian and Bevus kiss, the guard then lies to Ermin that
Beves had slept with Josian. Ermin, believing that Beves has deflowered his daughter,
sends Beves to Brademond with a sealed letter in which Brademond is asked to kill him.

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 Ermin tells Beves he should not take his horse, not his
sword, as it does not befit a messenger. Beves reaches
Damascus, insults the Saracen gods, and presents his letter
to Brademond, who immediately casts Beves into a deep
pit.
Seven years later Beves succeeds in escaping from the pit
and rides off. Beves stops by at Jerusalem and confesses
to the patriarch, who then forbids Beves to take a wife,
unless she is a virgin. After many adventures he reaches
the court of king Ermin and discovers that Josian has been
married off to another man, king Yvor. Beves disguises
himself as a poor pilgrim so as to be able to gain
admittance to Josian. Disguised, Beves asks Josian to
show him his old horse, Arondel, who has not allowed any rider on him but Beves.
Arondel recognises Beves, and then so does Josian. Beves, mindful of what the patriarch
told him, tells Josian he cannot be with her as she has had a husband for the past seven
years. Josian claims that though married she is still a virgin, and urges him to remember
their love. They escape from the court pursued by a giant called Ascopard, Ascopard is
felled by Bevus but is spared through Josian's plea. The three discover a ship, kill its
Saracen crew, and sail off to the West.
In Cologne they meet a bishop who
baptises Josian. Ascopard avoids being
christened claiming he is too big. Beves fights
and kills a poisonous dragon, and then sails to
England to back claim his earldom, leaving
Josian behind for the time being. In Beves's
absence Josian is forced to marry a secret
admirer of hers, but she kills him on their
wedding night. She is condemned to death for
this crime, but is rescued by Beves and
Ascopard, and the three make their escape to the
Isle of Wight. Beves defeats his stepfather the

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emperor in battle, and kills him by dropping him into a kettle of molten lead. Beves and
Josian are married.
Beves now falls out with the English king Edgar, and in consequence goes back to
Armenia with his pregnant wife Josian and Ascopard. Ascopard turns against Beves and,
having secretly conspired with king Yvor, abducts Josian, leaving her newly born twin
sons Miles and Guy behind. Beves fosters his sons out to a fisherman and a forester, then
goes in search of Josian. Meanwhile, Saber, guided by a dream, follows Beves, discovers
Josiane and rescues her. Together they discover Beves and the children. Beves rejoins the
Armenian king Ermin and aids him in a war against king Yvor. Ermin dies, having made
Beves's son Guy his heir. Beves fights one more war against Yvor, defeats him, and takes
his place as king of Mombraunt. The family return to England and fight a successful war
with king Edgar, which ends with Edgar offering Miles his only daughter in marriage.
Once more Beves, Josian and Guy journey eastward and take up their two kingdoms. After
twenty years Beves and Josian die together in each other's arms.

Beves ​exists in an unusually large number of manuscripts and early printed editions,
demonstrating the enormous popularity of the romance. The manuscripts and printed
editions show the story in at least four appreciably different versions. None of them is
clearly closer to the lost original Middle English version than the others. This complicated
textual transmission makes the editing of Beves notoriously difficult.
Beves​ is mainly written in rhyming couplets, but the opening section is in
tail-rhyme. No earlier tail-rhyme romance in Middle English is known.
A version of ​Beves​ was the direct source of an Early Modern Irish romance, untitled
in the sole surviving manuscript but now sometimes called ​Bibus​. ​Bibus​ is shorter than its
Middle English counterpart, and is written in prose. ​Chaucer​ refers to ​Beves​ and other
poems as "romances of prys" in his tale of ​Sir Thopas​ (VII.897–900), and there are also
some verbal similarities between the two works.
Spenser​ uses themes from ​Beves​, especially the dragon-fight, in the adventures of
his Redcrosse Knight in Book 1 of The Faerie Queene. The Beves dragon-fight was also
used as the template for ​Richard Johnson​'s version of the story of St. George and the

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dragon, in his immensely popular romance ​The Famous Historie of the Seaven Champions
of Christendom​ (1596–97).
​ hakespeare​'s lines in ​Henry VIII​, Act I, scene 1, "that former fabulous
S
story/Being now seen possible enough, got credit,/That Bevis was believed", show his
knowledge of the romance. In ​King Lear​ Act III, scene iv, Edgar's lines "But mice and
rats, and such small deer,/Have been Tom’s food for seven long year" are taken from
Beves’s "Rattes and myce and suche smal dere/Was his mete that seven yere".
Beves of Hamtoun​ also made its mark on the English language. It is the earliest
known source of the proverb "many hands make light work", and of another once popular
proverb, "save a thief from the gallows and he will never love you". The word Morglay,
entered the language during the late 16th and early 17th centuries as a common noun
meaning "sword".

Fragment of the romance in Old English:

“Lordinges, herkneth to me tale!

Is merier than the nightingale,
That I schel singe;
Of a knight ich wile yow roune,
Beves a highte of Hamtoune,
Withouten lesing.

Ich wile yow tellen al togadre

Of that knight and of is fadre,
Sire Gii.
Of Hamtoun he was sire
And of al that ilche schire,
To wardi.”

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 14. Fables and the Fabliau
14.1. Aesop’s fables

Fable​ is a literary genre: a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features
animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are
anthropomorphized (given human qualities, such as the ability to speak human language)
and that illustrates or leads to a particular moral lesson (a "moral"), which may at the end
be added explicitly as a pithy maxim.
Aesop's Fables​ date from the 6th century BC. It includes most of the best-known
western fables, which are attributed to the legendary Aesop, supposed to have been a slave
in ancient Greece around 550 BC. The fables that bear his name (Aesop collected the
fables, he didn't write them) contain timeless lessons. Aesop's Fables also gave rise to and
reflect many of today's expressions and cliches. Aesop's Fables are in total more than 300.
Over the centuries, Aesop's fables have been rewritten and illustrated and translated into
nearly every language in the world. Here are the best of Aesop's Fables.

“The fox and the grapes” (“​Sour grapes​”)

“A hungry fox passed below a fine bunch of grapes hanging high from a vine. After
trying in vain to jump and reach them he gave up, saying to himself as he walked off, "the
grapes looked ripe, but I see now they are quite sour".”
“The spendthrift and the swallow” (“​One swallow does not make a summer​”)
“A man who had wasted his fortune had nothing left but the clothes he wore. On
seeing a swallow one Spring morning he decided the weather would be warmer, so he sold
his coat. The weather however turned colder the next day and killed the swallow. When
the shivering man saw the dead swallow he moaned, "Thanks to you I am freezing".“
“Wolf in sheep’s clothing”
“A wolf devised a plan to dress in a sheepskin to prey upon a flock. Mingling with
the sheep he fooled the sheep and the shepherd too, and was penned in for the night. That

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night the shepherd wanted some mutton for his table and, mistaking the wolf for a sheep,
promptly dispatched him with a knife there and then.”
“The crow and the pitcher”
“A thirsty crow found a pitcher containing some water, albeit too little and low to
reach. As it seemed she would die within sight of the remedy, the crow struck upon an
idea to drop pebbles into the pitcher. The water level rose and the crow was able to drink.”
“The north wind and the sun” (“​Persuasion is better than force​”)
“The north wind and the sun argued which was the stronger. On seeing a traveller
they agreed a suitable test would be to strip him of his cloak. First the wind blew with all
his might, but the more he blew, the more than man wrapped the cloak tightly around
himself. When the sun's turn came, he gently beamed at the man, who loosened the cloak.
The sun shone brighter still, and the man threw off his cloak.”
“The gnat and the bull” (“​Don’t overestimate your own importance​”)
“A gnat settled on a bull's horn. After a while the gnat asked the bull, "Do you mind
if I go now?" The bull replied, unconcerned, "It's all the same to me: I didn't notice you
when you came, and I won't notice when you've gone".”
“The fox, the goat and the well” (​“Look before you leap”​)
“A fox fell into a well and was stuck there. A passing goat saw the fox asked if the
water tasted good. "It's the best water you'll ever taste," said the fox, at which the goat
promptly jumped into the well to drink. On realizing he was stuck too, the goat agreed that
the fox could climb up and over him out of the well and then help the goat out. The fox
duly climbed up and over the goat to his freedom but left the goat stranded.”
“The dog and the meat” (​“Be satisfied with what you have or you may lose it”​)
“A dog with a fine slab of meat in his mouth crossed a bridge over a river and saw
his reflection in the water. Thinking it to be another dog with a larger piece of meat he let
go his own and dived at the other dog to take it. He surfaced with nothing and his dinner
washed away in the current.”
“The lion and the ass” (​“Might is right”)​
“A lion and an ass went hunting and agreed that the ass would run down the prey
and the lion would kill it, which worked as planned. The lion divided the carcass into three

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and announced, "I will take the first portion because I am king of the beasts; the second is
my half of what remains, and the third you'll give to me or you'll be sorry".”
“The man and the satyr” (​“Blow hot and cold”​)
A man and a satyr (a half-man, half-goat woodland creature from Greek and Roman
mythology) lived together as friends until one winter's day the man blew into his hands
and explained to the curious satyr that he needed to warm them. When the man later blew
on his porridge to cool it, the confused satyr got up from the table and said goodbye, as he
could not be friends with a man who blows hot and cold with the same breath.”
“The crab and his mother” (​“Lead by example, not by words”​)
“A mother crab criticized her son for walking sideways, whereupon the son asked
his mother to show him how to walk straight. Of course the mother crab was unable to
walk any straighter than her son, and soon apologized for criticizing what she herself was
guilty of too.”
“The father and his quarrelling sons” (​“Divide and rule” / “United we stand”​)
“A father whose sons constantly quarrelled, asked them to bring him a bundle of
sticks and then challenged each in turn to break the bundle over their knees, which they
found impossible. He then split the bundle and showed how each individual stick could
easily be broken. "United you are strong; quarrelling and separated and you are weak," he
said.”

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 14.2. The Fabliau

A ​fabliau​ (plural ​fabliaux​) is a comic, often anonymous tale written by jongleurs in

northeast France between ca. 1150 and 1400. They are generally characterized by sexual
and scatological obscenity, and by a set of contrary attitudes—contrary to the church and
to the nobility. Several of them were reworked by ​Giovanni Boccaccio​ for the ​Decameron
and by ​Geoffrey Chaucer ​for his ​Canterbury Tales​. Some 150 French fabliaux are extant,
the number depending on how narrowly fabliau is defined. According to R. Howard
Bloch, fabliaux are the first expression of literary realism in Europe.
The fabliau is defined as a short narrative in (usually octosyllabic) verse, between
300 and 400 lines long, its content often comic or satiric. In England, it was popular in the
14th century. Fabliau is often compared to the later short story; Douglas Bush, longtime
professor at Harvard University, called it "a short story broader than it is long."
The fabliau is remarkable in that it seems to have no direct literary predecessor in
the West, but was brought from the East by returning crusaders in the 12th century. The
closest literary genre is the fable as found in ​Aesop​ "and its eastern origins or parallels,"
but it is less moral and less didactic than the fable. In terms of morality it is suggested to
be closer to the novel than to the parable: "the story is the first thing, the moral the second,
and the latter is never suffered to interfere with the former." The earliest known fabliau is
the anonymous Richeut (ca. 1159-1175); one of the earliest known writers of fabliaux is
Rutebeuf, "the prototype of the jongleur of medieval literature.
The genre has been quite influential: passages in longer medieval poems such as Le
Roman de Renart as well as tales found in collections like Giovanni Boccaccio's
Decamerone and Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales have their origin in one or several
fabliaux. Additionally, the medieval church also found use for the fabliau form. Noting its
popularity, the church turned to their own form of minstrelsy similar to the fabliau that
espoused "worthy thoughts" rather than the "ribaldry" a more typical fabliau would couch
its moral in.
Typical fabliaux contain a vast array of characters, including cuckolded husbands,
rapacious clergy, and foolish peasants, as well as beggars, connivers, thieves, and whores.
Two groups are often singled out for criticism: the clergy and women. The status of

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peasants appears to vary, based on the audience for which the fabliau was being written.
Poems that were presumably written for the nobility portray peasants (vilains in French) as
stupid and vile, whereas those written for the lower classes often tell of peasants getting
the better of the clergy.
The subject matter is often sexual: fabliaux are concerned with the elements of love
left out by poets who wrote in the more elevated genres such as Ovid.
The standard form of the fabliau is that of Medieval French literature in general, the
octosyllable rhymed couplet, the most common verse form used in verse chronicles,
romances (the romans), lais, and dits. They are generally short, a few hundred lines.
Famous writers of fabliau include Jean Bodel, Garin, Gautier le Leu, Rutebeuf,
Enguerrant le Clerc d'Oisi and Douin de L'Avesne.

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 15. England in the XIVth Century

During the late 13th and in the 14th century, English was making a comeback. The
mood towards France was becoming more and more hostile: it wasn’t seen as a mother
country, but as a dangerous rival. Although French and Latin were still languages of
prestige, English was becoming the language of communication, even among the nobility.
The 14th century the Norman made London their residence. It became the most populous
town in England. The London dialect was the central (midland) dialect, and could be
understood throughout the country. The burgesses became rich through trading with
Flanders. The English shipped wool to Flanders where it was sold as raw material.
King Edward III​ was a powerful feudal lord. He wished to make himself king of
France as well, because some provinces, such as Normandy, had once belonged to
England and others had belonged to Edward's mother, a French princess. While Edward
was determined to get back these provinces, the king of France decided to seize the free
towns of Flanders, which supported England, and thus deprive her of her wool-market. A
collision was inevitable. The war with France began in 1337 and is now called ​the
Hundred Years’ War (1337 – 1453)​ because it lasted over a hundred years. The Hundred
Years’ War with France marked the definite decline of French and the rise of English as a
chief language.
England was successful at the
beginning of the war and won several
important battles. But the ruin of France and
famine brought about a terrible disease called
the Plague​. It was so infectious that there
was no escape from it. People affected died
within twenty-four hours. It was brought
over to England from France. The English
soldiers called it ​the Black Death​. By the
year 1348 one-third of England's population
had perished. The peasants who survived were forced by drastic measures to till the land

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of their lords because there were not enough labourers to do the work. A law called "The
Statute of Labourers"was issued in 1351; it was a step back to feudalism.
As more money for the war was needed,
Parliament voted for extra taxes. The ​"Poll Tax"
particularly fanned the flame of discontent among
the people ("poll" means "head"; it was a tax paid
for every member of the family). But nothing
made the people so angry as the rich foreign
bishops of the Catholic Church who carried on
their policy with little regard for the sufferings of
the people. In 1381, during the reign of ​Richard
II​, the oppressed peasants revolted. Sixty thousand
people from the counties of Essex and Kent marched to London led by ​Wat Tyler. ​A
violent retribution followed, with as many as 7,000 alleged rebels executed.
The changes in the economy resulted in the emergence of a new class of gentry, and
the nobility began to exercise power through a system termed bastard feudalism. Nearly
1,500 villages were deserted by their inhabitants and many men and women sought new
opportunities in the towns and cities.
By 1450 the country was in crisis, facing military failure in France and an ongoing
recession. More social unrest broke out, followed by ​the Wars of the Roses (1455-1485),
fought between rival factions of the English nobility. ​Henry VII​'s victory in 1485
conventionally marks the end of the Middle Ages in England and the start of the Early
Modern period.

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 15.1. William Langland

What we now call Middle English appears after the great silence of 200 years, in the
2nd half of 14th century. Prior to that time, vernacular (=not in Latin) literature consisted
primarily of religious writings. The second half of 14th century produced the first great
age of secular literature.
William Langland ​is the presumed author of a work of Middle English alliterative
verse generally known as Piers Plowman, an allegory with a complex variety of religious
themes. The poem translated the language and concepts of the cloister into symbols and
images that could be understood by a layman.
William Langland​ (approximately 1332-1400) was born probably near Malvern in
1332 where he was educated at the Benedictine School. The narrator in ​Piers Plowman
receives his first vision while sleeping in the Malvern Hills (between Herefordshire and
Worcestershire), which suggests some connection to the area. The dialect of the poem is
also consistent with this part of the country.
The name of William Langland has a celebrity in the English language for his
singular work — ”​The Book of Piers the Plowman”​. In the English literature of the 14th
century, Langland’s ​Piers the Plowman​ stands out as the most renowned work. It is a
satire on the corrupt religious practice and it throws light on the ethical problems of that
days.
The characters assumed by him is that of prophet, denouncing the sin of society and
encouraging men to aspire to higher life. William Langland was a satiric poet. The feudal
system was his ideal - he didn’t desire any change in that. All will be well, if different
order of society do their duties.
Most of what is believed about Langland has been reconstructed from ​Piers
Plowman​. The text of the poem contains a passage in which the narrator describes himself
as a "loller" or "idler" living in the Cornhill area of London, and refers to his wife and
child.
It also suggests that he was well above average height and made a living reciting
prayers for the dead. However, the distinction between allegory and reality in ​Piers

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Plowman​ is blurred, and the entire passage, as Wendy Scase observes, is reminiscent of
the false confession tradition in medieval literature.
The detailed and highly sophisticated religious knowledge displayed in the poem
indicates that Langland had some connection to the clergy, but the nature of this
relationship is uncertain. The poem shows no obvious bias towards any particular group or
order of churchmen, but is even-handed in its anticlericalism. Malcolm Godden has
proposed that he lived as an itinerant hermit, attaching himself to a patron temporarily and
exchanging writing services for shelter and food.
There are strong indications that Langland died in 1385 or 1386.

Fragments of the poem:

“I was wery for-wandred,
And wente me to reste
Under a brood bank
By a bournes syde;
And as I lay and lenede,
And loked on the watres,
I slombred into a slepyng,
It sweyed so murye.”

“To Luciferis feste,

With Turpiloquio, a lady of sorwe,
And Luciferis fithele."
Thus Haukyn the actif man
Hadde y-soiled his cote,
Til Conscience acouped hym therof
In a curteis manere,
Why he ne hadde whasshen it,
Or wiped it with a brusshe.”

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 15.2. Sir Thomas Malory

Sir Thomas Malory​ is the author of the ‘​Morte D’Arthur​’ (originally titled, ​The
Whole Book of King Arthur and His Noble Knights of the Round table​), 8 tales of
Arthur and his knights (mid-15th cent.). ​Sir Thomas Malory ​was born approximately in
1403-1413. His father, John Malory, was a public office holder in Warwickshire – twice
sheriff, five times a member of Parliament and a justice of the peace. He married Philippa
Chetwynd, and they had at least three children including Thomas in 1416.
By the age of 23, Thomas seems to be following in his father’s footsteps as a
respectable landowner. By 1441, he has been knighted and is Sir Thomas. He then married
Elizabeth Walsh, and had a son Robert. In 1445 he was elected as Member of the
Parliament for Warwickshire.
In 1443 Malory was charged with “wounding and imprisoning Thomas Smith and
stealing his goods.”, but nothing seems to come of the charges, and as seen before, he is
elected to public office in 1445.
In 1450-1451 he was charged with ambushing and attempted murder of Duke of
Buckingham, stealing from abbey of Blessed Mary of Coombe, insulting the abbot,
stealing of property and raping of the wife of Hugh Smyth, cattle raiding, extortion. He
was imprisoned more than once – he escaped and swam across a moat, he was bailed out a
few times, ру fought his way out once, and was pardoned. But later he was expressly left
out of royal pardons.
“Le Morte D’Arthur” ​was written in part (or perhaps wholly) during Malory’s
multiple incarcerations. It was completed approximately in 1469-1470. He wrote ​Le Morte
D’Arthur​ in prison. This work was printed by William Caxton in 1485. It was the only
edition known until 20th century. The Winchester Manuscript was discovered in 1934 and
it seems to be closer to Malory’s text.
This work is important because 8 tales are structurally connected and reminiscent of
a novel. Malory was no artist, but he was talented and wrote well. His characters are
people of flesh and blood, often betraying the virtues they stand for. His language is close
to the spoken language, but also poetic and full of feeling. This was the first attempt to
organize a story into a single narrative.

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 Sir Thomas Malory probably died in prison on 14 March 1471 and was buried at
Greyfriars Church.
How are we to handle the discrepancy between the way Malory lived his life and
the virtues held up in ​Le Morte D’Arthur​? Easiest way is to claim that the Newbold Revel
Malory isn’t the right Malory. In 16th Century, John Bale associates Malory with Welsh
origins. There are other possible Thomas Malory candidates, as public records are
“fragmentary, often contradictory and sometimes fraudulent”. Most scholars, however,
accept the ​Newbold Revel Malory​ as the writer/compiler of the ​Morte.
There has been some argument among critics that Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur was
primarily intended as a political commentary of Malory's own era. Malory portrays an
initially idyllic past under the strong leadership of King Arthur and his knights, but as
intrigue and infighting develop, the utopic kingdom collapses, which may have been
intended as a parallel and a warning against the infighting taking place during the Wars of
the Roses. The seemingly contradictory changes in King Arthur's character throughout the
work has been argued to support the theory that Arthur represents different eras and reigns
throughout the tales.

The summary of “Le Morte D’Arthur”

Le Morte d'Arthur​ tells the story of ​King
Arthur​ and his Knights at the Round Table. Arthur,
who is the son of King Uther Pendragon, but who was
raised by another family, takes his rightful place as
king when, as a boy, he is able to pull the sword
called Excalibur from the stone. Although he rules
wisely and is counseled by ​Merlin​ the magician,
Arthur makes enemies of other kings and is often at
war.
When Arthur marries ​Genevere​, her father
gives Arthur the Round Table, at which 150 men can
sit. Genevere, who is often present at the convening of the Round Table, acts as a moral
compass for the knights, rewarding knights who behave well and chastising those who

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choose poorly. Malory specifically relates the stories of Sir Gawain, Sir Tor, and Sir
Pellanor as a means of introducing the concept of chivalry.
Arthur is nearly betrayed by his
sister ​Morgan le Fay​, but he is helped
by ​Nineve​, a sorceress who learned her
magic powers from Merlin before killing
him. Arthur then fights the Romans when
Emperor Lucius of Rome demands that
Arthur bow to him. Although the war
requires several battles, Arthur and his
knights win and return to Guinevere and
the other wives. Soon after,​ Launcelot​ establishes himself as the greatest knight in all the
world by his virtue, loyalty, and bravery. At the same time, Sir Gareth, Gawain's brother,
proves valiant in his adventures.
Tristam​ (also known as Tristan), who is son of King Melyodas de Lyones and the
sister of King Mark of Cornwall, is then introduced, and his adventures unfold. He kills
Sir Marhault to free his uncle from a debt owed to King Angwyssh of Ireland, and then
falls in love with ​Isode​ (also known as Isolde), Angwyssh's daughter. Isode marries
Tristam's uncle Mark, but Tristam and Isode remain lovers. Tristam is exiled by Mark,
which means he can no longer use his true identity; thus, he fights as The Knight with the
Black Shield. Tristam duels and beats many of Arthur's knights, but is eventually thrown
in prison and becomes ill. He escapes and
eventually meets and fights Launcelot in
a duel predicted by Merlin. They become
the best of friends.
Launcelot, who is in love with and
completely loyal to Guinevere, rides one
day in search of adventure. He kills a
dragon, sees the Grail, and is tricked into
lying with Pellas' daughter ​Elayne​, with
whom he has a son, ​Galahad​. Guinevere, upon hearing of the affair, has Launcelot
banished from court; Launcelot then wanders from place to place in his grief. Elayne,

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through her father, heals Launcelot through the Grail, and he eventually returns joyously
to Camelot and the Round Table.
Launcelot introduces his son, Galahad, to the court, and Galahad takes the Sege
Perilous, the seat at the Round Table that no knight has been worthy enough to fill.
Galahad also draws the sword from the floating stone, establishing him as the best knight
in the world, but also accepting the sword's curse — that it will later cause a grievous
wound.
Most of the knights then set out separately on Grail Quest. During the Quest,
Launcelot, Percival, and Bors experience deep religious conversion, while Ector and
Gawain are told by a hermit that they are not pure enough to achieve the Grail Quest.
Galahad, Percival, and Bors meet up and continue the Grail Quest, but they are briefly
parted. Launcelot and Galahad continue to the Grail at Castle Corbenic, where Launcelot
is shown to be unworthy of the Quest. When Sir Evelake dies after his embrace with
Galahad, Galahad is identified as the knight who will achieve the Grail Quest. Galahad is
made a king who dies shortly thereafter, while Percival becomes a hermit. Bors returns to
King Arthur's court.
Launcelot also returns to the court and continues his love for Guinevere. After a
series of trials, Guinevere is convinced of Launcelot's love for her. Although Arthur
knows of the affair and overlooks it, he is prompted by Aggravain and Mordred (Arthur's
son by Lot's wife) to take action; Guinevere is sentenced to be burned at the stake.
Launcelot rescues her and takes her to his castle, Joyous Gard, but in the battle, Launcelot
kills Gareth and Gaheris, who are at the execution but are unarmed. Launcelot returns
Guinevere to Arthur, but Launcelot is banished, along with his followers. Gawain swears
vengeance for the death of his brothers and insists that Arthur attack Launcelot. Arthur
agrees, but while Arthur and Gawain are away, Mordred makes himself King of England,
claims Guinevere as his wife, and attacks Arthur's army. Gawain is mortally wounded and
warns Arthur in a dream not to continue the battle. Through a misunderstanding, however,
the battle continues; Arthur kills Mordred but is mortally wounded by him, as Merlin has
prophesied.
Launcelot and Guinevere both die of illness soon after, and Constantine becomes
king. The Round Table is disbursed.

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 15.3. King Arthur - a historical character

King Arthur​ is a legendary British leader who,

according to medieval histories and romances, led the defence
of Britain against Saxon invaders in the late 5th and early 6th
centuries AD. The details of Arthur's story are mainly
composed of folklore and literary invention, and his historical
existence is debated and disputed by modern historians.
The creator of the familiar literary persona of Arthur
was ​Geoffrey of Monmouth​, with his pseudo-historical
Historia Regum Britanniae​ (​History of the Kings of Britain​),
written in the 1130s. The textual sources for Arthur are
usually divided into those written before Geoffrey's Historia
(known as pre-Galfridian texts, from the Latin form of
Geoffrey, Galfridus) and those written afterwards, which
could not avoid his influence (Galfridian or post-Galfridian texts).
Thus far we have considered the Anglo-Norman poets chiefly as chroniclers; we
have now to regard them as romance writers. It is true that in their hands history slides into
romance, and vice versa; thus the ​Brut d’Angletrre​ may be regarded as historical in so far
as it treats of the series of British kings, mythical as that series itself may be, but as a
romance in most of that portion of it which is devoted to the adventures of ​Arthur​.
The romances relating to Arthur, doubtless on account of the extent to which they
really sprang from British soil, were those which most profoundly stirred the English
mind. It is not difficult to trace the steps by which the legend grew. ​Gildas​, writing in the
6th century, knows of Arthur’s victory at Mount Badon, but does not name him. ​Nenius​,
whose date is uncertain but who should probably be assigned to the 9th century, mention
the same victory as one of several which were gained by "magnanimous Arthur" over the
Saxon invader.
Three centuries pass, and the story comes to us again, greatly amplified, in the
British History​ of ​Geoffrey of Monmouth​ (1126). This history, Geoffrey assures us, was

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founded upon a book in the Breton language, brought over from Britanny by an
archdeacon of Oxford.
Ritson scouted the assertion as fictitious, yet it was probably true, and the
supposition of a Breton origin for his history is exactly what would best account for the
great development which we find the Arthur legend to have now attained, in comparison
with the age of Nennius. For Britanny was the fruitful parent of numberless forms of
imaginative fiction.
So, what character would the Breton bards be more likely to embellish than of the
hero king, who, during and before the migration of their forefathers, had made such a
gallant stand against the Saxon? Yet, though Geoffrey has so much to tell us of Arthur, he
is silent about the Round Table. That specified feature of the legend first appears in the
Brut of Wace​, and was probably derived from Breton poems or traditions to which
Geoffrey had not access.
Layamon​ reproduces it, with additional details, in his version of ​Wace​. Other
branches of Arthurian romance, especially those relating to Tristan and Perceval, became
about this time widely popular; it is to this period also that the ​Chavalier du Lion​ of
Chretien de Troyes​ belongs.
Suddenly there is a great change. A cycle of romance, which till now had breathed
only of revenge, slaughter, race-hatreds, unlawful love, magic and witchcraft becomes
transformed in a few years into a series of mystical legends, symbolizing and teaching one
of the profoundest dogmas of the Catholic creed. This strange effect was produced by the
infusion into the Arthur legend of the conception of the Saint Graal, the holy vessel used
by Christ at the Last Supper, and containing drops of his blood, which ​Joseph of
Arimathea​, was said to have brought into Britain.
This transformation seems to have been executed by ​Walter Map​, the remarkable
Welshman whose genius decisively colours the intellectual history of the last forty years
of the 12th century. ​Map​ is said to have written a Latin of the Graal, which is not now
extant; yet from it all the authors of the French prose romances on Arthur and the Saint
Graal which appeared between 1170 to 1230 – ​Robert de Borron​, his kinsman ​Helie​,
Luc de Gast​, and ​Map​ himself – profess to have translated their compositions.

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 The chief of these works are the Saint Graal, Merlin, the Quest of the Saint Graal,
Lancelot, Tristan and Mort Artur. In all, to "achieve the Saint Graal," that is, to find or see
that holy vessel which, on account of the sins of men, had long since vanished from
Britain, is represented as the heights of chivalrous ambition; but among all Arthur’s
knights, only Sir, Galahad, the son of Lancelot, is sufficiently pure in heart to be favoured
with the sublime version.
English versions, more or less literal, of these romances, among which may be
named the works of ​Lonelich​ and ​Sir Thomas Malory​, and the alliterative poem of
Joseph of Arimathea​, attest the great and enduring popularity of the Graal form of
Arthurian legend.
After a long period of silence, the bardic poetry of Wales broke out, just when the
independence of the nation was about to be extinguished, into passionate and varied
utterance. The princess who struggled successfully against the attacks of Henry II, found
gifted bards – ​Gwalchmai​, ​Elidir, Gwion​ etc. – to celebrate in fiercely strains their
imperfect triumphs.
A translation of one of ​Gwalchmai​’s odes may be found, under the title of the
Triumph of Owen​, among Gray’s poems. Supposed "​Prophecies of Merlin​," a sample of
which may be seen in the strange work of ​Geoffrey of Monmouth​, fed the popular belief
that Arthur yet lived, and would return one day to Wales as a deliverer.
Both ​the Triads​ and ​the Mabinogion​ refer in part to Arthur, but from different stand
– points. In ​the Triads​ such mention as there is of him represents him as a British king,
doing battle with the foes, of his race, and full of a sententious wit and wisdom. In ​the
Mabinogion ​the indigenous Welsh is over-powered by that of the Norman trouves; we
have the Arthur, not of history or tradition, but of chivalry; the mysterious Saint Graal
proves as attractive to the Celtic as to the Teutonic imagination.

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 15.4. John Wyclif
(1320-1384)

By the 1300s, many Catholics felt that the church had become
far too worldly and corrupt. Many church leaders acted
immorally. Church leaders lived in palaces and wore jeweled
robes.
John Wyclif ​or ​John Wycliffe​ was an English scholastic
philosopher, theologian, Biblical translator, protestant,
reformer, and seminary professor at Oxford. He was an
influential dissident within the Roman Catholic priesthood
during the 14th century. Wycliffe attacked the privileged
status of the clergy, which was central to their powerful role in
England. He then attacked the luxury and pomp of local
parishes and their ceremonies.
Wycliffe was also an advocate for translation of the Bible into the vernacular. He
completed a translation directly from the Vulgate into Middle English in the year 1382,
now known as Wycliffe's Bible. It is probable that he personally translated the Gospels of
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; and it is possible he translated the entire New Testament,
while his associates translated the Old Testament. Wycliffe's Bible appears to have been
completed by 1384, additional updated versions being done by Wycliffe's assistant John
Purvey and others in 1388 and 1395.
Wycliffe's followers were known as Lollards and followed his lead in advocating
predestination, iconoclasm, and the notion of caesaropapism, while attacking the
veneration of saints, the sacraments, requiem masses, transubstantiation, monasticism, and
the very existence of the Papacy.
Beginning in the 16th century, the Lollard movement was regarded as the precursor
to the Protestant Reformation. Wycliffe was accordingly characterised as the evening star
of scholasticism and the morning star of the English Reformation.

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 Wycliffe completed his arts degree at Merton College as a junior fellow in 1356.
That same year he produced a small treatise, ​The Last Age of the Church​. He was Master
of Balliol College in 1361.
In a book concerned with the government of God and the Ten Commandments, he
attacked the temporal rule of the clergy, the collection of annates, indulgences, and
simony. He entered the politics of the day with his great work ​De civili dominio​ ("On Civil
Dominion"). This called for the royal divestment of all church property. His ideas on
lordship and church wealth caused his first official condemnation in 1377 by Pope
Gregory XI, who censured 19 articles.
Wycliffe argued that the Church had fallen into sin and that it ought therefore to
give up all its property and that the clergy should live in complete poverty.
In keeping with Wycliffe's belief that scripture was the only authoritative reliable
guide to the truth about God, he became involved in efforts to translate the Bible into
English. While Wycliffe is credited, it is not possible exactly to define his part in the
translation, which was based on the Vulgate. There is no doubt that it was his initiative,
and that the success of the project was due to his leadership.
From him comes the translation of the New Testament, which was smoother,
clearer, and more readable than the rendering of the Old Testament by his friend Nicholas
of Hereford.

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 15.5. Geoffrey Chaucer. “The Canterbury Tales”

Geoffrey Chaucer​ was born in 1343 in London, as a son

of a wine merchant and deputy to the kings’ butler. Little is
known about his education, he could read French, Latin and
Italian. He was appointed to the household of the Countess of
Ulster in 1357 and started his royal service since then. In
1359-1360, Chaucer went to France with Edward III's army
during the Hundred Years' War.
He got married in 1366. He went abroad several times
for diplomatic and commercial missions, especially in Italy,
where he met Boccaccio and Petrarch in 1372-1373, and was
influenced much by the Italian humanists, such as Dante.
Geoffrey Chaucer died in 1400 and was buried in the poet’s corner of Westminster
Abby. Chaucer’s monument was erected in 1555.
Geoffrey Chaucer​ is considered ‘the father of English poetry’. By making a
conscious choice to write in English, he symbolizes the rebirth of English as a national
language. His works also helped the London dialect of English become a standard. We can
read and understand Chaucer’s English fairly well – this shows how much the language
had changed.
Charcer’s main works include three periods: ​The French period​ (translation work:
Romance of the Rose​; narrative poem: ​The Book of Duchess ​(the name Chaucer was from
French origin and meant shoemaker)). ​Italian period (​The House of Fame; Parliament of
the Birds; Troilus and Criseyde). ​English period​ (​Canterbury Tale)
“The Canterbury Tales”
Chaucer’s most famous work is ‘​The Canterbury Tales​’ (about 1387), a long poem,
or a collection of stories in verse. And it is real verse – another novelty. The rhyme has
taken place of Old English alliteration.
The story is about a party of pilgrims, 30 people, the poet among them, traveling to
Canterbury to visit the grave of Thomas a Becket. To pass the time, they agree to tell tales,

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 to amuse themselves on the way. Harry Bailly, the
innkeeper, promises a free meal for the best-storyteller. In
those tales we get to know the characters themselves. They
come from every class of the society of the time, from the
nobility, members of the church, merchants and craftsmen, to
peasants.
What is new and refreshing about Chaucer’s work is that the
characters are seen as real people, having both good and bad
sides. Although he often makes ironic comments, and
sometimes may appear unsympathetic, the poet has, on the
whole, a positive attitude towards the characters and a belief in the good in the world.
In structure, it includes prologue and 24 stories (intended to have more than 100
stories and kept unfinished and handed down in manuscripts). The prologue serves as a
brief introduction, to enable readers to have a general view of the whole content. There are
among the 24 individual stories, 2 in prose and 22 in verse form.
The famous lines in “Canterbury Tales”:
“Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open eye-
(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages”
(​in Middle English​)

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 “When in April the sweet showers fall
That pierce March's drought to the root and all
And bathed every vein in liquor that has power
To generate therein and sire the flower;
When Zephyr also has with his sweet breath,
Filled again, in every holt and heath,
The tender shoots and leaves, and the young sun
His half-course in the sign of the Ram has run,
And many little birds make melody
That sleep through all the night with open eye
(So Nature pricks them on to ramp and rage)
Then folk do long to go on pilgrimage”
(​Modern English version​)

Summary
In April, with the beginning of spring, people of varying social classes come from
all over England to gather at the Tabard Inn in preparation for a pilgrimage to Canterbury
to receive the blessings of St. Thomas à Becket, the English martyr. Chaucer himself is
one of the pilgrims. That evening, the Host of the Tabard Inn suggests that each member
of the group tell tales on the way to and from Canterbury in order to make the time pass
more pleasantly. The person who tells the best story will be awarded an elegant dinner at
the end of the trip. The Host decides to accompany the party on its pilgrimage and
appoints himself as the judge of the best tale.
Shortly after their departure the day, the pilgrims draw straws. The Knight, who
draws the shortest straw, agrees to tell the first story — a noble story about knights and
honor and love. When the Knight finishes his story, the Host calls upon the Monk. The
drunken Miller, however, insists that it is his turn, and he proceeds to tell a story about a
stupid carpenter. At the end of his story, everyone roars with laughter — except the Reeve,
who had once been a carpenter. To get back at the Miller, the Reeve tells a lowbrow story
about a cheating miller. At the end of The Reeve's Tale, the Cook, Roger, promises to tell
a true story, but he doesn't complete his tale.

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 By now, the first day is rapidly passing, and the Host hurries the pilgrims to get on
with their tales. Using the best legalese that he knows, he calls upon the Man of Law for
the next tale. The Man of Law proceeds to tell the tale of Constancy. The Host is very
pleased with the tale and asks the Parson to relate another one just as good. The Parson
declines, however, and rebukes the Host for swearing and ridiculing him (the Parson). The
Shipman breaks in and tells a lively story to make up for so much moralizing.
The Wife of Bath is the next to tell a story, and she begins by claiming that happy
marriages occur only when a wife has sovereignty over her husband. When the Wife of
Bath finishes her story, the Friar offers his own tale about a summoner. The Host,
however, always the peacekeeper, admonishes the Friar to let the Summoner alone. The
Summoner interrupts and says the Friar can do as he likes and will be repaid with a tale
about a friar. Nevertheless, the Friar's tale about a summoner makes the Summoner so
angry that he tells an obscene story about the fate of all friars and then continues with an
obscene tale about one friar in particular.
After the Friar and Summoner finish their insulting stories about each other, the
Host turns to the Clerk and asks for a lively tale. The Clerk tells a story about Griselda and
her patience — a story that depicts the exact opposite of The Wife of Bath's Tale. The
Merchant comments that he has no wife as patient and sweet as Griselda and tells of tale
of a young wife who cheats on her old husband. After the Merchant's tale, the Host
requests another tale about love and turns to the Squire, who begins a tale of supernatural
events. He does not finish, however, because the Franklin interrupts him to compliment
the Squire on his eloquence and gentility. The Host, interested only get in getting the next
story told, commands the Franklin to begin his tale, which he does. The Franklin tells of a
happy marriage.
Then the Physician offers his tale of the tragic woe of a father and daughter — a
story that upsets the Host so much that he requests a merry tale from the Pardoner. The
Pardoner tells a tale in which he proves that, even though he is not a moral man, he can
tell a moral tale. At the end of the tale, the Pardoner invites the pilgrims to buy relics and
pardons from him and suggests that the Host should begin because he is the most sinful.
This comment infuriates the Host; the Knight intercedes between the Host and the
Pardoner and restores peace.

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 The pilgrims then hear a story by the Prioress about a young martyr. After the
seriousness of this tale, the Host turns to Chaucer and asks him for something to liven up
the group. Chaucer begins a story about Sir Topas but is soon interrupted by the Host, who
exclaims that he is tired of the jingling rhymes and wants Chaucer to tell a little something
in prose. Chaucer complies with the boring story of Melibee.
After the tale of Melibee, the Host turns to the merry Monk and demands a story
that he confidently expects to be a jovial and happy tale. Instead, the Monk relates a series
of tales in which tragedy befalls everyone. The Knight joins in with the Host in
proclaiming that the Monk's tales are too much to bear and requests a merry tale. But the
Monk refuses, and the Host turns to the Nun's Priest and calls for a tale. Thus the Nun's
Priest relates the tale of the barnyard rooster, Chaunticleer, his lady, and a fox. The
Second Nun then offers a tale that befits her station — a retelling of the events in the life
of St. Cecilia.
Suddenly, two men approach the pilgrims. One is a canon; the other his yeoman
(servant). The Host welcomes them and asks whether either has a tale to tell. The Canon's
Yeoman answers that his master has many strange tales filled with mirth and laughter, yet
when he begins to tell of their life and actions, the Canon slips away embarrassed and
frightened.
As the party nears Canterbury, the Host demands a story from the Manciple, who
tells of a white crow that can sing and talk. Finally, the Host turns to the last of the group,
the Parson, and bids him to tell his tale. The Parson agrees and proceeds with a sermon.
The Tales end with Chaucer's retraction.

The Chaucer’s ​Canterbury Tales​ demonstrates a panoramic realistic view of the

social reality near the end of the Middle Age by depicting vivid lives of people from all
layers of society.
“He must have been a man of a most wonderful comprehensive nature, because…he
has taken into the compass of his Canterbury Tales the various manners and humor of the
whole English nation in his age.”​ (John Dryden in P
​ reface to the Fables​, 1700)

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 As a transitional figure, he entered a new era and brought back the new ideas of
Italian Renaissance writers. Chaucer made a crucial contribution to English literature in
writing in English at a time when much court poetry was still composed in Anglo-Norman
or Latin. Chaucer introduced from France the rhymed stanzas of various types to English
poetry to replace alliteration, such as heroic couplet, and first used iambic pentameter
form. Chaucer’s greatness lies in his creation and innovation in learning and borrowing
others.

Fragment of the poem:

“Whilom, as olde stories tellen us,

Ther was a duc that highte theseus;
Of atthenes he was lord and governour,
And in his tyme swich a conquerour,
That gretter was ther noon under the sonne.
Ful many a riche contree hadde he wonne;
What with his wysdom and his chivalrie,
He conquered al the regne of femenye,
That whilom was ycleped scithia,
And weddede the queene ypolita,
And broghte hire hoom with hym in his contree
With muchel glorie and greet solempnytee,
And eek hir yonge suster emelye.”

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 16. England in the XVth Century
16.1. The War of Roses
(1455-1485)
The ​Wars of the Roses​ were a series of English civil wars for control of the throne
of England fought between supporters of two English rival branches of the royal House of
Plantagenet: ​the House of Lancaster​ (associated with a ​red rose​), and​ the House of
York​ (whose symbol was a ​white rose​).
Who was the part of the House of Lancaster? ​Henry VI​ (1421-1471) who reigned
in 1422-1461 and 1470-1471, Marguerite d'Anjou, his wife, Edward, Prince of Wales,
Henry’s son. Then, Henry, Earl of Richmond (1455-1509) became ​Henry VII Tudor​. He
reigned in 1485-1509.

Who was in the House of York? ​Edward IV​ (1442-1483), who reigned in
1461-1470 and 1471-1483, his father, ​Edward Duke of York​ (+1461), His sons: Edward
V (1470-1483), Richard of York, George, Duke of Clarence (+1478). Then, Richard of
Gloucester (1452-1485), who became ​Richard III​ and reigned in 1483-1485.

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 The conflict lasted through many sporadic episodes between 1455 and 1487;
however, there was fighting before and after this period between the houses. The power
struggle ignited around social and financial troubles following the Hundred Years' War,
combined with the mental infirmity and weak rule of Henry VI which revived interest in
Richard of York's claim to the throne. Historians disagree about whether the Wars of the
Roses were caused by the structural problems of feudalism or Henry VI's ineffectiveness
as king.
With the Duke of York's death, the claim transferred to his heir, Edward, who later
became the first Yorkist king of England, as Edward IV. His son reigned for 78 days as
Edward V, but Parliament then decided that Edward and his brother Richard were
illegitimate and offered the crown to Edward IV's younger brother, who became Richard
III. The two young princes disappeared within the confines of the Tower of London.
The final victory went to a claimant of the Lancastrian party, Henry Tudor, Earl of
Richmond, who defeated the last Yorkist king, Richard III, at the Battle of Bosworth
Field. After assuming the throne as Henry VII, he married Elizabeth of York, the eldest
daughter and heir of Edward IV, thereby uniting the two claims. The House of Tudor ruled
the Kingdom of England until 1603, with the death of Elizabeth I, granddaughter of Henry
VII and Elizabeth of York.

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 The name "Wars of the Roses" refers to the heraldic badges associated with the two
royal houses, the White Rose of York and the Red Rose of Lancaster. Wars of the Roses
came into common use in the 19th century after the publication in 1829 of Anne of
Geierstein by Sir Walter Scott.
Although the names of the rival houses derive from the cities of York and
Lancaster, the corresponding duchy and dukedom had little to do with these cities. The
lands and offices attached to the Duchy of Lancaster were mainly in Gloucestershire,
North Wales and Cheshire, while the estates and castles of the Duke of York were spread
throughout England and Wales, although many were in the Welsh Marches.
Historians debate the extent of impact the wars had on medieval English life. The
classical view is that the many casualties among the nobility continued the changes in
feudal English society caused by the effects of the Black Death. These included a
weakening of the feudal power of the nobles and an increase in the power of the merchant
classes, and the growth of a centralised monarchy under the Tudors. The wars heralded the
end of the medieval period in England and the movement towards the Renaissance.
The key figures of the war were:
Kings of England
● Henry VI (Lancastrian)
● Edward IV (Yorkist)
● Edward V (Yorkist)
● Richard III (Yorkist)
● Henry VII (Tudor of Lancastrian ancestry, married the Yorkist heiress)
Prominent antagonists 1455–87
Yorkist
● Elizabeth Woodville Queen consort of Edward IV
● Anne Neville, Queen consort of Richard III
● Jacquetta Woodville, Lady Rivers, Mother of Elizabeth Woodville and
mother-in-law of Edward IV
● George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward IV and Richard III
● Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York
● Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick ('The Kingmaker')

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● Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury
● John Neville, 1st Marquess of Montagu
● William Neville, 1st Earl of Kent
● Bastard of Fauconberg
● William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke
● William Hastings, 1st Baron Hastings
● John Howard, 1st Duke of Norfolk
Lancastrian
● Margaret of Anjou Queen consort of Henry VI
● Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby, mother of Henry VII
● Henry Holland, 3rd Duke of Exeter
● Sir Henry Percy, 2nd Earl of Northumberland
● Henry Percy, 3rd Earl of Northumberland
● Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick ('The Kingmaker'), formerly a Yorkist and
father of Queen Anne
● Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset
● Henry Beaufort, 3rd Duke of Somerset
● Edmund Beaufort, 4th Duke of Somerset
● John Clifford, 9th Baron de Clifford
● Jasper Tudor, 1st Duke of Bedford, half-brother of Henry VI
● John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford
● Humphrey Stafford, 1st Duke of Buckingham

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 16.2. William Caxton

William Caxton​ at a time when people wanted to know

more and more information about the world around them. He was
an English merchant, diplomat, writer and printer. His parentage
and date of birth are both not known for certain, but he may have
been born between 1415 and 1424, in the Weald or wood land of
Kent, perhaps in Hadlow or Tenterden. Caxton's family "fairly
certainly" consisted of his parents, Philip and Dionisia, and a
brother, Philip. In 1438 he was apprenticed to Robert Large, a
wealthy London silk mercer. Shortly after the death of Large,
Caxton moved to Bruges in Belgium.
Caxton was settled in Bruges by 1450. He went on to become successful in business
and governor of the Company of Merchant Adventurers of London. At this time Bruges
was a wealthy cultured city, and Caxton became interested in reading and fine literature.
Many people wanted to learn to read, but books cost a lot of money because each of
them had to be copied by hand. In the early 1470s, Caxton learned how to print books
using a printing press, and in 1476 he brought this new invention to England. This meant
that books could be produced more quickly for less money and this helped a lot of people
learn to read and improve their lives.
He embarked on the translation of ​Recuyell of the Historyes
of Troye​. At this time Margaret of York, sister of Edward IV,
married the Duke of Burgundy and they moved to Bruges.
Caxton became friends with the Duchess and it was she who
encouraged him to continue his unfinished translation of the
Troy stories (similar to those found in the Iliad), which he
completed in 1471.
Caxton set up a press at Westminster in 1476 due to the
heavy demand for his translation on his return. The first
book known to have been produced there was an edition of
Chaucer's ​The Canterbury Tales​. Another early title was

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Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophres ​(Sayings of the Philosophers), first printed on 18
November 1477, translated by Earl Rivers, the king's brother-in-law. Caxton's translations
of the ​Golden Legend ​(1483) and ​The Book of the Knight in the Tower​ (1484) contain
perhaps the earliest verses of the Bible to be printed in English.
He produced the first translation of Ovid's ​Metamorphoses​ in English, as well as
chivalric romances (such as ​Fierabras​), classical works and English and Roman histories.
The most important of romances translated by him was Sir Thomas Malory's ​Le Morte
d'Arthur​. These books appealed to the English upper classes in the late fifteenth century.
Caxton was supported by (but not dependent on) members of the nobility and gentry.
He translated into English and edited many of the works himself. He is credited
with printing as many as 108 books, 87 of which were different titles, as well as the first
English translation of ​Aesop's Fables​, in 1484. His major guiding principle in translating
was an honest desire to provide the most linguistically exact replication of foreign
language texts into English, the rushed publishing schedule and his inadequacies as a
translator led both to wholesale transfers of French words into English and to
misunderstandings.
The English language was changing rapidly in Caxton's time and the works that he
was given to print were in a variety of styles and dialects. Caxton was a technician rather
than a writer, and he often faced dilemmas concerning language standardisation in the
books that he printed. He wrote about this subject in the preface to his ​Eneydos​.
Caxton is credited with helping to standardise the various dialects of English
through his printed works. This facilitated the expansion of English vocabulary, the
regularisation of inflection and syntax, and a widening gap between the spoken and the
written word. It is asserted that the spelling of "ghost" with the silent letter h was adopted
by Caxton due to the influence of Flemish spelling habits.
William Caxton died in 1492. By the end of his life in 1492, he had achieved a
wonderful thing in making books available to millions of people. So, he was the first
English person to work as a printer and the first to introduce a printing press into England
which made books available for much more people than before. In November 1954, a
memorial to Caxton was unveiled in Westminster Abbey by J. J. Astor, chairman of the

107
Press Council. The white stone plaque is on the wall next to the door to Poets' Corner. The
inscription reads:
”Near this place William Caxton set up the first printing press in
England.”

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 16.3. The Robin Hood Ballads

Robin Hood​ is a heroic outlaw in English folklore

who, according to legend, was a highly skilled archer and
swordsman. Traditionally depicted dressed in Lincoln
green, he is said to rob from the rich and give to the poor.
Alongside his band of Merry Men in Sherwood Forest and
against the Sheriff of Nottingham, he became a popular
folk figure in the Late Middle Ages, and continues to be
widely represented in literature, film and television.

The Ballads
Ballads dating back to the 15th century are the
oldest existing form of the Robin Hood legends, although
none of them were recorded at the time of the first
allusions to him, and many are from much later. They share many common features, often
opening with praise of the greenwood and relying heavily on disguise as a plot device, but
include a wide variation in tone and plot. The ballads are sorted into three groups, very
roughly according to date of first known free-standing copy. Ballads whose first recorded
version appears (usually incomplete) in the Percy Folio may appear in later versions and
may be much older than the mid-17th century when the Folio was compiled. Any ballad
may be older than the oldest copy that happens to survive, or descended from a lost older
ballad.
The first clear reference to 'rhymes of Robin Hood' is from the alliterative poem
Piers Plowman​, thought to have been composed in the 1370s, but the earliest surviving
copies of the narrative ballads that tell his story date to the second half of the 15th century,
or the first decade of the 16th century. In these early accounts, ​Robin Hood​'s partisanship
of the lower classes, his Marianism and associated special regard for women, his
outstanding skill as an archer, his anti-clericalism, and his particular animosity towards the
Sheriff of Nottingham are already clear.

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 In modern popular culture, Robin Hood is typically seen as a contemporary and
supporter of the late-12th-century king Richard the Lionheart. However, the early
compilation, ​A Gest of Robyn Hode​, names the king as 'Edward'; and while it does show
Robin Hood accepting the King's pardon, he later repudiates it and returns to the
greenwood.
The oldest surviving ballad, ​Robin Hood and the Monk​, gives even less support to
the picture of Robin Hood as a partisan of the true king. The setting of the early ballads is
usually attributed by scholars to either the 13th century or the 14th, although it is
recognised they are not necessarily historically consistent.
The early ballads are also quite clear on Robin Hood's social status: he is a yeoman.
While the precise meaning of this term changed over time, including free retainers of an
aristocrat and small landholders, it always referred to commoners. The essence of it in the
present context was 'neither a knight nor a peasant or "husbonde" but something in
between'.
The earliest surviving text of a Robin Hood ballad, the 15th century ​"Robin Hood
and the Monk"​, is preserved in Cambridge University manuscript. Written after 1450, it
contains many of the elements still associated with the legend, from the Nottingham
setting to the bitter enmity between Robin and the local
sheriff.
The first printed version is ​A Gest of Robyn Hode ​(c.
1500), a collection of separate stories that attempts to unite
the episodes into a single continuous narrative. After this
comes ​"Robin Hood and the Potter"​, contained in a
manuscript of 1503. "The Potter" is markedly different in
tone from "The Monk": whereas the earlier tale is 'a
thriller', the latter is more comic, its plot involving trickery
and cunning rather than straightforward force.
Other early texts are dramatic pieces, the earliest being the
fragmentary ​Robyn Hod and the Shryff off Notyngham​ (c. 1475). These are particularly
noteworthy as they show Robin's integration into May Day rituals towards the end of the

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Middle Ages; Robyn Hod and the Shryff off Notyngham, among other points of interest,
contains the earliest reference to Friar Tuck.
The plots of neither "the Monk" nor "the Potter" are included in the Gest; and
neither is the plot of ​"Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne"​, which is probably at least as
old as those two ballads although preserved in a more recent copy. Each of these three
ballads survived in a single copy, so it is unclear how much of the medieval legend has
survived, and what has survived may not be typical of the medieval legend. It has been
argued that the fact that the surviving ballads were preserved in written form in itself
makes it unlikely they were typical; in particular, stories with an interest for the gentry
were by this view more likely to be preserved. The story of Robin's aid to the 'poor knight'
that takes up much of the Gest may be an example.
The character of Robin in these first texts is rougher edged than in his later
incarnations. In ​"Robin Hood and the Monk"​, for example, he is shown as quick tempered
and violent, assaulting Little John for defeating him in an archery contest; in the same
ballad Much the Miller's Son casually kills a 'little page' in the course of rescuing Robin
Hood from prison. No extant ballad early actually shows Robin Hood 'giving to the poor',
although in a ​"A Gest of Robyn Hode"​ Robin does make a large loan to an unfortunate
knight, which he does not in the end require to be repaid; and later in the same ballad
Robin Hood states his intention of giving money to the
next traveller to come down the road if he happens to be
poor.
The first explicit statement to the effect that
Robin Hood habitually robbed from the rich to give the
poor can be found in John Stow's ​Annales of England
(1592), about a century after the publication of the Gest.
But from the beginning Robin Hood is on the side of
the poor.
Within Robin Hood's band, medieval forms of
courtesy rather than modern ideals of equality are
generally in evidence. In the early ballad, Robin's men
usually kneel before him in strict obedience.

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 By the early 15th century at the latest, Robin Hood had become associated with
May Day celebrations, with revellers dressing as Robin or as members of his band for the
festivities. This was not common throughout England, but in some regions the custom
lasted until Elizabethan times, and during the reign of Henry VIII, was briefly popular at
court. Robin was often allocated the role of a May King, presiding over games and
processions, but plays were also performed with the characters in the roles, sometimes
performed at church ales, a means by which churches raised funds.
Not all of the medieval legend was preserved in the broadside ballads, there is no
broadside version of ​Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne​ or of ​Robin Hood and the Monk​,
which did not appear in print until the 18th and 19th centuries respectively. No surviving
broadside ballad can be dated with certainty before the 17th century.
The main characters of the folklore
● Robin Hood (a.k.a. Robin of Loxley or Locksley)
● The band of "Merry Men"
○ Little John
○ Friar Tuck
○ Will Scarlet
○ Alan-a-Dale
○ Much the Miller's Son
● Maid Marian
● King Richard the Lionheart
● Prince John
● Sir Guy of Gisbourne
● The Sheriff of Nottingham

Historical references
The historicity of Robin Hood has been debated for centuries. A difficulty with any
such historical research is that Robert was a very common given name in medieval
England, and 'Robin' (or Robyn), was its very common diminutive, especially in the 13th
century; it is a French hypocorism, already mentioned in the Roman de Renart in the 12th

112
century. The surname Hood (or Hude, Hode, etc.) was also fairly common because it
referred either to a hooder, who was a maker of hoods, or alternatively to somebody who
wore a hood as a head-covering. Unsurprisingly, therefore, medieval records mention a
number of people called 'Robert Hood' or 'Robin Hood', some of whom are known to have
fallen foul of the law.
The oldest references to Robin Hood are not
historical records, or even ballads recounting his
exploits, but hints and allusions found in various
works. From 1261 onward, the names 'Robinhood',
'Robehod' or 'Robbehod' occur in the rolls of
several English Justices as nicknames or
descriptions of malefactors. The majority of these
references date from the late 13th century.
Between 1261 and 1300, there are at least eight
references to 'Rabunhod' in various regions across
England, from Berkshire in the south to York in
the north.
Leaving aside the reference to the "rhymes" of Robin Hood in ​Piers Plowman​ in the
1370s, the first mention of a quasi-historical Robin Hood is given in Andrew of Wyntoun's
Orygynale Chronicle​, written in about 1420. The following lines occur with little
contextualisation under the year 1283:
“Lytil Jhon and Robyne Hude
Wayth-men ware commendyd gude
In Yngil-wode and Barnysdale
Thai oysyd all this tyme thare trawale”
The next notice is a statement in the Scotichronicon, composed by John of Fordun
between 1377 and 1384, and revised by Walter Bower in about 1440. Among Bower's
many interpolations is a passage that directly refers to Robin. It is inserted after Fordun's
account of the defeat of Simon de Montfort and the punishment of his adherents. Robin is
represented as a fighter for de Montfort's cause. This was in fact true of the historical
outlaw of Sherwood Forest Roger Godberd, whose points of similarity to the Robin Hood
of the ballads have often been noted.
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 Bower writes:
“Then [c. 1266] arose the famous murderer, Robert Hood, as well as Little John,
together with their accomplices from among the disinherited, whom the foolish populace
are so inordinately fond of celebrating both in tragedies and comedies, and about whom
they are delighted to hear the jesters and minstrels sing above all other ballads.”
The word translated here as "murderer" is the Latin sicarius (literally
"dagger-man"), from the Latin sica for "dagger". Bower goes on to tell a story about Robin
Hood in which he refuses to flee from his enemies while hearing Mass in the greenwood,
and then gains a surprise victory over them, apparently as a reward for his piety.
Another reference, discovered by Julian Luxford in 2009, appears in the margin of
the "​Polychronicon​" in the Eton College library. Written around the year 1460 by a monk
in Latin, it says:
“Around this time [ie reign of Edward I], according to popular opinion, a certain
outlaw named Robin Hood, with his accomplices, infested Sherwood and other
law-abiding areas of England with continuous robberies.”
Other historical references of Robin Hood:
● A person who lived in Wakefield and an adherent of the rebel Earl of Lancaster,
who was defeated by Edward II at the Battle of Boroughbridge in 1322.
● An outlaw of York (1226)
● The historical outlaw Roger Godberd (1260), who was a die-hard supporter of
Simon de Montfort
● Native American Chief Robin Hood in Early Colonial New England.

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 17. Medieval Period. Test

1. What are the dates of the Medieval Period?

2. Who was promised to be the successor to the throne of England, but was cheated
out of it and later invaded England and was as crowned King of England?

3. Who was one of Edward the Confessor's advisors and was selected by the Witan's
to be the king of England?

4. What was another title held by William the Conqueror?

5. What language did Chaucer write The Canterbury Tales?

6. How many pilgrims, excluding the narrator, are gathered at the beginning of "The
Prologue"?

7. Who were the Norsemen who had settled in northwestern France several
generations earlier?

8. What was the language of the Normans?

9. What is the name of the inn in which the pilgrims of “The Canterbury Tales” are
gathered?

10. Eventually Norman French would blend with Old English to evolve into…

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11. What were the series of eight Christian military expeditions attempting to rescue
the Holy Land from the Muslims

12. What is pilgrimage?

13. What were series of wars fought between England and France?

14. In which century is The Canterbury Tales written?

15. What were the dates of the Hundred's Years' War?

16. What were the causes of the Hundred's Years' War?

17. What are the dates of the War of the Roses?

18. According to “The Canterbury Tales”, who volunteers to judge the story contest?

19. What crime does the knight commit?

20. According to the old wife, what is the thing that women most desire?

21. What was the civil war between the Houses of York and Lancaster?

22. What was the single most important institution of the Middle Ages?

23. What was the code of behavior for the ideal knight?

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24. What is an allegory?

25. Who is known as the “Father of English Poetry”?

26. How many stories each pilgrim of “The Canterbury Tales” had to tell?

27. What are the types of Medieval Literature?

28. What were the ribald stories in verse, usually at the expense of women and/or
priests?

29. What were the stories of chivalry and love, best exemplified in the Arthurian
legend?

30. In which work did Sir Thomas Malory compiled the legends of Arthur?

31. Who were the 4 greatest writers of Medieval England?

32. Who was the author of “​Piers Plowman”​?

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 17.1. Test answers

1. 1066-1485
2. William the Conqueror
3. Harold
4. Duke of Normandy
5. Middle English
6. 29 pilgrims
7. The Normans
8. Norman French
9. The Tabard Inn
10. Middle English
11. Crusades
12. Visiting a religious place or a holy shrine
13. Hundred Years' War
14. The 14th Century
15. 1337 – 1453
16. 1) English kings claimed certain French provinces
2) When the last direct male heir to the French throne died, Edward III of
England attempted to take it
3) There was a long-standing rivalry over the commercially rich territory of
Flanders.
17. 1455-1485
18. The host
19. He rapes a maiden
20. Equality in marriage
21. War of the Roses

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22. Ecclesiastical society
23. Chivalry
24. Narrative that has both literal and deeper symbolic meanings
25. Geoffrey Chaucer
26. 4 (2 on the way there and 2 on the way back)
27. 1) Drama
2) Ballads and other songs
3) Fabliaux
4) Medieval Romance
5) Exempla
6) Beast stories or fables
28. Fabliaux
29. Medieval Romance
30. “Le Morte d'Arthur”
31. 1) The Pearl Poet
2) The author of Piers Plowman
3) Geoffrey Chaucer (most important)
4) Sir Thomas Malory
32. William Langland

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