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THE Middle AGES PART I - mıddle ages summary

English language and literature (Karadeniz Teknik Üniversitesi)

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THE MIDDLE AGES AND MEDIEVAL ENGLISH LITERATURE PART I

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The Plantagenets: the Lancaster and York Family Tree

The Significant Happenings of the Middle Ages

The Wars of the Roses (1455-1485)

The Battle of Bosworth Field was the last significant battle of the Wars of the Roses, the civil
war between the Houses of Lancaster and York. The battle was won by the Lancastrians.
Their leader Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, by his victory became the first English monarch
of the Tudor dynasty.

1485: The Foundation of the Tudor Dynasty. (Henry VII). The End of the Middle Ages

The Crusades

European Christian countries fought against the Muslims to recover the holy land (Jerusalem)
from them.

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The Norman Conquest

The Norman Conquest (Normans originally came from Scandinavia (Norse man), settled in
France, learnt French and French manners).

1066: The Norman Conquest: William the Conqueror from the north part of France. In the
early 10th century, Normans came from the northern part of France. William the Conqueror
defeated the English and took them under his rule in the Battle of Hastings. Two reasons:
King Edward had promised the throne to him, Anglo-Saxon king Harold II promised him that
he would not try to take the throne for him.

Normans introduced their culture and civilization. positively affected life, brought civilization
to literature. With the Norman Conquest, a new ruling class alien in speech came into being.
They brought with them the continental taste and their literature. The French literature was the
leading literature of the 12th century that was refined and varies in theme (love and knightly
adventure). French minstrels and poets came to the English court. The English language was
enriched with thousands of French words. Alliteration, assonance and kenning were replaced
by rhyme and French syllabic line. Romance tradition was introduced.

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Domesday Book: William wanted to know exactly who owned which piece of land, how
much families, animals were there, economic survey to plan his economy, to ask in tax.

12th Century

During the 12th century, English language fell into low social esteem, no longer respected.
Normans spoke French and French became the language of the people of importance. Barons,
Lords, earl spoke French. The legislative language became French. Thus, all courtly literary
works were in French. All official writings were in French. Clergymen spoke Latin in the
Church. Only the lower class, the commoners, used English that is Anglo-Saxon and this
continued till the end of 14th century. Later in time, aristocracy began to adopt English, so,
the literary works were in English and French, and there was more variety in form (Anglo-
Norman Literature). Normans introduced feudalism which is a new social, economic and
political system. The Church began to dominate every aspect of life and in this period we see
the beginnings of the crusades.

There was a great conflict between the Church and State, Henry II tried to gain more control
over the Church in particular over the appointment of bishops which resulted in the murder of
Thomas à Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170. Thomas
became a saint and Canterbury an international shrine attracting pilgrims from all over
Europe.

13th Century

Oxford and Cambridge became the centers of learning. It was during this period that there
was a great reliance upon the authority of the Bible. (Bible was supposed to have answers for
all questions, but only the Church had the right to interpret that. Even the kings relied upon
the authority of the Church (heresy, excommunication). Greater importance was attached to
the otherworld. The life after became more important, to reach survival. Salvation was
important. The basic idea was that this world is transitory and one must prepare oneself to the
next world. Man due to the original sin, was born as a sinner. Their motto: In Adam’s Fall,
We sinned all. Follow the teachings of the Church to be able to be saved. The seven deadly
sins were very significant.

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The seven deadly sins, also known as the capital vices or cardinal sins, is a classification of
vices that has been used since early Christian times to educate and instruct Christians. The
sins are wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy and gluttony.

The notion of the wheel of fortune was very significant which indicates that everyone is in the
hands of destiny, everyone might fall from the social scale and lose his status and wealth. All
of them were reflected in literature, the problems of salvation, seven deadly sins, the wheel of
fortune. The literary works mostly had a moral purpose.

Two great political events: 1- Magna Carta (1215): limits the rights of the King, John I, an
unpopular king who taxed the people heavily. He was forced to sign the document which also
shows the decline of feudalism 2- 1295: The first parliament was established in the reign of
Edward I, besides the nobles including two commoners (freemen) from each town, to provide
money for the king by means of taxes.

14th century

There was the outbreak of war between England and France, it started in 1337 (The Hundred
Years War) and ended in 1453, resulted in England’s loss of all its possession in France, apart
from the port of Calais.

Also we have black death, plague which broke out in 1348-9 and it reduced the population of
England, probably killed one third of the whole population of Britain, and it was followed by
other epidemics. Over the whole of the fourteenth century, the population fell from about 4
million to less than 2 million. The Black Death is thought to have originated in central Asia,
where it then travelled along the Silk Road, reaching Crimea by 1346. From there, it was most
likely carried by rat fleas living on the black rats that were regular passengers on merchant
ships. Spreading throughout the Mediterranean and Europe, the Black Death is estimated to
have killed 30–60% of Europe's total population. All in all, the plague reduced the world
population from an estimated 450 million down to 350–375 million in the 14th century.

This decreased of population, however, favoured the poorer labourers: the shortage of
manpower meant that they could sell their services at a higher price and peasant life became
more comfortable. The King and parliament tried to control the wages, yet, he was not
successful. There emerged a new class, yeomen, smaller farmers.

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1381, Peasants’ Revolt: The peasants began to work in return for wages. Because of an ill-
advised poll-tax to be paid by everyone in kingdom, people revolted. They rebelled for their
rights. The leader of the rebellion was Wat Tyler, called for better treatment for the poor. He
said: “We are men formed in Christ’s likeliness and we are kept like animals”. The rebellion
lasted for 4 weeks and peasants took control of much of London. King Richard II promised to
abolish serfdom, yet later changed his mind and the leaders of the rebellion were executed.

The Most Significant Literary Figures of the Time:

Geoffrey Chaucer (critics called Chaucer as the father of English language as he only wrote in
English although he knew Latin, French and Spanish).

John Gower (Confessio Amantis, the Confession of A Lover, seven deadly sins, allegory,
Christianity).

William Langland (Piers the Plowman).

The Pearl Poet, name is unknown, he is thought to write Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

15th Century

We have important poets such as Sir Thomas Malory: he wrote Morte D’Arthur (The Death
of Arthur).

1450: A civil war broke out in England, The War of the Roses, House of the York (white
rose) and the House of Lancaster (red rose). In 1485 , we have the ascension of Henry VII,
the founder of Tudor Dynasty, the end of the Middle Ages. The Yorkist king Richard III was
defeated by Henry Tudor, the duke or Richmond. The rule of the Tudor dynasty had begun.

1476: Introduction of printing press by William Caxton. Caxton learnt printing techniques in
Germany and set up the first English printing press in 1476. It changed the reading habits and
the language itself, from now on there was a tendency to fix spelling, vocabulary and
grammar. More Books, cheaper, literacy increased, no longer change of the text.

Feudalism (feu: land in French)

William the Conqueror established feudalism definitely in England. Although many of the
loyalties and allegiance system already existed in Anglo-Saxon England, it was fully applied
and installed by William, liege lord/ overlord. The system was based on land and services. He,

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as the king, owned all the land and he distributed land to his barons in return for sworn
allegiance and services. King was the owner of the country, and according to loyalty he gave
land to his people (barons, vassals, tenants in chief). They had to fight for 40 days for him and
serve him personally and provide soldiers. Money did not play a role. It was not in cash but
they paid back in kind (goods, food, clothes not in money). Thus, he did not have a standing
army, he called barons in case of war. William brought feudalism from Europe. Barons also
distribute lands to lords and knights. He would give them titles and lands. In return, loyalty to
baron and similar duties and services. Feudalism was like a pyramid. Barons were the vassals
of the King, barons fought against barons, no loyalty to each other, but loyalty to king. King
↔ fief ↔ barons ↔ knights. The Motto of feudalism: every lord had a land and every man
had a lord. Every landlord was the tenant of some greater landlord.

The problem: population increases but not the land. Land does not grow, it cannot expand.
After a while, there stayed no land to disturb. There were many knights but limited lands. So
knights became bandits and robbed people.

Crusades were mainly not for religious purposes, but economic purposes, not idealistic, a way
to get money, to live in luxury for the nobility. All the money coming from trade roads was in
hands of the Muslims. They made crusades to take this money. This also caused the
interaction between the East and the West, the great impact of the East, Islamic world, the
East was the leading place of science and knowledge.

King began to sell titles in order to get money. So, monetary system began to play an
important role. There were two kinds of title: (sir, dame etc). Inherited title can be traced for
many generations. The titles were given to those who achieved important deeds. They cannot
be inherited. Thus, in the 14th century, we see the decline of feudalism. The medieval system
was shattered as the population decreased. There emerged a third class. More than the half of
the population died by the black death. It affected economy and society. Some lords died and
the whole system of feudalism cracked that there were not enough serfs to provide food. They
began asking for money. Poor lords sold their lands and then the labour and everything began
to be bought and sold. Merchants, serfs, villeins bought lands and titles. Exchange of services
turned into exchange of money, capitalism on the way, the turning point of feudalism.

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