British Literature Course

Unit 1, Part B - The Middle Ages 1066-1485

Historical Context
William the Conqueror
• He was a new kind of king – powerful, well-organized, determined to exert his authority.
• He imposed the Domesday Book – a tax record of every bit of property owned, from fish
ponds to litters of pigs
• Brought law and order to the land
• Upon his death, there were many power struggles leaving England in near anarchy
• In 1154, his great-grandson Henry Plantagenet took the throne as Henry II.
Henry II
• One of medieval England’s most memorable rulers
• Reformed the judicial system by setting up royal courts
• Established a system of juries
• Began forming English common law from centuries-old practices
Richard the Lion-Hearted
• Henry’s son, Richard I spent most of his 10-year reign fighting wars abroad.
• John, his younger brother, plotted against him.
• The villain of Robin Hood legends, King John was treacherous and bad tempered.
• Quarreled with nobles and raised taxes until they threatened to rebel.
• In 1215, he was forced to sign the Magna Carta (“Great Charter”), which limited royal
authority by granting more power to the barons (beginnings of democracy).
War and Plague
• Medieval period plagued with wars.
• Hundred Years’ War between England and France began in 1337 during the reign of
Edward III. Lasted on and off for more than a century.
• Black Death – killed a third of England’s population
• By the end of the war in 1453, England had lost nearly all of its French possessions.
• War of the Roses - Two rival families claimed the throne – the house of York (symbol:
white rose) and the house of Lancaster (symbol: red rose)
• War ended in 1485 when Henry Tudor (Lancastrian) killed King Richard III (Yorkist)
and took the throne as Henry VII. This marked the end of the Middle Ages in England.

Cultural Influences (p. 25)

Feudalism
• Feudalism – political and economic system that William the Conqueror introduced into
England after the Norman Conquest.
• The feudal system is based on the premise that the king owns all the land in the kingdom.
• William kept a fourth of the land for himself, gave a fourth to the church, and parceled
out the rest to loyal barons who paid him or supplied him with warriors called knights.
• Since the Pope and the church had great power, they owned more land than anyone in
Europe and functioned independently. The monarchy and the church were two powerful
forces with sometimes conflicting interests.
• Barons swore allegiance to the king, the knights to the barons, etc.
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• At the bottom of the social ladder were the conquered Anglo-Saxons; many were serfs
(peasants bound to land they could not own).
The Church
• Medieval church had great power – levying taxes, making its own laws, running its own
courts, and keeping kings and noblemen in line with the threat of ex-communication.
• The Church owned more land as well as soaring stone cathedrals and great abbeys.
• The church’s power led to conflicts with the monarchy. (Example: Henry I’s archbishop
and friend Thomas á Becket began favoring church interests over those of the crown. As
a result, four knights, loyal to the king, murdered him. Becket was declared a saint and
his shrine at Canterbury became a popular destination of pilgrims, such as those
described in Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales.
Chivalry and Courtly Love
• Chivalry and courtly love was made popular during Henry II’s reign.
• The concept of chivalry was brought from French court circles by Henry’s wife, Eleanor
of Aquitaine
• Chivalry – code of honor intended to govern knightly behavior
• The code encouraged knights to be generous, brave, honest, pious, and honorable; to
defend the weak, battle evil and uphold good.
• The code also encouraged knights to go on holy quests such as the Crusades, a military
expedition in which European Christians attempted to snatch the holy city of Jerusalem
from Muslim control.
• “Court of love” – Eleanor and her daughter Marie applied chivalric ideals to the
relationships between men and women as well. Lords and ladies would be entertained by
music and tales of King Arthur as well as of other romantic heroes and argue about the
proper conduct of a love affair.
• Courtly love and the concept of chivalry represented an ideal rarely met in real life.
• Chivalry and courtly love served as inspiration for some of the finest literature of the
time.
The Age of Chaucer
• Geoffrey Chaucer – the most famous writer of medieval times
• Considered the Father of English literature and father of English poetry
• Poet who demonstrated the potential of English as a literary language; therefore, made
the English language respectable.
• Well known government official
• Used diverse sources – French poetry, English songs, Greek classics, contemporary
Italian tales, and Aesop’s fables.
• Blended old with new in the natural rhythms of Middle English, the spoken language of
the time
• He was influenced by Giovanni Boccaccio and Dante in Italy.
• Works show a compassion and fondness for human nature with all its faults and
peculiarities
• Uses sparse but vivid imagery and figurative language to describe his characters
• Uses lots of irony
• Allows his characters to tell their own tales and to express their personalities through
dialogue.
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• Wrote The Canterbury Tales

The Canterbury Tales- a collection of tales ranging from mocking to inspirational
• Tales are held together by a frame story related to a group of pilgrims who pass time on
their journey to the shrine of Thomas á Becket by telling stories. They are traveling from
London to Canterbury.
• The pilgrims’ characters are revealed through the stories they tell and their reactions to
one another’s tales.
• Each traveler tells 4 stories of their pilgrimage. However, there are 24 tales. (He had
wanted to write four stories per character but died before completing his work.)
• Prologue: each character is described – characters represent abstract ideas.
• It is a story of life; full of faith
• Themes: charity vs. self-righteousness
• Chaucer lived during a time of change and turmoil in England. The bubonic plague
greatly reduced the population and caused a shortage of laborers. Serfs left the land to
work in towns and estates. This led to the decline of feudalism and the growth of the new
middle class to which Chaucer’s family belonged.
• English re-emerged as the dominant language of the ruling class.
• With its cast of characters ranging across British society, from the “perfect gentle
Knight” to a common miller, and its use of everyday English rather than elevated Latin or
French, The Canterbury Tales reflected all of these developments.
• Chaucer was not the only poet of his time to compose in English or to write about
ordinary people; William Langland did, too; he wrote Piers Plowman.
• Chaucer’s work helped develop a new appreciation of English as a language that was
useful in everyday life and was elegant and poetic too.
• Chaucer’s legacy –
o Inspired a generation of English poets
o His tales were among the earliest books chosen to be published by William
Caxton, the first English printer

Other information related to this time period –

Types of Medieval Narratives
Ballads
• Ballads are narrative songs that refer to the lives of common folks or of characters and
events from folklore.
• It tells a story and has a regular pattern of rhythm and rhyme.
• Songs which were the poetry of the people
• Their subjects were popular domestic tragedies, false love, true love
• Used a strong beat and repetition
• Refrain-chorus that is repeated
• Considered “a gift story” passed from one generation to the next
Folk Ballads
• Love, adventure, courageous feats of daring, and sudden disaster are frequent topics of
the folk ballads.
• Despite such tragic subjects, ballads rarely contain opinions on what has happened.
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• The narrative usually dramatizes a single incident with little attention to characterization,
background, or description.
• Event is briefly retold with dialogue only.
• They may be brief and sparse – economic – but they contain sharp psychological portraits
and much folk wisdom.
• Considered amongst the most important forms of British literature.
Medieval Narratives
• Narratives – a type of writing that relates a series of events and is written in verse
• Included ballads, romance, allegories, and moral tales
• Themes included religion, love, exemplary life and behavior, political and societal issues
• Irony and a taste of comic narratives were common
• Many narrative works were produced in England between 1350 and 1400.
• Written in Middle English, a language that had developed and replaced the use of French,
which had been the predominant language of educated people in Britain.
• Literacy had become more common
• New printing methods had made literature more widely available.
• Educated citizens had access to more literary works.
Moral Tale
• Narrative that illustrates a moral lesson, such as a fable or an exemplum (“The Pardoner’s
Tale”)