The later Middle Ages (C14-C15)
In the early fourteenth century, the European climate became colder and
Wars within the British Isles and outside
1. England and Wales, England and Scotland
After Edward I’s victory over Llewelyn in 1282, Wales was brought firmly
under English control. The last attempt to revive an independent Welsh
principality was in 1400, when Owain Glyndŵr rebelled against King Henry IV of
England and was proclaimed Prince of Wales, but his rebellion only lasted a few
years. (As “Owen Glendower” in Shakespeare’s Henry IV part 1, he is portrayed
as a wild, mystical figure—a stereotypical English view of a Welsh leader.)
Edward’s conquest of Scotland was not so successful. Resistance was led
first by William Wallace, a knight of modest origins, and later, after Wallace’s
capture and execution, by Robert Bruce, who was crowned King of Scotland in
1306. Robert defeated the army of Edward’s son, Edward II, in 1314 at the
battle of Bannockburn, and finally in 1328, the next English king, Edward III
recognized the independence of Scotland by the Treaty of Edinburgh-
Northampton. Wars between the two kingdoms continued (especially as
Scotland was an ally of England’s other great enemy in this period, France), but
the existence of Scotland as an independent kingdom was no longer threatened.
Nowadays, Wallace, Bruce and Glyndŵr are remembered as national heroes
of Scotland and Wales
2. England and France
In 1337, Edward III went to war with the king of France, because of a
dispute over his territory in Gascony, and also pursuing his own claim to the
French throne. The war lasted, with interruptions, till 1453, and is known as the
Hundred Years War. Despite famous English victories like that of Henry V at
Agincourt (1415), the war ended with the loss of almost all English territory in
France.
3. Civil war in England
In the second half of the fifteenth century two rival branches of the
Plantagenet dynasty, the Houses of Lancaster and York, fought for the throne of
England, in a series of bloody conflicts called the “Wars of the Roses” (after their
emblems: a red rose for Lancaster, a white rose for York). The wars ended in
1485, when Henry Tudor, related to the House of Lancaster on his mother’s side
and descended from Welsh princes on his father’s, defeated Richard III (the last
king of the House of York) at the battle of Bosworth, and became King Henry VII.
J. Brown - British Civilization
Famine and The Black Death
wetter. Crops often failed, especially in the years 1315-1317, when the British Isles
were hit by terrible famine
Between 1348 and 1350, a terrible plague epidemic, which later generations
remembered as the “Black Death” spread through the British Isles. It has been
estimated that between 25% and 40% of the population died in this epidemic, and
later outbreaks killed more people, bringing the population down to about half
what it had been in 1300 (perhaps from about 7 million to about 3.5 million).
Among the effects of this dramatic reduction in population, was a shift in the
use of land, from cultivation to sheep farming. The importance of wool for late
medieval England’s economy is commemorated in the “Woolsack”, a wool-stuffed
seat on which the Lord Speaker of the House of Lords sits in the British parliament.
Other changes are harder to be sure about, but some historians have argued that
the reduction of population helped those who survived to become more
prosperous in the longer term. However living conditions were certainly hard for
most people for many years.
National identities
In both England and Scotland, the sense of national identity seems to have
become stronger in the later Middle Ages.
The subjects of the Scottish kings had previously been regarded as a diverse
mixture of different peoples, but through the wars with England they seem to have
acquired a new sense of themselves as Scots—though there was perceived to be a
clear cultural division between Gaelic-speaking Highlanders and English-speaking
Lowlanders.
In England, kings and nobles increasingly claimed an English (rather than
French) identity, and gradually adopted the English language in place of French.
The growth of a sense of common English identity was intensified by the wars
between England and France. Regional differences remained strong, however,
particularly between the prosperous south and the less developed north.
In both Wales and Ireland, there was a clear division between the English
colonial minority and the native Gaelic or Welsh-speaking peoples.
Language and literature
In England, the use of French declined, and English became the language of all
social classes. Henry IV (1399-1413) was the first English-speaking king since 1066,
and by his time, English was already being used in law and government. In the work
of poets like Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1340-1400) and John Gower (c. 1330-1408), reading the Bible rather than the rituals of the Church. For this purpose, Wycliffe
Middle English became the medium of a confident and cosmopolitan literature. (and probably others) translated the Bible into English. Despite having influential
In the 1460s, during the Wars of the Roses, Thomas Malory assembled a supporters, the Lollards were persecuted, and it was made illegal to translate the
monumental prose romance of King Arthur and his knights, Le Morte Darthur (in Bible. However the movement continued underground, and eventually was
English, despite the French title). Meanwhile the common people of England absorbed by the sixteenth-century Reformation.
had there own legendary hero in the person of Robin Hood, the outlaw and Otherwise, the countries of the British Isles seem to have been among the most
expert archer who lives in the greenwood and repeatedly defeats the loyal parts of Western Catholic Christendom in this period, giving little sign of the
oppressive representatives of authority. Ballads about Robin Hood seem to be rupture that was to come in the sixteenth century.
particularly addressed to the yeomanry, a rising category of prosperous
peasants who could afford to pay for entertainment by travelling minstrels.
Middle English had no national standard, but was spoken and written in
very different dialects in different parts of England and Lowland Scotland (where
it is known as Middle Scots). However the prestige of the form of English used at
court, together with the influence of printing—introduced to England in 1476 by
William Caxton, to Scotland in 1507 by Walter Chepman—helped to stabilize
standard literary forms of the language in both England and Scotland.
Meanwhile it is worth remembering that at least half the population of the
British Isles did not speak English, but Celtic languages (and a Scandinavian
language in Orkney and Shetland, which belonged to Denmark until 1469).
Perhaps the best known literary figure in any of the Celtic languages in this
period is the Welsh poet Dafydd ap Gwilym (c.1320-c.1360), who combined a
background in the older bardic tradition with openness to continental
influences, writing about love and nature, and about his own feelings and
experiences.

Architecture
From the middle of the fourteenth century, the dominant style of
architecture in England was Perpendicular Gothic, in which windows became
even larger than in the earlier Decorated style, often giving the impression of
walls of glass divided by vertical and horizontal bars of stone. Work continued
on some of the great cathedrals, but the new style is seen more in the parish
churches of towns and villages that were growing in prosperity (particularly in
areas growing rich on the wool trade), and in other buildings like those of some
of the Oxford and Cambridge colleges.

Religion
In the late fourteenth century, the followers of John Wycliffe, known as
“Lollards”, criticized the Church as corrupt and emphasized the importance of
J. Brown - British Civilization