1.

What is medieval studies?

by Professor David L. d'Avray FBA

2 JUN 2020

‘Medieval’ is sometimes used as a synonym for ‘primitive’, even by people with university
degrees who have forgotten that universities are a quintessentially medieval product. The
mutual reinforcement of teaching and research – first degrees as a preliminary to higher
degrees for a small minority and as a passport to a professional career for the majority, an
institutional structure to hold it all together – all that took shape around and just after
1200 CE. There had been nothing quite like it in earlier world history and it has become
the global model for higher education.

When British politicians use the word ‘medieval’ pejoratively, they forget that
representative government, notably Parliament, is a medieval creation. The fact that MPs
stand for counties or boroughs reflects a structure going back to the early Middle Ages.
Anyone who enjoys classical music should remember that polyphony was a medieval
development. The modern novel evolved out of medieval romances and lasting romantic
love, leading to marriage or to adultery, has been a fundamental theme of fiction in the
West since the 12th century. The idea of ‘the one’, the partner for life whom one should
not betray by loving another (even one’s spouse, in romances like Tristan and Isolde), is
also medieval.

‘Europe’, as usually understood, corresponds closely to the area where mass was said in
Latin in the mid-13th century. The nation state and sophisticated international credit-
based capitalism, whatever one thinks of them, were facts on the ground in the 14th
century. When a tourist goes to a European city, they probably head for a medieval
cathedral. Much of what is described as ‘Renaissance’ is not regarded as ‘medieval’ only
because it is regarded as in advance of its time.
Images of debate, dispute, and discussion are frequently found in books from a medieval
university context. This one is from Merton College Oxford MS 269, Averroes on Aristotle’s
Metaphysics (with thanks to the Warden and Fellows of Merton College Oxford)

Historical periodisation is somewhat arbitrary – like the boundaries of Ordnance Survey

maps. The best period divisions are crude and obvious. So we can say that ‘medieval
studies’ deals with the period between the end of Roman imperial authority in the West
and the Protestant Reformation. Many continuities cut through these lines, but they do
mark out a period when a Latin-literate clergy ran a governmental structure alongside
those of kings and cities. The distinction between ‘Church’ and ‘State’, though not the
attempts to build a wall between them, is another medieval inheritance.

There were huge changes within this period. Up until the 11th century the economy was
overwhelmingly agricultural; then came towns and capitalism. By the end of the eighth
century, Francia, a territory almost as large as the European Union circa 1970, was ruled
by Charlemagne, but by 1300 Germany was permanently separated from France and both
France and England were emerging as nation states, at war with each other (the ‘Hundred
Years War’). In the early Middle Ages, almost all literature was in Latin. England is an
exception; Germany too, though there was not so much. The Anglo-Saxon
poem Beowulf is widely read in translations, including one by Seamus Heaney, today.
From the 12th century, vernacular literature was on an unstoppable course in France,
Germany and only slightly later in Italy, but, with Dante, even more famously.

People look down on earlier epochs because they had different values which they are too
dead to defend. What would medieval people have made of the last hundred years? The
Holocaust, Hiroshima and mass bombings of cities dwarf the less effective nastinesses of
medieval people. The response to the Black Death and Plague, many orders of magnitude
worse than COVID-19, should elicit our respect. If time were reversed and medieval
people could comment on us, they would be appalled, not least by the modern world’s
inability to give meaning to death and keep a real connection with the dead.

Two examples of medieval culture: academic ‘scholasticism’, far from being deferential to
authority, focused on problems where authorities apparently clashed. It can still challenge
us. Even the brightest students find it hard to grasp how a first cause for the universe can
be proved without assuming a beginning in time. Secondly: Icelandic sagas open up a
world of love, violence, family feuds in language vivid even in translation. Many are
available in inexpensive paperback. What genre of modern literature can compare with
the best of them? The Middle Ages are a world worth knowing.

David d’Avray is Emeritus Professor of History, University College London. He was elected
a Fellow of the British Academy in 2005.

2.

MEDIEVAl
AN INTRODUCTION TO MEDIEVAL ENGLAND (1066–1485)

Duke William of Normandy’s resounding triumph over King Harold at the Battle of
Hastings in 1066 marked the dawn of a new era. The overthrow of the Saxon kingdom of
England was to transform the country the Normans conquered, from how it was organised
and governed to its language and customs – and perhaps most visibly today, its
architecture.
William I seated on his throne, depicted in the late 12th-century Battle Chronicle, written
by the monks of Battle Abbey© British Library Board (Cotton Domitian A.II f.22)
NORMAN RULE

William and his knights, and the castles they built, transformed England and helped
impose Norman rule. Norman clergy dominated the Church, and monasteries and
churches were constructed in the new Romanesque or Norman style of architecture.

William’s survey of England, Domesday Book (1086), recorded a land governed by feudal
ties. Every level of society was under an obligation of service to the class above. Punitive
forest laws protected the royal hunting preserves, and reinforced the new regime.

NORMANS AND ANGEVINS

However, baronial revolts plagued the Conqueror and his son, William Rufus (r.1087–
1100).

William’s youngest son, Henry I (r.1100–35), brought peace and administrative and legal
reform. But the country descended into chaos and civil war when Henry’s nephew
Stephen (r.1135–54) was crowned king, despite the rival claim of Henry’s daughter
Matilda.

Order was restored by Matilda’s son, Henry II (r.1154–89), the first of the Angevin or
Plantagenet kings. A monarch of boundless energy and ungovernable rages, he travelled
constantly through his vast dominions, stretching from the Scottish border to the
Pyrenees. The many fortresses he raised included Dover Castle, which was rebuilt partly as
a splendid stopover on the road to Canterbury and the shrine of his ‘turbulent’ priest, St
Thomas Becket, murdered in his cathedral by Henry’s knights in 1170.
Henry’s later reign was clouded by his fraught relationship with his sons and his
wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine. When he died in France in 1189 he was at war with his eldest
son, Richard, who had joined forces against him with the French king.

Reconstruction drawing of the siege of Dover Castle in 1216, during the civil war between
King John and his English barons. Here, French forces, supporting John’s enemies,
undermine the castle’s northern defences.© English Heritage (drawing by Peter Dunn)

MAGNA CARTA

Richard I ‘the Lionheart’ (r.1189–99) was always abroad or on crusade. His younger
brother John (r.1199–1216) was forced by his barons to sign Magna Carta (the ‘Great
Charter’), which was intended to limit his powers, in 1215. But ultimately he ignored it. His
incensed barons invited Prince Louis of France to invade in May 1216. John died in
October 1216, with his nine-year-old son, Henry, assuming the throne in the midst of
French invasion.

Louis conquered almost all of south-eastern England (though not Dover Castle), but
retreated in 1217 after defeats in the Battle of Sandwich and in the streets of Lincoln.
Heraldic floor tile in the Chapter House at Westminster Abbey depicting the three lions of
England, Henry III’s coat of arms. The shield is flanked by centaurs and wyverns (beasts
with dragons’ heads and serpents’ tails)

KINGS, BARONS AND FAVOURITES

The long reign of Henry III (r.1216–72) saw further baronial unrest, from the late 1250s
headed by Simon de Montfort. But after de Montfort’s death at the Battle of Evesham
(1265) and the long siege of Kenilworth Castle, Warwickshire, rebellion was finally
suppressed. This was a time when chivalric ‘heraldry’ blossomed, enhanced by the craze
for legends of King Arthur.

Edward I (r.1272–1307), another great castle-builder, united his barons behind the
conquest of Wales (1277–84) and his attempts on Scotland. His Scottish policy proved
disastrous for his less warlike son Edward II (r.1307–27), though, whose defeat at
Bannockburn (1314) was followed by Scots raids far south of the border.

The king’s devotion to his low-born ‘favourites’, Piers Gaveston and then the Despenser
family, enraged his barons. So when Edward’s spurned wife, Isabella, and her lover, Roger
Mortimer, invaded from France in 1326, they quickly gained support. Edward was forced
to renounce the throne in favour of his 14-year-old son, and was almost certainly brutally
murdered at Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire.

Although Isabella and Mortimer initially governed, Edward III (r.1327–77) assumed control
in his own right in 1330, ousting his mother and executing her lover.

Edward was a great warrior king, winning victories in France at Crécy (1346) and Poitiers
(1356) during the early years of what was later known as the Hundred Years War (1337–
1453). His armies included archers using longbows, which became the dominant English
weapon of the later Middle Ages.
CHURCH AND SOCIETY

Monasteries and churches flourished in the 12th and 13th centuries. New religious
foundations such as almshouses and hospitals cared for the poor and sick.

Towns grew in size and autonomy, as the old divisions between Normans and the English
began to break down. English began to replace Norman French as the dominant language.
Commerce developed, helped by better coinage and the growth of the wool trade. But the
growth of a money-based economy began to put the old feudal order under pressure.

Aerial view of Wharram Percy in Northumberland. The village had a population of 200 in
the 13th century, but witnessed a steep decline in the 14th century. Scottish raids were
followed by the Black Death, which saw the population reduce from about 67 to 45
PLAGUE, REVOLT AND PIETY

Then, in 1348–9, the established order and the population were struck a devastating blow
by the Black Death, which killed between a third and a half of England’s population.

The most immediate of its many effects was an acute labour shortage. Survivors
demanded higher wages and bond men refused to do unpaid ‘service’ for feudal masters.
Attempts to fix wages and prices at pre-plague rates only increased resentment.

Edward III’s grandson and successor, Richard II (r.1377–99), inherited a bankrupt treasury
and discontent over reverses in the conflicts with France. In 1381 simmering grievances
erupted into the Peasants’ Revolt.

The feudal system was not the only institution being challenged. For the first time in
English history, the doctrines as well as the actions of the Church were being attacked, by
John Wycliffe and the Lollards. Yet still religion remained all-pervasive in daily life, though
the focus of piety changed from monasteries to parish churches. Many people sought
salvation by paying to have prayers said for them in chantry chapels, and undertaking
pilgrimages.
The Battle of Agincourt, depicted in a 15th-century French manuscript© Bibliothèque
nationale de France (Chroniques Bruges, f.208)

ROYAL UPHEAVALS

In 1399 Richard II was deposed and murdered by Henry IV (r.1399–1413), the first of the
many upheavals to afflict the monarchy during this period. Though assailed from many
quarters, Henry held onto his throne, and his Lancastrian dynasty was reprieved by the
achievements of his son.

The greatest of all English warrior kings, Henry V (r.1413–22) won a startling victory over
the French at Agincourt in 1415, achieved largely thanks to the all-conquering English
longbow. By the time of his premature death he was ruling half of France.
This 15th-century manuscript illustrates an execution during the Wars of the Roses (1455–
85). One of the bloodiest conflicts in English history, the so-called ‘Cousins’ War’ stemmed
from a dynastic quarrel between the descendants of Edward III over possession of the
English Crown© Ghent University Library (MS 236)
WARS OF THE ROSES

More dangerous was the increasingly fashionable expression of power and status through
the recruiting of private armies of liveried retainers. These contributed to the breakdown
of order as Henry VI (r.1422–61 and 1470–71) proved incompetent to rule, and rival
aristocratic factions contended to control both monarch and kingdom.

These feuds developed into a series of short campaigns (and often bloody battles) fought
at intervals between 1455 and 1485, during which the Crown changed hands six times.
Cannon were used in some sieges, but the longbow remained the dominant weapon.

The Yorkist Edward IV (r.1461–70 and 1471–83) eventually emerged victorious. But his
brother Richard III (r.1483–5) alienated supporters by seizing the throne from his nephew
Edward V (r.1483). Richard was defeated and killed at Bosworth (1485) by the Lancastrian
heir, Henry Tudor.

Wars of the Roses, (1455–85), in English history, the series of dynastic civil wars whose
violence and civil strife preceded the strong government of the Tudors. Fought between
the houses of Lancaster and York for the English throne, the wars were named many years
afterward from the supposed badges of the contending parties: the white rose of York and
the red rose of Lancaster.

Competing claims to the throne and the beginning of civil war

House of Plantagenet

Both houses claimed the throne through descent from the sons of Edward III. Since the
Lancastrians had occupied the throne from 1399, the Yorkists might never have pressed a
claim but for the near anarchy prevailing in the mid-15th century. After the death of Henry
V in 1422 the country was subject to the long and factious minority of Henry VI (August
1422–November 1437), during which the English kingdom was managed by the king’s
council, a predominantly aristocratic body. That arrangement, which probably did not
accord with Henry V’s last wishes, was not maintained without difficulty. Like Richard
II before him, Henry VI had powerful relatives eager to grasp after power and to place
themselves at the head of factions in the state. The council soon became their
battleground.
Henry VI

Great magnates with private armies dominated the countryside. Lawlessness was rife and
taxation burdensome. Henry later proved to be feckless and simpleminded, subject to
spells of madness, and dominated by his ambitious queen, Margaret of Anjou, whose
party had allowed the English position in France to deteriorate.
Margaret of Anjou

Between 1450 and 1460 Richard, 3rd duke of York, had become the head of a great
baronial league, of which the foremost members were his kinsmen, the Nevilles, the
Mowbrays, and the Bourchiers. Among his principal lieutenants was his nephew Richard
Neville, the earl of Warwick, a powerful man in his own right, who had hundreds of
adherents among the gentry scattered over 20 counties. In 1453, when Henry lapsed into
insanity, a powerful baronial clique, backed by Warwick, installed York, as protector of the
realm. When Henry recovered in 1455, he reestablished the authority of Margaret’s party,
forcing York to take up arms for self-protection. The first battle of the wars, at St.
Albans (May 22, 1455), resulted in a Yorkist victory and four years of uneasy truce.

A History of War
A new phase of the civil war began in 1459 when York, goaded by the queen’s undisguised
preparations to attack him, rebelled for the last time. The Yorkists were successful at Blore
Heath (September 23) but were scattered after a skirmish at Ludford Bridge (October 12).
York fled to Ireland, and the Lancastrians, in a packed parliament at Coventry (November
1459), obtained a judicial condemnation of their opponents and executed those on whom
they could lay hands.

From then on the struggle was bitter. Both parties laid aside their scruples and struck
down their opponents without mercy. The coldblooded and calculated ferocity that now
entered English political life certainly owed something to the political ideas of the
Italian Renaissance, but, arguably, it was also in part a legacy of the lawless habits
acquired by the nobility during the Hundred Years’ War.

In France Warwick regrouped the Yorkist forces and returned to England in June 1460,
decisively defeating the Lancastrian forces at Northampton (July 10). York tried to claim
the throne but settled for the right to succeed upon the death of Henry. That effectively
disinherited Henry’s son, Prince Edward, and caused Queen Margaret to continue her
opposition.
Edward IV

Gathering forces in northern England, the Lancastrians surprised and killed York
at Wakefield in December and then marched south toward London, defeating Warwick on
the way at the Second Battle of St. Albans (February 17, 1461). Meanwhile, York’s eldest
son and heir, Edward, had defeated a Lancastrian force at Mortimer’s Cross (February 2)
and marched to relieve London, arriving before Margaret on February 26. The young duke
of York was proclaimed King Edward IV at Westminster on March 4. Then Edward, with
the remainder of Warwick’s forces, pursued Margaret north to Towton. There, in the
bloodiest battle of the war, the Yorkists won a complete victory. Henry, Margaret, and
their son fled to Scotland. The first phase of the fighting was over, except for the reduction
of a few pockets of Lancastrian resistance.

ascendancy of Warwick
Richard Neville, 16th earl of Warwick

The next round of the wars arose out of disputes within the Yorkist ranks. Warwick, the
statesman of the group, was the true architect of the Yorkist triumph. Until 1464 he was
the real ruler of the kingdom. He ruthlessly put down the survivors of the Lancastrians
who, under the influence of Margaret and with French help, kept the war going in the
north and in Wales. The wholesale executions that followed the battle of Hexham
(May1464) practically destroyed what was left of the Lancastrian party, and the work
seemed complete when, a year later, Henry VI was captured and put in the Tower of
London.
Louis XI

Warwick made an equally vigorous effort to put the government of the realm in better
shape, to restore public order, to improve the administration of justice, and, by
confiscations and economies, to make the crown solvent. At the same time, both Warwick
and his master were caught in the diplomatic schemes of the astute Louis XI, who had
succeeded Charles VII as the king of France in 1461. He was still preoccupied with the
power of Burgundy, and the English were to be the pawns in the game he intended to play
for the humbling of Charles the Bold.

Yet Edward IV was not prepared to submit indefinitely to Warwick’s tutelage, efficient and
satisfactory though it proved to be. It was not that he deliberately tried to oust Warwick;
rather he found the earl’s power irksome. Edward’s hasty and secret marriage to Elizabeth
Woodville in 1464 was the first overt sign of his impatience. The Woodvilles, a family with
strong Lancastrian connections, never achieved real political influence, but they climbed
into positions of trust near the king, thus estranging Warwick still further.

The open breach between the king and the earl came in 1467. Edward dismissed
Warwick’s brother, George Neville, the chancellor; repudiated a treaty with Louis XI that
the earl had just negotiated; and concluded an alliance with Burgundy against which
Warwick had always protested. Warwick then began to organize opposition to the king.
He was behind the armed protest of the gentry and commons of Yorkshire that was called
the rising of Robin of Redesdale (April 1469). A few weeks later, having raised a force
at Calais and married his daughter Isabel without permission to the Edward’s rebellious
brother, George Plantagenet, duke of Clarence, Warwick landed in Kent. The royal army
was defeated in July at Edgecote (near Banbury), and the king himself became the earl’s
prisoner, while the queen’s father and brother, together with a number of their friends,
were executed at his command.

By March 1470, however, Edward had regained his control, forcing Warwick and Clarence
to flee to France, where they allied themselves with Louis XI and (probably at Louis’s
instigation) came to terms with their former enemy Margaret. Returning
to England (September 1470), they deposed Edward and restored the crown to Henry VI,
and for six months Warwick ruled as Henry’s lieutenant. Edward fled to
the Netherlands with his followers.

The triumph of Edward IV

Edward V, Edward IV, and Elizabeth Woodville

Warwick’s power was insecure, however, for the Lancastrians found it difficult to trust one
who had so lately been their scourge, while many of the earl’s Yorkist followers found the
change more than they could bear. There was thus little real opposition to Edward, who,
having secured Burgundian aid, returned from Flushing to land at Ravenspur (March 1471)
in a manner reminiscent of Henry IV. His forces met those of Warwick on April 14 in
the Battle of Barnet, in which Edward outmaneuvered Warwick, regained the loyalty of
the duke of Clarence, and decisively defeated Warwick, who was slain in the battle. On the
same day, Margaret and her son, who had hitherto refused to return from France, landed
at Weymouth. Hearing the news of Barnet, she marched west, trying to reach the safety
of Wales, but Edward won the race to the Severn. In the Battle of Tewkesbury (May 4)
Margaret was captured, her forces destroyed, and her son killed. Shortly afterward Henry
VI was murdered in the Tower of London; Margaret remained in custody until being
ransomed by Louis XI in 1475. Edward’s throne was secure for the rest of his life (he died
in 1483).

Henry VII

In 1483 Edward’s brother Richard III, overriding the claims of his nephew, the
young Edward V, alienated many Yorkists, who then turned to the last hope of the
Lancastrians, Henry Tudor (later Henry VII). With the help of the French and of Yorkist
defectors, Henry defeated and killed Richard at Bosworth Field on August 22, 1485,
bringing the wars to a close. By his marriage to Edward IV’s daughter Elizabeth of York in
1486, Henry united the Yorkist and Lancastrian claims. Henry defeated a Yorkist rising
supporting the pretender Lambert Simnel on June 16, 1487, a date which some historians
prefer over the traditional 1485 for the termination of the wars.
Jasper Tudor, duke of Bedford, byname Jasper Of Hatfield, (born c. 1430—died December
21/26, 1495), leader of the Lancastrians in Wales, uncle and guardian of Henry, earl of
Richmond, afterward Henry VII of England.

The second son of Owen Tudor, founder of the family’s fortunes, he was knighted in 1449
and created earl of Pembroke about 1452. Between 1456 and 1459 he worked hard to
increase his influence in West Wales. He was with Henry VI when the Yorkists were forced
to flee at Ludford (Shropshire) in 1459, and in 1460 he besieged and captured the Duke of
York’s North Welsh stronghold of Denbigh Castle. He shared in the Lancastrian defeat at
Mortimer’s Cross (February 1461), where his father was taken and beheaded, but he
made his escape to Ireland and later to Scotland.

In 1468 he landed in North Wales in an attempt to relieve Harlech Castle, which held out
for King Henry VI; he was able to capture Denbigh Castle but was then defeated by
William, lord Herbert, who was rewarded with his forfeited earldom of Pembroke. Landing
with the Earl of Warwick in 1470, he was sent to Wales and arrived too late for the defeat
of the Lancastrians at Tewkesbury (1471).

With his young nephew, Henry of Richmond, he escaped to Brittany, where Henry grew up
under his guidance. He attempted a further invasion of England during the rebellion of
1483 but was prevented from landing. In August 1485 he landed with Henry in South
Wales and fought at Bosworth Field. His unflinching loyalty was rewarded by Henry VII
with the dukedom of Bedford (1485) and a grant of the lordship of Glamorgan (1486), and
he was afterward lord lieutenant of Ireland (1486–94). Jasper played a leading part in the
suppression of the rebellions of 1486 and 1487 and lived into an honoured old age. He
had issue by his wife, Catherine Woodville, sister of Edward IV’s queen, but the dukedom
became extinct upon his death.