An Introduction to the Middle

Ages and Geoffrey Chaucer

 The Canterbury Tales
 By Geoffrey Chaucer
 “Father of English Poetry”
 First author to write in English (Middle English)
[previously Latin]
 Educated
 Government official – work took precedence over
writing
 Worked on Canterbury Tales for 22 years; never
finished
 The Middle Ages – Norman
Invasion
 1066 – Duke William of Normandy
 One-day long battle
 Defeated and killed King Harold of England
 William felt entitled to the English throne
(Edward, previous king, left no heirs)
 Combined Norman emphasis on law and
order with Anglo Saxon democracy and
culture
 Feudalism
 Caste system (social class)
 Military system
 Property system
 System of social behavior

 Top of the Ladder: William the Conqueror

 Barons, vassals, lower vassals, landless knights,
serfs
 City Classes

 Eventually many people left the country

and moved to the cities
 City classes not defined by the feudal
system
 Upper, middle, lower
 Middle class = merchant class who could
afford what they wanted
 Knighthood and Chivalry

 Chivalry was a system of ideals that

governed knights
 Loyalty to overlord
 Rules of warfare
 Adoration of a lady
 Crusades & Hundred Years’
War
 Crusades:
 Series of religious wars
to spread Christianity
throughout Europe
 Struggle against Muslims
 Ultimately a failure
 Europe benefited from
contact with higher
civilization of Middle East
 Hundred Years’ War
 Battles between
England and France
 Lasted over 100
years (1337-1453)
 Feud stemming from
Norman Invasion
 Militarily
unsuccessful for
Britain; did increase
sense of nationalism
 Black Death
 Highly contagious plague
 Spread through cities from fleas of infested
rats
 Killed 1/3 of people in England
 Gave more power to people in lower classes
 Caused labor shortage
 Lower class workers willing to work could
negotiate wages and working conditions
 Martyrdom of Sir Thomas a
Becket
 Thomas was a Norman who had great power
in England as well as Catholic church (prime
minister and Archbishop)
 Sided with the Pope rather than the King
 King Henry II (half joking) said he wanted
Thomas put to death
 Henry’s knights killed Thomas in the cathedral
at Canterbury
 Martyrdom of Sir Thomas a
Becket
 Saint Thomas the Martyr
 Made a saint and martyred by a cult following who
opposed the king
 People made pilgrimages to Canterbury to
honor Saint Thomas’s memory
 The Canterbury Tales are a fictional collection
of stories from a group of people making this
pilgrimage to Canterbury