Transcript From Legend to History A.D. 449-1485

From Legend to History
A.D. 449-1485
The Old English and Medieval
Periods
The Conquest of Britain
• Between 800 and 600 B.C. two groups of Celts from
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southern Europe, the Brythons and the Gaels, invaded
the British Isles.
The Brythons settled on the largest island, Britain.
The Celts were farmers and hunters. They organized
themselves into tightly knit clans, each with a fearsome
loyalty to its chieftain.
• The next conquerors of Britain
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were the Romans in 55 B.C. led
by General Julius Caesar. This
conquest of Britain took nearly
a 100 years.
The Roman rule of Britain
lasted for more than 300 years
and ended only when Roman
troops withdrew to protect their
homeland in Italy in 407 A.D.
The Romans introduced
Christianity to Britain around
the 4th century.
This Christianity differed greatly
from the paganistic beliefs of
the Celts and from the beliefs of
a new set of invaders, the
Saxons.
The Anglo-Saxon Invaders
Saxon Invaders
These Germanic tribes were
nomadic, seafaring, and warlike.
Valued the individual warrior.
King was essentially greatest warrior
of tribe.
Good kings were recognized for their
generosity hence the name ring
giver.
Tribes were constantly warring with
one another.
Warriors owed total loyalty to their
king.
Women held little power in this
society.
Saxon Terminology
• Mead Hall – Large structure
were king’s warriors would
gather to feast, drink, and be
entertained.
• Mead- preferred drink of Saxon
warriors. It was a strong mix of
fermented honey and yeast.
• Warriors would often gather to
hear stories shared by bards
and challenge their minds with
riddles.
Saxon Terminology cont…
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Wergild- The Saxons were
extremely motivated by
vengeance in their society. This
would lead to blood feuds
between tribes. Wergilds were
established to end these blood
feuds. A Wergild was
compensation given to a victim’s
family when a member of their
family or tribe had been killed.
Witon- Group of King’s elders or
wise men.
Mail- flexible body armor made of
metal.
The Danish Invasions
• In the ninth century, the Norse
of Norway and the Danes of
Denmark took to the seas.
These Vikings carried their
piracy to the British Isles.
• The Viking Invaders sacked
and plundered monasteries,
destroyed manuscripts, and
stole sacred religious objects.
They burned entire
communities and put villagers
to the sword.
“The Great King”
King Alfred
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In 871, a king ascended to the
Wessex throne who would be the
only ruler in England’s history ever
to be honored with the epithet “the
Great.”
King Alfred had earned this title
partly by resisting further Danish
encroachment.
Under a truce concluded in 886,
England was formally divided: The
Saxons acknowledged Danish rule
in the east and the north, and the
Danes agreed to respect the
Saxon rule in the south. As a
result Alfred became a national
hero.
Alfred’s England
• Alfred’s England took
the following look to
the right under his
truce of 886.
• Alfred’s achievements
went far beyond the
battlefield. He
encouraged a rebirth
of learning and
education.
• With the death of King Edward “the Confessor” in 1066
and an invasion by the Normans who were
descendents of the Vikings, England fell to the Norman
Conquest.
• After a brief struggle for the throne of England between
Harold II and William of Normandy. William asserted
himself by force to the throne of England.
• The Normans under William was remade along feudal
lines.
The Feudal System
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The feudal system involved an
exchange of property for personal
service. In theory, all the land
belonged to the king, who
parceled it out among his powerful
supporters. He gave these
supporters noble titles, like Baron,
and special privileges. As a
vassal of his overlord, each baron
paid certain fees, or taxes, and
supplied a specified number of
knights should the king require
them. In return for their services,
knights usually received smaller
parcels of land, called manors.
The peasants who worked these
manors were the lowest class in
the feudal system , the serfs.
The Reign of Henry II
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Norman rule ended in 1154
when Henry Plantagenet came
to the throne as Henry II.
Henry’s concern with legal
matters led him into direct
conflict with the Church. When
the archbishop’s seat at
Canterbury fell vacant, he
appointed his friend Thomas
Becket to the position, expecting
Becket to go along with royal
policy. Instead, Becket defied the
king and appealed to the Pope.
The Pope sided with Becket,
provoking Henry into a rage.
The Martyr
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Some of Henry’s knights
misunderstood the royal wrath. In
1170, four of them murdered
Becket in his cathedral. Henry
quickly condemned the crime and
tried to atone for it by making a
holy journey, or pilgrimage, to
Becket’s tomb.
Thereafter, a pilgrimage to
Becket’s shrine at Canterbury
became a common English means
of showing religious devotion.
King John and the Magna Carta
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The next king, Richard I spent
most of his time staging military
expeditions overseas creating a
great deal of debt.
His successor, King John,
inherited these debts.
King John tried to raise money by
collecting more taxes from barons
but they resisted these measures
bringing England to the brink of
civil war.
To avert further trouble, King John
at last agreed to certain of the
baron’s conditions by putting his
seal on the Magna Carta.
In the Magna Carta, the King
agreed not to tax land without first
meeting with the barons.
Many historians believe its
restrictions on royal power marked
the beginning of constitutional
government in England.
The Black Death
• Between 1348-1349 as
the Bubonic Plague
swept across England a
third of England’s
population was wiped out.
• The results were
devastating physically
and economically.
• The short term result was
a labor shortage and the
long term result would
cause the collapse of the
feudal structure.
The Plague across Europe
The Dance of Death
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The effects of the plague not only
ended feudalism but it also
impacted the Church and its
people and their views of life and
death.
The Church began to use death
as motivational tool to convert
sinners and encourage financial
support.
People begin to recognize with
greater degree their own proximity
to death.
The Italian writer Boccacio often
said the plague’s victims “ate
lunch with their families and dinner
with their ancestors in Paradise.”
Anglo-Saxon Literature
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Anglo-Saxon literature began not with books, but with spoken verse and
incantations.
Anglo-Saxon verse falls into two main categories: heroic poetry, recounting
the achievements of warriors, and elegiac poetry, lamenting the deaths
ones and the loss of the past.
Famous elegiac poems would be “The Seafarer” and “The Wanderer”.
Most famous heroic poem: Beowulf.
Anglo-Saxon prose before the reign of Alfred the Great all important prose
was written in Latin. The monks who transcribed these works regarded the
vernacular, the language of the common people, as a “vulgar tongue.” The
greatest of England’s Latin scholars was Venerable Bede (673-735), whose
History of the English Church and People gives an account of England from
the Roman invasion to his own time.
Another great prose work from this time is The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles.
Unlike Bede’s History, these records were written in Old English, the earliest
form of our own language.
Beowulf
“The English National Epic”
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This epic, or long heroic poem, is
the story of a great legendary
warrior renowned for his courage,
strength, and dignity.
Like most Anglo-Saxon poets, the
author of Beowulf is unknown.
Likely recited as early as the 6th
century, the text we have today
was composed in the eighth
century and not written down until
the 11th century in Old English.
Thus the poem includes many
references to Christian ideas.
However it is clearly evident the
values of Anglo-Saxon warrior
society.
What is an epic???
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Epic characteristics:
Call upon the muse
Medias res: begins in the midst of things
Has a hero with superhuman characteristics.
Theme of good vs. evil
Presence of gods or semi-divine creatures
Story is told in serious manner, often in special, elevated
language.
Medieval Drama
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During early Norman times the
Church often sponsored plays
as part of religious services.
The earliest dramas were
miracle plays, or mystery
plays, that retold stories from
the Bible.
During the 15th century a new
kind of drama emerged: the
morality play. Morality plays
depicted the lives of ordinary
people and taught moral
lessons.
A New Invention
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In 1454, a German silversmith,
Johann Gutenberg, perfected a
process of printing from
movable type. Printing then
spread rapidly throughout
Europe, and, in 1476, William
Caxton set up the first
movable-type press in
England.
As a result, English literature
would no longer need to be
hand-copied by church scribes.
Geoffrey Chaucer
• Son of a merchant, page
in a royal house, soldier,
diplomat, and royal clerk,
Geoffrey Chaucer saw
quite a bit of the medieval
world.
• His varied experiences
helped prepare him to
write The Canterbury
Tales.
The Canterbury Tales
• Chaucer wrote The Canterbury
Tales in his later years. No one
knows for certain what
prompted him to begin this
work. Chaucer’s inspiration
may have come from his own
participation in a pilgrimage to
Canterbury or the fact that he
had the opportunity to observe
many pilgrims starting their
journeys since a window in his
London home overlooked a
pilgrim road that led to
Canterbury.
The Canterbury Tales
• Chaucer’s plan was to share
the pilgrimage of 30 characters
to Canterbury. On their way,
each pilgrim would share two
tales and then on the way back
each pilgrim would share two
more tales.
• Chaucer would only complete
22 of the projected 120 tales,
but the tales still stand together
as a complete working using
Chaucer’s framing method.
• This method may have been
modeled after the Italian writer
Boccaccio’s method which was
used in the Decameron.
The Canterbury Tales cont…
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Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales is
written in Middle English which
can be heard in the following
reading from The Prologue.
Chaucer’s Characters
• Chaucer’s characters remain
today as some of the most
colorful and entertaining
characters in all of literature.
• See character map on page 93
of your literature book.
• These characters provide
insight not only into medieval
life and society but into the
lives of all humankind.
The Wife of Bath
• The Wife of Bath is one of
the more colorful
characters.
• Her tale deals with the
proposition of what it is
that women most desire.
• She claims to be an
expert in the ways of love.
• Despite being married five
times over.
The Pardoner
• The Pardoner is one of
Chaucer’s more corrupt
characters.
• He sells pardons to the highest
bidder.
• He also sells fake holy relics.
• He preaches on the dangers of
greed, but doesn’t practice
what he preaches.
• His tale deals with the saying,
“The love of money is the root
of all evil.”
Romances, Lyrics, and Ballads
• Medieval romances were tales
describing the adventures of
knights. The most popular
romances told are about King
Arthur and his famed knight’s of
the round table.
• Arthur’s tales are considered to
be legend, a blend of fact and
fiction.
• These tales shine light on the
concepts of chivalry and courtly
love.
Characteristics of the Medieval
Romance
• Heroic figures and memorable
deeds.
• May have a damsel in distress.
• Knight usually embarks on a
quest.
• May consist of contests or
tournaments.
• Knight faces a series of tests.
Chivalry
• Chivalry is a system of
codes followed by
knights.
• Rule 1: Believe in the
church and obey her
teachings.
• Rule 2: Always obey your
feudal overlord as long as
those duties do not
conflict with the duties to
God.
• Rule 3: Respect and pity
the weak.
Chivalry cont…
• Rule 4: Love your
country.
• Rule 5: Refuse to retreat
before your enemy.
• Rule 6: Be courteous
toward women.
• Rule 7: Be loyal to the
truth and your pledged
word.
• Rule 8: Be generous.
• Rule 9: Champion the
right and good against
the forces of evil.
Courtly Love
• Courtly love is an attitude
knights would carry in regard
to women.
• Conventions:
Non-sexual
The woman is perfect.
The woman is unattainable.
The knight is unworthy.
The knight only wants a word or a
smile.
The knight is hurt by the body’s
cruelty.
The knight will never give up.
The woman is exalted.
Ballads
• A ballad is a song that tells a
story.
• One example of a ballad is a
series of ballads that share the
life and adventures of Robin
Hood and his band of “merrye”
men.
• Other examples would be
“Lord Randall”, “Get Up and
Bar the Door”, and “Barbara
Allan.”
Literary terms to know:
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Kenning- a metaphor that uses compound words like: “earth’s
candle” may represent the sun.
Allusion- reference to another literary work or historical event.
Frame story- a story within a story.
Caesuras- rhythmic breaks in the middle of lines, where poet could
pause for breath.
Assonance- the repetition of vowel sounds.
Alliteration- the repetition of initial consonant sounds.
Direct characterization- presents direct statements about a
character.
Indirect characterization- uses actions, thoughts and dialogue to
reveal a character’s personality.