Transcript the medieval period

Coach Jay Adams
Fall 2008
AP British Literature
 By the end of the Anglo-Saxon period, their
culture looked more like what we’d expect of a
“country,”
National leader instead of scattered tribes.
601: Paulinus
 In 1066, the Anglo-Saxon king, Edward the Confessor,
died and passed his throne on to a distant relative,
Harold II.
William of Normandy, another distant relative of
Edward’s, claimed the throne had been promised to
him by the dead king. Late in the year, he brought his
forces across the English channel and defeated
Harold’s army, taking the kingship on Christmas Day of
1066.
 The Anglo-Saxon nobility, descended from the ancient
tribal leaders, were not thrilled.
 William was forced to deal with several rebellions. As he




squashed these rebellions by the Anglo-Saxon nobility, he
confiscated their lands and gave it to his French buddies,
who became the new nobility in England.
This meant that the upper levels of culture and government
were French, with the lower levels still speaking English.
And since the Normans forced the Anglo-Saxons into
service jobs, like shepherd and farmer, and kept their own
household help, like cooks, we wound up with two names
for a lot of things.
Thus, it’s a pig (Anglo-Saxon) if you see it on a farm, but
it’s pork (French) when you eat it. The same for cow /
beef, deer / venison, sheep / mutton and a lot of other
animal / food names.
English was rapidly becoming a mutt of a language.






Feudalism was not something William invented; rather, it was a
necessary evil and an evolution of the earlier tribal warlord-style
system. Europe on the whole had no centralized government
powerful enough to keep order, so the individual land-owners
became responsible for controlling law and order.
The king owned everything, and gave big chunks of it (called
fiefs) to the barons, his chief supporters and friends, in
exchange for their support. He also granted land for the church.
The Barons, in return, gave properties to the next level beneath
them, the lords, in exchange for their support
Lords gave property (called manors) to their knights in
exchange for doing battle (similar to the ancient Nordic ringgiver system).
The barons, lords, and knights needed people to keep their
property running smoothly in the fields, barns, etc. These were
the serfs, the lowest class in the feudal system.
So…in any conflict, the king called on his barons to provide him
with knights, who called on the lords beneath them, who called
on the knights beneath them.







1154—the last of the Norman kings died.
Henry II (of the Plantagenet line) takes the throne
and immediately decides to do something about the
corrupt Roman Catholic church.
When the Archbishop of Canterbury position came
open, he appointed his friend Thomas a Becket to
the post, expecting him return the favor by giving
Henry an “in” with the pope.
Becket did not.
In a cabinet meeting in 1170 Henry wished out loud
that someone would do something about Becket.
Some brilliant knights thus concluded that they
should assassinate him, which they did on the steps
of the Canterbury cathedral after Becket preached
the morning mass.
Henry II condemned the crime and his “accidental”
role in it. He made a pilgrimage to the Cathedral to
visit his friend’s tomb. This quickly became a
religious ritual for the citizens of Britain.





The two great religions of the period were Catholicism and
Islam. The Christians determined that it was God’s will for
them to drive the Muslims from the Holy Land. It turned out
that Muslims are tenacious fighters, and the Christians failed.
However, there were some interesting theological spinoffs
from this campaign with artifacts of the “fathers” being sold
left and right, like Peter’s pinky bone
Richard I took England deep into debt fighting the Crusades.
His successor, John, came to the throne saddled with debt.
When he attempted to cut off government services and raise
taxes on the Barons to alleviate the debt, they revolted, nearly
leading to civil war.
John was only able to avoid such a war by signing the Magna
Carta, the first document that ever limited the power of a king,
and the first document to require the consent of a body before
a leader could tax the people. This document laid the
foundation for the constitutional government many cultures
employ today.
 The plague killed a third of the
population of Europe between 1348
and 1349. led directly to the end of
the feudal system; because more
peasants died than nobles, they
became very valuable and were able
to negotiate salaries and working
conditions for the first time in history.
 Opposed wealthy priests…claimed
that all religious authority is from the
Bible, not the church. Translated the
Bible into English, making it
accessible to the common man and
removing the need of a priest.
 From the French for knight, chevalier.
A
code of conduct that knights sought to live
by…
 live to serve God and King
 never attack an unarmed for
 never attack from behind
 avoid lying, cheating, and torture to win
 protect the innocent
 respect women
 never abandon an ally or cause
 die with valor
 The most important literary figure from the
Medieval Era.
 Served the king as a spy, for which he was
rewarded with a comfortable government
job.
 However, when the new king took over,
Chaucer was out on the street. With his
free time, he began writing the Canterbury
Tales, a collection of stories that is 17,000
lines long.
 It centers around a group of travelers
headed out on a religious pilgrimage. They
engage in a story telling contest, which
Chaucer reports. It is notable for the picture
of medieval culture which it paints, as well
as the excellence of the stories it contains.
 Real, fake, a combination—who
knows?
 There was apparently an actual
grave, with an actual stone cross—
but it disappeared in the 18th century.
 Most scholars believe that Arthur is
an amalgam of many people,
primarily taking his roots from a fifthcentury tribal king.
 By the time his story was written
down (800), a lot had been added.
 Most comes from Thomas Malory, a
French poet, who wrote La Morte
d’Arthur in 1485.
 Britain’s own Lord Tennyson wrote
Idylls of the King in the late 1800s.
 From these two sources, we get most
of our movies and stories.
 Regarding medieval literature:
The primacy of the church
The untouchableness of the clergy
The importance of works to faith
The static state of social class, giving
way to the birth of a middle class after the
plague
The birth of popular literature