Transcript Medieval England

Medieval England
1066 - 1485
Kings and Queen
1016 - King Cnut
• Danes incorporated England into
Scandinavian Empire
• England prospered
• English counties - shires and shire reefs
• London - 15,000
King Edward the Confessor
• More concerned with religion - foreign
eyes look to England
• Four people interested
– King of Norway
– Duke of Normandy
– Tastig - Earl of Northumbria
– Harold - Hereditary ruler or Earl of Wessex
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Harold Crowned
Tastig and Norway invade
Harold won
Duke of Normandy won
– William of Normandy
William the Conqueror 1066
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Anglo-Saxon England perished
1066 - 1154 - Norman Rule
Pope endorsed William
William left England after conquering returned to put down revolts - no mercy
Law of Englishry
• Any Norman found slain would have a
grandiose funeral paid for by the people
of the village nearest to where the
person was killed
Feudalism
• William gave followers estates all over
England
• Tenants - in-chief to the King (Barons)
given number of knights - sub tenants
• Knights allocated parts to men who
actually worked the land - freeholders or
serfs
Doomsday Book
• A list of all the holdings in William’s
lands - for taxation purposes
As a result
• 500 castles within one generation
• Churches separated into parishes
Impact on population because
of Norman invasion
• North - 4 people per square mile
• St Albons - one town which today has
over 70,000 people had 46
William’s goals
• Bring England closer to Rome
• Keep Control
William II - 1087 - 1100
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Let people bribe their way to justice
Turned a lot of land into royal forests
Harsh punisher
August 1100 - William shot with an arrow
while hunting
• Tower of Winchester collapsed - testament to
his unworthiness
• Brother in forest on same day - immediately
crowned king
Henry I - 1100-1135
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Said to be first King to speak English
Severe but fair
Literate
Son drowned at death
Maud - Henry made heir
Barons wanted Stephen
Civil War
• Stephen - 1135-1154 and Maud fought
for 19 years
King Henry II - 1154-1189
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Maud’s son
House of Plantagenets
Scholar
Endless energy
The most learned monarch
Established common law - trial by jury to
replace trial by fire, water, or battle
• Trial by ordeal nor abolished until 1219
Conflict with Archbishop of
Canterbury Thomas Beckett
• Benefits of clergy
– Murder by canon of Bedford
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Man acquitted
Henry insisted on King’s court trial
Beckett refused
Left for 6 years
Threatened to excommunicate Henry
Henry seized Beckett’s property
Henry exiled Beckett’s relations
1170 - Archbishop of York crowned King
Literary association - Canterbury Tales
• Pope intercedes - Henry lets Beckett return
• Fresh Quarrels
• Henry says - “What a parcel of fools and
dastards I have nourished in my house that
none of them will avenge me of this one
upstart priest”
• Four knights take him seriously
• Murder Beckett in Canterbury Cathedral
• 1170 - Beckett canonized
• 1174 - Henry makes public apology and
is scourged by 70 monks
Henry II - remaining 15 years
• Married Eleanor of Aquitaine
• Fell in love with Rosamund
• Eleanor sparks sons against Henry - Go to
war with sons and King of France
• 1189 - agrees to pay indemnity to Richard’s
followers
• Seeing John’s name on list - turns his head to
the wall and says “Enough! Let things go as
they may. I care no more for myself or the
world.”
• 6 July 1189 - Henry dies
Richard I - The Lionheart
• Romantic Cavalry leader - fancied himself an
Arthurian Knight
– 10 years reign, hardly ten months spent in
England
– Took part in 3rd crusade and sold everything to
finance it - Robin Hood
– Said “I would sell London itself if I could find a
purchaser rich enough to buy it.”
– Sold Throne of Scotland back to King
– Died in Battle
King John - 1199-1216
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About 5 feet tall
Appetite for women
Violent temper
Lacked firmness of mind
Superstitious
Coward
Irreligious
1209 - excommunicated from the church
Magna Carta
• Baron’s revolt
• King put his seal on it in 1215 at
Runnymede
• A statement of feudal rights and legal
relationship between the barons and the
crown. Limitation of powers of the king.
Human Rights and Magna
Carta
• Had some clauses which promised
more general rights
– To none will we sell, to none will we refuse
of deny justice
– No freeman shall be arrested or
imprisoned or outlawed or exiled except by
the lawful judgment of his peers and the
law of the land
– Virtually nothing was said about serfs
John fights Barons
• Said he was forced to sign the Charter
• Barons got help from King of France
• French army landed - John fled
contracted dysentery and died on Oct.
19, 1216
King Henry III 1216-1272
• Very young listened to tutor and foreign
ministers more than the Barons
• Extremely pious - paid little attention to
country
• King demanded money to have his son
crowned King of Sicily and his brother
King of the Romans - Barons revolted
Barons Revolt
• Civil War - Henry III defied Barons - they
wanted a great council to be appointed with
24 members
• 1264 - king and son Edward defeated and
first Parliament met
• Edward escaped, rallied support, massacred
Barons army in 1265
• Had leader of Barons - Simon De Montfort’s
body chopped up and sent to different parts
of England - displayed as a warning.
Edward I - The Longshanks 1272-1307
• Tall, commanding figure
• Ate sparingly, drank little but water
• Deeply devoted to wife – Eleanor of
Castille. When she passed, he had
crosses set up one was at Charing
which became Charing Cross railway
station – a replica now stands in the
station.
1272
• Henry III died – Edward returned from
8th crusade
– Presided over
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Continuing development of Parliament
Reform of law
Predominance of public over private justice
Expelled Jews who were already forced to wear
a badge, not employ Christians, and march at
the head of the armies
Wales
• Long resisted penetration
• Kept own language and fostered dislike
among the people towards the English
• Prince of Wales – killed in battle, Welsh
Independence lost
• 1301 – Edward took Wales, Prince born
– Edward II – 1st Prince of Wales
Scotland
• Resisted King’s army
• 1296 – Edward’s forces – 35,000 –
defeated Scots, took King prisoner.
Took Stone of Scone on which the
Scottish Kings sat to be throned back to
England – put under coronation chair in
Westminster
Sir William Wallace
• Scots refused to be subdued
• Wallace led rebellion, captured, hung,
drawn, and quartered
Sir Robert Bruce
• King of Scotland – defeated the English
at Bannock Burn –June 24, 1314
1295
• Model Parliament – House of Commons
– two knights from every shire
– Two delegates from every city and borough
– Had to be threatened to attend
Upper House – House of Lords
Edward I death
• Bones carried from place to place when
England marched against Scotland
• Motto changed from “Pactum Serva” –
Keep Faith and added Scotorum
Malleus – Hammer of the Scots
• Wars cost money
13th Century
• Despite all the wars, great time of rebuilding
and building
• 1281 – St. Peter’s College
– Grammar, philosophy, theology, not law
– Lectures in Latin
– Student inns established named after Knight’s
Templar – protected travelers to the Holy Land
Edward II 1307-1327
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Ill-educated
Indiscreet
Heavy drinker, petulant temper
Frequently engaged in theatricals when
affairs of state required his attention
• Effeminate
• 1312 – Barons had his intimate friend
carried away and cut off his head
1322
• Edward was entertaining new friends –
The Dispensers
• Barons rose against Edward II and were
defeated
• Edward’s wife left him and went to
France with their son
• Queen, Baron of Wigmore – Roger
Mortimer return
• Found English supporters, hired
mercenaries and defeated the King
• Gave the Despensers a traitor’s death
Edward II Death
• Put in prison
• Held in a dark cell over a charnel house
in hopes he would catch a fatal disease
• He didn’t
• Murdered by having a hot spit put up his
backside and burning his entrails
• View in coffin – no one could tell he was
murdered
Edward III 1327-1377
• Extravagant
• Ostentatious
• Extremely brave, fancied himself an Arthurian
knight
• Turned his attention to France – for adventure
and since Scots were asking France for help
• Thwart French moves against Flanders –
English wool
France
• Claimed French throne through his
mother – he declared war – 100 years
war
• Success – son – The Black Prince
• King Edward III – took city of Calais
• The Black Prince took French King
prisoner
Treaty of Bretigny
• Edward III gained control over territories
from the Loire to the Pyrenees
• Edward III returned to England with a lot
of French treasure
• Order of the Garter
• Extravagant parties
1348 – The Plague
• The great mortality
• Came into the South coast of England
at Melcombe
• 1348 – Cooler weather halted plague
• 1349 – Spring - renewed spread
• 1300 – pop – 4,250,000
• 1380 – pop – 2,500,000
The Black Death
• Contributed to the macabre nature of
medieval literature
• Created far-reaching changes in English
Society
– Labor shortage – plentiful supply of land
– Peasants were able to increase their
holdings
1351 – Statute Of Laborers
• An effort to overcome financial and
social problems
– Crimes
• Peasants asking for more wages than the rates
laid down by the justice of the peace
• Any laborer who left their employees to seek
higher wages would be branded with an F on
the forehead as a sign of falsehood
Laborers can’t dress as landlords, nor “common
lewd women” like “good noble dames.”
• Taxes levied on everyone over 15
• WIDESPREAD DISCONTENT
Rebellion
• Jon Wycliff spoke for disendowment of
the church and a return to evangelical
poverty.
• Manors and religious houses attacked
• Lords and priests murdered
• Wat Tyler
- led the men of Essex and
Kent –
Wat Tyler
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Ransacked Archbishop of Canterbury’s place
Released prisoners from Fleet prison
Attacked the houses of foreign ministers
Attacked Savoy Palace – blew up the house –
32 men in cellar were killed
• Stormed tower
• Killed Lord Treasurer and Archbishop of
Canterbury. Heads put on sticks
King Richard II
• 14 years old – met with rebels and
acceded to their requests
• Fight broke out
• Richard rode into middle and stopped it
• Poll tax was abandoned
King Richard II 1377-1399
1381-1485
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Tenants becoming prosperous farmers
Demand for wool
Arable fields made into pasture
Comfortable homes – brick
1416 – brick
1440 – Eton college built of brick
Henry IV
• Supplanted Richard II in 1399
• First Lancastrian king
• No more able to come to terms with
Parliament than those before him
• Hotspur and Hal
Henry V – 1413-1422
• Great soldier
• Energetic
• Had a far from indisputable claim on the
throne
• Went to war with France – demanded
territories be returned under Treaty of
Bretigny
Henry V
• Overwhelmed French at Agincourt on
St. Crispin’s Day 1415
• French army was four times the size of
England’s
• Married French king’s daughter
• Died at age 35
1453
• 100 years war lost
• Joan of Arc
Henry VI
• 8 months old in 1422 – lost more than
France
• Simple-minded and kind, but lost his
reason in 1453
• Died a prisoner in the tower in 1471
The War of the Roses
• The Lancastrians versus The Yorkists
• Henry VI – Lancastrian – red rose
• Richard, Duke of York, descendent of
Edward III – Yorkist – white rose
• Thirty years – two factions fought.
• Caused havoc but left the people alone
Edward - Duke of York’s son
• Emerged victor in 1461
• Deposed Henry VI
• Had all leading opponents killed in
battle or executed
Edward IV – 1461-1470, 14711483
• Restored finances and trade
• Dispensed with parliament since so
many members had been killed in War
of the Roses
• Loved by citizens of London
• Died in 1483 – 13 year old son –
Edward V - heir
Edward V
• While awaiting coronation in the tower,
disappeared
• Under the guard of Richard, Duke of
York, who was in office of protector
• Edward and his younger brother never
emerged from the tower
Richard III – 1483-1485
• Historians disagree on Richard’s
character
• Reign did not last long
• Killed in August 1485 in the last battle of
the War of the Roses – Henry Tudor
defeated him
• Henry married Elizabeth of York and
united the houses of York and
Lancaster, new symbol two roses - one
red, one white
• Fifteenth century was “futile, bloody,
and immoral”
• “a background to a society that is
violent, dirty, and overdressed.”