Transcript the middle ages

THE MIDDLE AGES
449-1485
THE MIDDLE AGES
•The Anglo-Saxon Period
o 449-1066
•The Medieval Period
o 1066-1485
THE NORMAN CONQUEST
• Battle of Hastings
o 1066
o Beginning of The
Medieval Period
o Harold, king of
England, defeated by
William the Conqueror,
Duke of Normandy
THE NORMAN CONQUEST
• Consequences of Norman Invasion
o Inventory and seizure of property
o Martial law put into effect
o Strong central government established
▪ Lines of authority clearly defined
THE NORMAN CONQUEST
• William the Conqueror
o Efficient and ruthless
soldier
o Able administrator
o Able to conquer the entire
country
o Reigned for twenty-one
years
THE NORMAN CONQUEST
•The Normans
o Descended from the Vikings
o Seized and remained in northwestern
France (Normandy)
o Adopted many French customs
THE NORMAN CONQUEST
• Positives
THE NORMANS
o Superb soldiers
o Excellent
administrators
and lawyers
o Great borrowers
and adapters
• Negatives
o Lacked
inventiveness
o Lacked original
ideas
THE NORMAN CONQUEST
• The Fusing of the Norman and Anglo-Saxon Cultures
o Neither dominant
o Anglo-Saxons adapted to the Norman ways
▪ Realized they could raise their place in society
through the Church or through the court
▪ Began to mingle with the Norman overlords
Thomas Becket
o Henry II’s Lord Chancellor
o Archbishop of Canterbury
o Defended the claims of the
Church against the interests
of the King
o Murdered by several of
Henry’s knights
o Became a saint of the
Church and a hero of the
people
LAND & THE FEUDAL SYSTEM
• William had a great deal of land at his disposal
o Retained much for himself
o The rest he granted to his soldiers
o Felt he was free to deed land by royal charter
▪ Expected obedience and service in return
o Introduced into England the feudal system
LAND & THE FEUDAL SYSTEM
• Feudalism
o Nobody owned land independently
▪ Only as a vassal of an overlord, who in turn
owed allegiance either to some great noble
or the king
o Feudalism is an elaborate chain of loyalties
▪ Rent paid principally in military service to the
overlord
LAND & THE FEUDAL SYSTEM
•The Domesday Book
o Sometimes called Doomsday
o Created in 1086 by William
▪ Many disputes occurred over vague property lines
▪ A complete inventory of all property
▪ Listed all landowners and showed the extent of their claims
▪ Taxes could now be based on real property
▪ Previously, there had been a uniformed tax for all
THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH
•Responsible for creating a
common culture & a common
set of beliefs in Western
Europe from the 11th to 15th
century
•Despite national loyalty, every
person was responsible to the
Church
•Latin became the language of
all educated persons
•Continued to be the dominant
force in preserving and
transmitting culture
•The Church grew and
prospered during the period
MEDIEVAL LIFE
•As the period progressed, herding became more important than
farming
o Common people now paid their overlords from their wages
rather than in farm labor
o Wide-spread production and exportation of wool encouraged
the growth of cities in the north
▪ More people began to live in towns instead of manors
▪ Many became immensely rich
▪ Developed native forms of literature, songs and ballads,
and a native drama
MEDIEVAL LIFE
•These new merchants were the first to form
guilds
o Societies to regulate prices and standards
o Cottage workers also eventually formed guilds
o The guild system encouraged a kind of extended
family life
MEDIEVAL LIFE
•With prosperity and growth in
population, the English turned to other
kinds of work
o The great English cathedrals
o Often took several hundred years to build
MEDIEVAL LIFE
• Winchester
Cathedral
MEDIEVAL LIFE
• Lincoln
Cathedral
MEDIEVAL LIFE
• Salisbury
Cathedral
MEDIEVAL LIFE
• Yorkminster
Cathedral
MEDIEVAL LIFE
•Guilds were founded for many of these
workers
o Stonecutters and masons
o Carpenters
o Glass blowers
o Stainers
MEDIEVAL LIFE
• Life in the Middle Ages was difficult and
challenging
o Travel was difficult and challenging
o Most food had to be consumed in season
▪ No refrigeration
o Winters were difficult
o The difficulty of life was balanced with
religious festivals, magnificent tournaments,
and brilliant pageantry
MEDIEVAL LIFE
• Medieval
Clothing
MEDIEVAL LIFE
• Medieval
Clothing
MEDIEVAL LIFE
• Medieval
Tournament
MEDIEVAL LIFE
• Medieval
Festival
ENGLISH LAW
• William the Conqueror instituted written public
documents for most government actions
o Common Law
▪ Refers to law common to the whole
country and all its people, instead of laws
applying only to certain classes of persons
o Primogeniture
▪ Gave the firstborn son exclusive right to
inherit his father’s titles, lands and estates
ENGLISH LAW
• Ordeals
o Innocence or guilt was
settled by tasks
o In 1215, Pope Innocent III
declared that the ordeal
system was irrational
o Secular governments had
to find a suitable
replacement for ordeals
o Jury system
ENGLISH LAW
• The Magna Carta
o In 1215, a group of angry
barons forced King John
(1199-1216) to sign the
Magna Carta
o Established that levies must
be made with the consent of
the barons
o Limited the king’s taxing
powers
o Foreshadowed the right of
trial by jury and the
beginnings of representative
THE CRUSADES
• The first Crusade was
proclaimed in 1095 by
Pope Urban II
THE CRUSADES
• Other Crusades
followed in 1191, 1202,
1217, and 1270
THE CRUSADES
• Each Crusade began
with a desire to
rescue Jerusalem
from the Turks
THE CRUSADES
• Most ended squalidly
in raiding, looting, and
a tangle of power
politics
THE CRUSADES
• Results of the Crusades
o Christian Europe exposed to Arabic culture
o Commercial and intellectual horizons broadened
o Knowledge and all manners of refinements in
living were brought back from the East
o Encouraged the ideal of true knightly behavior
known as chivalry
▪ Considerable importance in literature
▪ Joined to the companion idea of romance
The Hundred Years’ War
• 1337-1453
• The English monarchy never voluntarily
relinquished its hold on its French
possessions
•Numerous costly wars in France, culminating
in the Hundred Years’ War
•Eventually England was driven from France
The Hundred Years’ War
• The Longbow
o Used by the English
from the time of Edward
I (1272-1307)
o Six-foot bows
o Yard-long arrows
capable of piercing a
knight’s armor
o Longbows and
gunpowder did much to
end the Middle Ages
THE BLACK DEATH
• In 1348, the Black Death came to
England
o First of a series of plagues that killed more
than a third of the population
o Scarcity of labor caused by the plagues
resulted in the death of feudalism
THE WARS OF THE ROSES
•1455-1485
•Civil war between the House of York and
the House of Lancaster
o House of York’s emblem was the white rose
o House of Lancaster’s emblem was the red
rose
THE WARS OF THE ROSES
• In 1485, Henry VII
succeeded Richard III
• Henry united the
Henry VII
feuding families
through marriage
• Ended the wars and
founded the Tudor line
• With Henry’s
accession, the real
Middle Ages vanished
Richard III
MEDIEVAL LITERATURE
•Romance
o Medieval romance consisted largely of tales of
chivalry to which were added a love interest and
all sorts of wonders and marvels
▪ Fairy enchantments
▪ Giants
▪ Dragons
▪ Wizards
▪ Sorceresses
MEDIEVAL LITERATURE
Three Principal Sources
•Britain
o King Arthur and his knights
▪ Based on Celtic folklore
▪ Almost no historical
basis
▪ Illustrate chivalric ideals
of honor, courage,
courtesy, and service to
women
MEDIEVAL LITERATURE
Three Principal Sources
• France
o The court of
Charlemagne
MEDIEVAL LITERATURE
Three Principal Sources
• Rome
o Classical stories
such as the
conquest of
Troy
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
• 1340?-1400
• First great figure in
English literature
• Greatest work belongs
not to romance but to
poetic and humorous
realism
o The Canterbury Tales
FOLK POETRY AND DRAMA
•Ballads
o Came from the common people of early
England and Scotland
o Not written down but recited and sung
o Flourished in the 14th and 15th centuries
o Carefully collected and published in the 18th
century
o Influenced the whole German Romantic
movement and the English Romantic poets
FOLK POETRY AND DRAMA
•Drama
o Popular drama’s origins are in the Middle Ages
o Miracle Plays
▪ Performed by trade guilds during holiday times
celebrating religious festivals
▪ Rough dramatizations of Biblical stories
▪ Performed on large wagons or on platforms erected in
marketplaces or innyards
▪ Wicked characters were played as comic characters
FOLK POETRY AND DRAMA
o Morality Plays
▪ Took the place of miracle plays toward the end of the Middle
Ages, during the dark and troubled times of the 15th century
▪ Elaborate and sophisticated dramatic allegories in which
characters representing various virtues and vices confronted
one another
▪ Most famous was Everyman
▪ Still performed today
▪ Although not English in origin, a thoroughly English
adaptation of it soon became very popular