Transcript The Middle Ages 1066-1485

The Middle Ages
1066-1485
Katherine Wiley
Lake Cormorant High School
The Timeline
The Domesday
book is compiled,
1086
King John signs
the Magna
Carta, 1215
The Knights Templar
founded, 1119
Thomas a Becket is
murdered, 1170
Geoffrey Chaucer
is born, 1343
The Hundred
Year’s War
begins between
France and
England, 1337
The Crusades
end, 1270
The Crusades
begin, 1095
Black Death
strikes
England, 1348
Geoffrey Chaucer
dies, 1400
Robin Hood is
created, 1378
John Wycliffe’s
followers become the
first people to ever
translate the entire
Bible into English, 1380
Sir Gawain
and the
Green Knight
is written,
1348
Joan of Arc is
burned at the
stake, 1431
Henry VII,
becomes
king,
beginning
the Tudor
dynasty,
1485
The War of
the Roses ,
1455-1485
William
the Conqueror
• Was the cousin of Edward the Confessor,
who was king of England until his death in
1066
• Edward died without a successor, and a
man named Harold became king
• William killed Harold, ending the AngloSaxon era, and became the first true King of
England
• He was the leader of the Normans
• With them, the Normans brought
administrative ability, an emphasis on law
and order, and cultural unity to Europe to
add to the more democratic and artistic
tendencies of the Anglo-Saxons
• His greatest achievement was the
Domesday Book, which cataloged all land
ownership in England. It was significant
because it meant that for the first time in
English history, people could be taxed
based on what they owned.
• The Normans also brought a
new social system to
England- more than a social
system, it was a:
– caste system
– property system
– military system
• Based on a religious
hierarchy with God as the
supreme overlord
• According to the Feudal
system, a king received the
throne from God, and that
king could appoint those
beneath him and promise
them land in return for their
military or monetary
allegiance.
Feudalism &
the Feudalism
Pyramid
Life as a Knight
• The invention of the crossbow required men
to start wearing stronger armor than chain
mail.
• Starting in childhood, boys were trained to be
warriors
• Young boys were trained to be knights in
homes other than those that belonged to
their parents to ensure that the training was
strict.
• Knighthood was grounded in the ideals of
chivalry and loyalty.
• Suits of armor were very uncomfortable and
dangerous- they average suit weighed 120 lbs
and consisted of 200 metal plates.
• One poet described an armored knight as a
“terrible worm in an iron cocoon”
• As a result of the armor they wore, many
knights died of:
–
–
–
–
Drowning
Heat stroke
Suffocation
Heart failure
• Chivalry- a system of ideals and social
codes governing the behavior of
knights and gentle-women
– One must remain loyal to his or her
overlord
– One must never attack an unarmed
opponent
– Gave rise to a new form of literaturethe Romance
• Courtly Love
– The idea that revering and acting in
the name of a lady would make a
knight braver and better was central to
Courtly Love
– Nonsexual
– A knight would wear his lady’s colors
in battle, glorify her in words, and be
inspired by her, but she always
remained pure and out of reach
– Women were highly valued and
respected, but had absolutely no
rights
Chivalry &
Courtly
Love
The Life & Murder of Thomas a Becket
• was a friend of King Henry VII
• became Prime Minister of England under Henry’s rule
• Henry named him Archbishop of Canterbury (head of the Church
of England)
• Henry hoped that by naming Becket the head of the church, he
would have the upper hand in disputes with the Pope
• Becket, however, agreed with the Pope more often than he did
with Henry
• Enraged, Henry said, “Will no one rid me of this turbulent
priest?”
• Taking him seriously, four of Henry’s knights murdered Becket in
the cathedral of his church. One eyewitness wrote,
“Then the third knight inflicted a terrible wound as he lay, by which
the sword was broken against the pavement, and the crown which
was large was separated from the head, so that the blood white with
the brain, and the brain, red blood, dyed the surface of the virgin
mother Church with the life and the death of the confessor and martyr
in the colors of the lily and the rose.”
Artists’
Renderings of
Becket’s Murder
The Shrine of
St. Thomas a Becket
The Hundred
Years’ War
• The first national war
• Fought between England
and France
• Started because two
English kings, Edward III
and Henry V both claimed
that they had the claim to
the French throne
• The English lost, but they
found a great asset in
Yeoman- small landowners
who were able to shoot
arrows very long distances.
The Black Death
• AKA the Bubonic Plague
• Highly contagious disease that
was spread by fleas that had
bitten infected rats
• Wiped out one to two thirds
of England’s population
• Killed 100 Million people in
Europe between 1348 and
1350
• 4 of 5 people infected died
within eight days
• Symptoms included:
– fever, headache, cough, bloody
sputum, oozing buboes
Buboe on a
girl’s neck
The hand of someone who
died of the Black Death
The garb worn by
doctors who
treated the
Plague in the
Middle Ages 
Buboe on a boy’s
thigh, very close
to the groin area
A Bubonic Plague Victim
Other Things that happened in the Middle Ages…
• Cities and city classes, such as lower, middle, and upper-middle
began to develop.
• The Crusades- a series of wars waged by European Christians against
the Muslims, with Jerusalem and the Holy Land as the prize
• King John signed the Magna Carta in 1215, limiting the power of the
church. It later became the basis for English constitutional law.
• The Chinese discovered gunpowder in 1325. Because of it, the
castles, which were previously impenetrable, had to worry about
being attacked by new weapons, like canons.
• The church was the center of learning, and its language, Latin, was
the international language of all educated Europeans. The church
also fostered cultural unity.
• The Knights Templar were founded- their mission was to protect
pilgrims to the Holy Land.
• The Wars of the Roses were fought between the Lancasters and the
Yorks from 1455-1485