From Legend to History A.D. 449-1485

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From Legend to HistoryA.D. 449-1485

• The Old English and Medieval Periods

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The Conquest of Britain

• Between 800 and 600 B.C. two groups of Celts from
  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.

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• The next conquerors of Britain 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.

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The Anglo-Saxon Invaders
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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.

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Saxon Terminology

• Mead Hall Large structure were kings 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.

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Saxon Terminology cont

• 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 victims family when
  a member of their family or tribe had been
  killed.
• Witon- Group of Kings elders or wise men.
• Mail- flexible body armor made of metal.

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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.

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The Great KingKing Alfred

• In 871, a king ascended to the Wessex throne who
  would be the only ruler in Englands 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.

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Alfreds England

• Alfreds England took the following look to the
  right under his truce of 886.
• Alfreds achievements went far beyond the
  battlefield. He encouraged a rebirth of learning
  and education.

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• 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.

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The Feudal System

• 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.

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The Reign of Henry II

• Norman rule ended in 1154 when Henry Plantagenet
  came to the throne as Henry II.
• Henrys concern with legal matters led him into
  direct conflict with the Church. When the
  archbishops 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.

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The Martyr

• Some of Henrys 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 Beckets tomb.
• Thereafter, a pilgrimage to Beckets shrine at
  Canterbury became a common English means of
  showing religious devotion.

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King John and the Magna Carta

• 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 barons 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.

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The Black Death

• Between 1348-1349 as the Bubonic Plague swept
  across England a third of Englands 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.

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• The Plague across Europe

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The Dance of Death

• 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
  plagues victims ate lunch with their families
  and dinner with their ancestors in Paradise.

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Anglo-Saxon Literature

• 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
  Englands 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 Bedes History,
  these records were written in Old English, the
  earliest form of our own language.

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BeowulfThe English National Epic

• 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.

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What is an epic???

• 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.

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Medieval Drama

• 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.

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A New Invention

• 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.

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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.

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The Canterbury Tales

• Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales in his later
  years. No one knows for certain what prompted him
  to begin this work. Chaucers 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.

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The Canterbury Tales

• Chaucers 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 Chaucers framing
  method.
• This method may have been modeled after the
  Italian writer Boccaccios method which was used
  in the Decameron.

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The Canterbury Tales cont

• Chaucers Canterbury Tales is written in Middle
  English which can be heard in the following
  reading from The Prologue.

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Chaucers Characters

• Chaucers 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.

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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.

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The Pardoner

• The Pardoner is one of Chaucers more corrupt
  characters.
• He sells pardons to the highest bidder.
• He also sells fake holy relics.
• He preaches on the dangers of greed, but doesnt
  practice what he preaches.
• His tale deals with the saying, The love of
  money is the root of all evil.

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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 knights
  of the round table.
• Arthurs tales are considered to be legend, a
  blend of fact and fiction.
• These tales shine light on the concepts of
  chivalry and courtly love.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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 bodys cruelty.
• The knight will never give up.
• The woman is exalted.

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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.

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Literary terms to know

• Kenning- a metaphor that uses compound words
  like earths 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 characters personality.