Language, literature and culture

The growth of literacy in England was closely connected with the twelfth-century Renaissance, a cultural movement which had first started in Italy. Its influence moved northwards along the trade routes, reaching England at the end of the century. This revolution in ideas and learning brought a new desire to test religious faith against reason. Schools of learning were established in many towns and cities. Some were "grammar" schools independent of the Church, while others were attached to a cathedral. All of these schools taught Latin, because most books were written in this language. Although it may seem strange for education to be based on a dead language, Latin was important because it was the educated language of almost all Europe, and was therefore useful in the spread of ideas and learning. In spite of the dangers, the Church took a lead in the new intellectual movement.

In England two schools of higher learning were established, the first at Oxford and the second at Cambridge, at the end of the twelfth century. By the 1220s these two universities were the intellectual leaders of the country.

Few could go to the universities. Most English people spoke neither Latin, the language of the Church and of education, nor French, the language of law and of the Norman rulers. It was a long time before English became the language of the ruling class. Some French words became part of the English language, and often kept a more polite meaning than the old Anglo-Saxon words. For example, the word "chair", which came from the French, describes a better piece of furniture than the Anglo-Saxon word "stool". In the same way, the Anglo-Saxon word "belly" was replaced in polite society by the word "stomach". Other Anglo-Saxon words ceased to be used altogether.

The late Middle Ages. (three lectures)

Lecture Seven. The century of war, plague and disorder

War with Scotland and France. The age of chivalry. The century of plagues. The poor in revolt. Heresy and orthodoxy.

The fourteenth century was disastrous for Britain as well as most of Europe, because of the effect of wars and plagues. Probably one-third of Europe's population died of plague.

Britain and France suffered, too, from the damages of war. In the 1330s England began a long struggle against the French Crown. In France villages were raided or destroyed by passing armies. France and England were exhausted economically by the cost of maintaining armies. England had the additional Burden of fighting the Scots, and maintaining control of Ireland and Wales, both of which were trying to throw off English rule.

It is difficult to measure the effects of war and plague on fourteenth-century Britain, except in deaths. But one effect of both was an increasing challenge to authority. The heavy demands made by the king on gentry and merchants weakened the economic strength of town and countryside but increased the political strength of the merchants and gentry whenever they provided the king with money. The growth of in alliance between merchants and gentry at this rime was of the greatest importance for later political developments, particularly for the strength of Parliament against the king in the seventeenth century, and also for the strength of society against the dangers of revolution at the end of the eighteenth century. Finally, the habit of war created a new class of armed men in the countryside, in place of the old feudal system of forty days' service. These gangs, in reality local private armies, damaged the local economy but increased the nobles' ability to challenge the authority of the Crown. Already in 1327 one king had been murdered by powerful nobles, and another one was murdered in 1399. These murders weakened respect for the Crown, and encouraged repeated struggles for it amongst the' king's most powerful relations. In the following century a king, or a king's eldest son, was killed in 1461, 1471, 1483 and 1485. But in the end the nobles destroyed themselves and as a class they disappeared.

Date: 2015-01-02; view: 2251