ptashkin_countrystudy

§6. The Roman Period (43-410)

After capturing the south of the island, the Romans turned their attention to what is now Wales. The Silures, Ordovices and Deceangli remained implacably opposed to the invaders and for the first few decades were the focus of Roman military attention, despite occasional minor revolts among Roman allies like the Brigantes and the Iceni. The Silures were led by Caratacus, and he carried out an effective guerilla campaign against Governor Publius Ostorius Scapula. Finally, in 51 AD, Ostorius lured Caratacus into a set-piece battle and defeated him. The British leader sought refuge among the Brigantes, but their queen, Cartimandua, proved her loyalty by surrendering him to the Romans. He was brought as a captive to Rome, where a dignified speech he made during Claudius’s triumph persuaded the emperor to spare his life. However, the Silures were still not pacified, and Cartimandua’s exhusband Venutius replaced Caratacus as the most prominent leader of British resistance.

In 60–61 AD, while Governor Gaius Suetonius Paulinus was campaigning in Wales, the southeast of Britain rose in revolt under the leadership of Boudica. Boudica was the widow of the recently deceased king of the Iceni, Prasutagus. The Roman historian Tacitus reports that Prasutagus had left a will leaving half his kingdom to Nero in the hope that the remainder would be left untouched. He was wrong. When his will was enforced, Rome responded by violently seizing the tribe’s lands in full. Boudica protested. In consequence, Rome punished her and her daughters by flogging and rape. In response, the Iceni, joined by the Trinovantes, destroyed the Roman colony at Camulodunum (Colchester) and routed the part of the IXth Legion that was sent to relieve it. Suetonius Paulinus rode to London, the rebels’ next target, but concluded it could not be defended. Abandoned, it was destroyed, as was Verulamium (St. Albans). Between seventy and eighty thousand people are said to have been killed in the three cities. But Suetonius regrouped with two of the three legions still available to him, chose a battlefield, and, despite being heavily outnumbered, defeated the rebels in the Battle of Watling Street. Boudica died not long afterwards, by self-administered poison or by illness.

There was further turmoil in 69 AD, the “year of four emperors”. As civil war raged in Rome, weak governors were unable to control the legions in Britain, and Venutius of the Brigantes seized his chance. The Romans had previously defended Cartimandua against him, but this time were unable to do so. Cartimandua was evacuated, and Venutius was left in control of the north of the country. After Vespasian secured the empire, his first two

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appointments as governor, Quintus Petillius Cerialis and Sextus Julius Frontinus, took on the task of subduing the Brigantes and Silures respectively. Frontinus extended Roman rule to all of South Wales, and initiated exploitation of the mineral resources, such as the gold mines at Dolaucothi.

In the following years, the Romans conquered more of the island, increasing the size of Roman Britain. Governor Gnaeus Julius Agricola, father-in-law to the historian Tacitus, conquered the Ordovices in 78 AD. With the XXth Valeria Victrix legion, Agricola defeated the Caledonians in 84 AD at the Battle of Mons Graupius, in northern Scotland. This was the high water mark of Roman territory in Britain: shortly after his victory, Agricola was recalled from Britain back to Rome, and the Romans retired to a more defensible line along the Forth-Clyde isthmus, freeing soldiers badly needed along other frontiers.

For much of the history of Roman Britain, a large number of soldiers were garrisoned on the island. This required that the emperor station a trusted senior man as governor of the province. As a result, many future emperors served as governors or legates in this province, including Vespasian, Pertinax, and Gordian I.

The suppression of the Celts was a hard job and the Romans were frightened. They must have decided to think twice before they violated the Celtic people’s rights too impudently. They began making use of the Celtic aristocracy to govern the province and encouraging this ruling class to adopt Roman dress and language (Latin).

Gradually the Celtic population became divided into the Romanized and un-Romanized Celts. The Celts of Ireland and Scotland remained irreconcilable opponents of the Romans. Although the Romans occupied Britain for some four hundred years, they did not dislodge the Celtic language. Another thing the Romans never succeeded in dislodging was the warlike northern tribes. The un-Romanized tribes harassed both the Romans and the Romanized Celts, periodically raiding the settlements of the Roman province. In 121 AD the Emperor Hadrian ordered a wall to be erected (Hadrian’s Wall) across the northern border of the province of Britannia (along nearly the same line as the present English-Scottish border) in order to protect its territory from attacks by the northern Celtic tribes.

To defend Italy against the Germanic tribes Rome had to recall its legions from Britain (407–410 AD). The Celts were left to themselves but there was no peace in Britain. Its population was torn with civil strife. The northern Celtic tribes increased their raids. The Romanized Celts found themselves without Roman protection. The situation in Britain made a united resistance impossible in the face of a very dangerous enemy.

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§7. The Germanic Invasion

The Germanic tribe of the Jutes was the first to arrive. Other Germanic tribes followed in their wake. During the 5h c., a number of tribes from the mainland invaded and settled in large numbers. Two of these tribes were the Angles and the Saxons. Soon the Saxons occupied the south and the southwest of the country. The Angles settled in the east and northwards. Celtic resistance continued for a long time, but by the end of the 6th c. the AngloSaxons and their way of life predominated in nearly all of present-day England and in southern Scotland. The Celtic Britons were either Saxonized or driven westwards and northwards.

By the end of the 6th c. Kent became the kingdom of the Jutes; the Angles had three kingdoms – Northumbria, East Anglia, Mercia; the Saxons had three kingdoms too – Essex, Sussex, Wessex.

The Anglo-Saxons disliked towns. They preferred to live in villages. In the course of the conquest they destroyed the Roman towns and villas. All the beautiful buildings and roads soon fell in ruins.

The traditional view has been deconstructed to a degree since the 1990s. At the centre of this is a re-estimation of the numbers of Anglo-Saxons arriving in Britain during this period. A lower figure is sometimes accepted, which would mean that it is highly unlikely that the existing British population was substantially displaced by the Anglo-Saxons. The Saxons are thus seen as a ruling elite coexisting with the local population, with “Saxon” graves possibly those of Britons.

The traditional view of mass Anglo-Saxon migration and violent invasion is most challenged by the historian and archaeologist Francis Pryor who believes that northern European migration to Britain was a slow, peaceful and limited process resulting in an infusion of culture. This view was strongly expressed in his Discovery Channel television program “Britain AD: King Arthur’s Britain” and in his book Britain AD: a quest for Arthur, England and the Anglo-Saxons.

§7.1. The Anglo-Saxon Society and Culture

The Anglo-Saxon population was mainly divided into eorls and ceorls. The eorl was a man of noble birth, and the ceorl was a simple freeman. Above the eorls stood the king, that is, chief, later – the founder of the royal dynasty. Below the ceorls were slaves taken in war or condemned to slavery as criminals.

The invasion in Britain brought about a considerable change in the structure of the Anglo-Saxon society. Former tribal organization was modified

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by strengthening the military element. There appeared a class of professional warriors who swore fealty to their chiefs in return for gifts and land obtained by war.

The most powerful figure in this social structure was the king. There were several kings at the beginning of the Anglo-Saxon period. Kings used to employ eorls to govern territories. Kings and eorls were actual rulers. They made up the so-called military aristocracy.

Professional warriors – thanes – were in rank between nobles and ordinary men. As servants of the king the status of ‘thane’ gradually rose, until they formed the nobility of the kingdom.

The lowest in the ranks of freemen were ceorls. The ceorl was a farmer, usually holding a hide, whereas the thane had a much larger holding, not less than 5 hides and often much more.

Anglo-Saxon art before roughly the time of Alfred (ruled 871–899) is mostly in varieties of the Hiberno-Saxon or Insular style, a fusion of AngloSaxon and Celtic techniques and motifs. The Sutton Hoo treasure is an exceptional survival of very early Anglo-Saxon metalwork and jewellery, from a royal grave of the early 7th century. The period between Alfred and the Norman Conquest, with the revival of the English economy and culture after the end of the Viking raids, saw a distinct Anglo-Saxon style in art, though one in touch with trends on the Continent.

Old English, sometimes called Anglo-Saxon, was the language spoken under Alfred the Great and continued to be the common language of England

(non-Danelaw) until after the Norman Conquest of 1066 when, under the influence of the Anglo-Norman language spoken by the Norman ruling class, it changed into Middle English roughly between 1150–1500.

Old English is far closer to early Germanic than Middle English. It is less Latinised and retains many morphological features (nominal and verbal inflection) that were lost during the 12th to 14th centuries. The languages today which are closest to Old English are the Frisian languages, which are spoken by a few hundred thousand people in the northern part of Germany and the Netherlands.

Old English literary works include genres such as epic poetry, hagiography, sermons, Bible translations, legal works, chronicles, riddles and others. In all there are about 400 surviving manuscripts from the period, a significant corpus of both popular interest and specialist research.

The most famous works from this period include the poem Beowulf, which has achieved national epic status in Britain. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of important early English history. Cædmon’s Hymn from the

7th century is the earliest attested literary text in English. 23

Early Anglo-Saxon buildings in Britain were generally simple, not using masonry except in foundations but constructed mainly using timber with thatch for roofing. Generally preferring not to settle within the old Roman cities, the Anglo-Saxons built small towns near their centres of agriculture, at fords in rivers or sited to serve as ports. In each town, a main hall was in the centre, provided with a central hearth.

§7.2. The Anglo-Saxons and Christianity

During the years of the Roman occupation Christianity had become established in many parts of Britain, but the Anglo-Saxons were pagan and it was only among the Celts that Christianity survived.

At the end of the 6th c. King Kent, Athelbert, married the daughter of the King of the Franks, creating a fresh tie between the island and Gaul.

Athelbert’s wife, like her kinsfolk, was a Christian. This marriage was an opportunity which was at once seized by the Roman-Catholic Church. In 597, Pope Gregory the Great sent a Roman abbot, Augustine, at the head of a group of monks, to preach the gospel to the Anglo-Saxons.

Canterbury, the capital of Kent, became the centre of Roman influence. After King Athelbert’s conversion to Christianity thousands of the

inhabitants of Kent were baptized too. But Athelbert’s efforts to spread the new faith outside Kent caused a resistence and war which lasted through fifty years and ended only in the middle of the 7th c.

The terrible struggle was followed by a season of peace. The spread of

Christianity brought about very important changes in the life of the AngloSaxons. Christianity became the basis for the growth of learning and culture in Britain. The Roman monks brought with them many books. They were all written in Latin and Greek. Later the Anglo-Saxon monks began to use the Roman alphabet to represent the sounds of their own language. The first written documents in English appeared at the end of the 7th century.

The centre of learning was Northumbria. Its rich monasteries were crammed with manuscripts bound in gold and ornamented with precious stones.

The Synod of Whitby in 664 forms a significant watershed in that King Oswiu of Northumbria decided to follow Roman rather than Celtic practices. The spokesman of the dominant faction was St. Wilfrid, who had been much impressed by the power and lavish life style of the Roman Church in comparison with the austerity and subservience to local rulers of the Celtic Church. Using subsidiary arguments about Easter and the tonsure, Wilfrid established the model of the Church as not ultimately answerable to the local king but to the Archbishop and to the Pope. It became a tradition for each

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Archbishop of Canterbury to receive the pallium from the Pope in Rome This issue was to be frequently revisited until the Reformation.

Most of the north and east of England had already been evangelised by the Irish Church. However, Sussex and the Isle of Wight remained mainly pagan until the arrival of Saint Wilfrid, the exiled Archbishop of York, who converted Sussex around AD 681 and the Isle of Wight in 683.

It remains unclear what ‘conversion’ actually meant. The ecclesiastical writers tended to declare a territory as ‘converted’ merely because the local king had agreed to be baptized, regardless of whether, in reality, he actually adopted Christian practices; and regardless, too, of whether the general population of his kingdom did.

When churches were built, they tended to include pagan as well as Christian symbols, evidencing an attempt to reach out to the pagan AngloSaxons, rather than demonstrating that they were already converted.

Even after Christianity had been set up in all of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, there was friction between the followers of the Roman rites and the Irish rites, particularly over the date on which Easter fell and the way monks cut their hair.

§8. The Danish Invasion

§8.1. The First Danish Invasion (The Vikings)

The first Vikings raiders came to Britain in 789. They came from the territory of present-day Denmark and Norway, invaded England, occupying large areas in the north and east of the country (Northumbria, East Anglia, eastern Mercia). They made York their capital. The monasteries of Northumbria were looted. The books were ripped to pieces for their rich ornaments. The monks fled or were killed.

It was only thanks to the skill and bravery of Alfred the Great (r. 871–900). King of Wessex, that peace was achieved. He built many fortresses and England’s first fighting ships. He could not drive the Vikings away but he made peace by letting them stay in the north and east of England. The part of the country left under Viking control was called the Danelaw.

The Kingdom of Wessex controlled part of the Midlands and the whole of the South (apart from Cornwall, which was still held by the Britons), while the Danes held East Anglia and the North.

Kingdoms, centres of learning, archives, and churches all fell before the onslaught from the invading Danes. Only the Kingdom of Wessex was able to survive.

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In the 10th century Alfred’s descendants managed to subdue the Vikings and reconquer the Danelaw territory. King Edgar (r. 959-975) became the first king of all England.

The first wave of Viking attacks on England was the most devastating to Saxon civilization. Prior to the Viking attacks, the Angle and Saxon kingdoms were not unified, and had no means of common defense. Shortly after the first Viking attack, the kingdom of Wessex was founded under Egbert the Saxon, when he united the kingdom of Mercia and Anglia under the headship of the Western Saxons. Part of the motivation for this was to provide a common defense against the Vikings, but the Saxons seldom had an opportunity to fight a pitched battle against the Vikings since they typically attacked at night and were gone before an army could be raised against them. By 870 however, a great wave of Danish invaders wintered in England and began to set up permanent colonies. The Saxons opposed them and won a few battles, but after successive invasions they were utterly dispersed. By the time Alfred the Great came to the throne, his whole kingdom was in chaos. In spite of great difficulties, he unified the Saxons, rallied his forces, and won a great victory over the Danes at Edington. As a result of this victory, Guthrum the Danish leader agreed to become Christian and settle peaceably within Alfred’s realm. Eventually the region of Northumbria, which had been settled mainly by Angles, became heavily populated by Danes. Several more battles occurred between the Saxons and Anglo-Danish realms, but the worst of the Viking raids was past.

Another important development during this same period was the unification of most of the minor Viking tribes under Harold Fairhair in Norway. The original Vikings had been petty sea-kings, each without any overlord, but henceforth, Viking armies were sometimes sent in service to their king rather than acting entirely independently.

During the first half of the tenth century, the Saxon kingdom was well ruled by the sons and Grandsons of Alfred the great. During this period the Saxons regained territory that had previously fallen to the Danes. The battle of Brunanburh was particularly important because in it, the Danes and British Celts of Northumberland combined forces with the Scots, to do battle against the Saxons. The combined forces of all of the enemies of the Saxons at this time, could not prevail against them, and the dominance of the Saxon kingdom in England, over its rivals was assured.

§ 8.2. The Second Danish Invasion

The Scandinavian raids were renewed at the end of the 10th century in the reign of King Athelred II the Unready (r. 978-1016). After a fierce struggle England was made part of the Danish kingdom (including also Norway and Sweden) with the Danish ruler Canute (Cnut) as King (r. 1016–1035).

Cnut was to rule England for almost twenty years. The protection he lent against Viking raiders – with many of them under his command – restored the prosperity that had been increasingly impaired since the resumption of Viking attacks in the 980s. The resources he commanded in England helped him to establish control of the majority of Scandinavia too.

After Canute’s death in 1035 and then the death of his sons, Harald I and Harthacnut (the last died in 1042), the Anglo-Saxon nobility succeeded in restoring the old Anglo-Saxon dynasty to the throne of England. Edward, son of Athelred the Unready, was brought back from Normandy (the northern part of France) where he had had to stay at the court of Norman dukes, his relations on the mother’s side.

§9. The Norman Conquest

Edward the Confessor ruled from 1042 to 1066 AD. On his death, Harold II of England (r. 1066) and William, the duke of Normandy, contended for the throne. William killed Harold at the Battle of Hastings and became king. The crown of the Anglo-Saxon kings was put upon William’s head in the Westminster Abbey in London on the 25th of December. This ended the eventful year of 1066, in which England had three kings, Edward, Harold, and William.

William the Conqueror (r. 1066–1087) stripped the Anglo-Saxon nobility of its privileges and instituted feudalism. He ordered a survey of all property of the kingdom, which was recorded in the Domesday Book (1086). As part of his efforts to secure England, William ordered many castles, keeps, and mottes built – among them the central keep of the Tower of London, the White Tower. These fortifications allowed Normans to retreat into safety when threatened with rebellion and allowed garrisons to be protected while they occupied the countryside. The early castles were simple earth and timber constructions, later replaced with stone structures.

His sons, William II (r. 1087–1100) and Henry I (r. 1100–1135), continued to centralize the kingdom. Henry created the office of the Exchequer to monitor receipt of taxes. He used itinerant officials to curb the abuses of power at the local and regional level that had characterized William Rufus’

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unpopular reign, garnering the praise of the monkish chroniclers. The differences between the English and Norman populations began to break down during his reign and he himself married a descendant of the old English royal house. He made peace with the church after the disputes of his brother’s reign and the struggles with Anselm over the English investiture controversy (1103–07), but he could not smooth out his succession after the disastrous loss of his eldest son William in the wreck of the White Ship.

When Henry I died, leaving his daughter Matilda as his heir, the barons (feudal aristocrats) thought otherwise. Stephen of Blois, Henry’s nephew, was placed on the throne (r. 1135–1154). For 19 years the wars waged between Matilda and her cousin, Stephen of Blois, were racking the country bringing famine and ruin to the peasants and enriching the Norman barons who gave their support now to one and then to the other selling it for lands and privileges.

At last, the two sides came to a compromise in 1153: Stephen was to be king, and after his death the throne was to be left to Henry of Anjou, Matilda’s son. A year later Stephen died, and a new dynasty was begun by Henry II Plantagenet (r. 1154–1189), the earl of Anjou.

Consequences of the Invasion:

A direct consequence of the invasion was the near-total elimination of the old English aristocracy and the loss of English control over the Catholic Church in England.

Following the conquest, large numbers of Anglo-Saxons, including groups of nobles, fled the country. Many chose to flee to Scotland, Ireland, and Scandinavia.

Women had some rights before the Norman Conquest that were not present in England by circa 1100. The Germanic practice of the Fore-mother was brought by the Anglo-Saxons. Women would begin to lose some rights after the Danish invasion of the early eleventh century, in particular, through King Cnut’s revision of laws. Women may have lost the right to consent to marriage, for example, and widows lost the right to remarry.

Before the Normans arrived, Anglo-Saxon England was more sophisticated than the government in Normandy. All of England was divided into administrative units called shires with subdivisions, the royal court was the centre of government and royal courts existed which worked to secure the rights of free men.

This sophisticated medieval form of government was handed over to the Normans and was the foundation of further developments. The Normans centralised the autonomous shire system.

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One of the most obvious changes was the introduction of Anglo-Norman, a northern dialect of Old French, as the language of the ruling classes in England, displacing Old English. French words entered the English language, and a further sign of the shift was the usage of French names instead of English ones. Male names changed first, with names such as William, Robert, Richard, becoming common quickly. Female names changed more slowly.

§10. The Angevin Empire

In 1154, Henry II (r. 1154–1189) was crowned king, founding the Plantagenet dynasty. The Plantagenets is an English royal house, reigning from 1154–1399, whose name comes from the nickname of Geoffrey, Count of Anjou, father of Henry II, who often wore in his hat a sprig of broom, “planta genita”.

Henry II inherited England and Normandy from his mother, Matilda. His vast possessions in France (including Anjou) now joined to England and Normandy formed a new kingdom, called the Angevin Empire.

Henry II proved a capable ruler. He introduced reforms in the domain of justice and administration, consolidating his power and limiting that of the barons. In the 12th c. the Roman-Catholic was very strong. Henry II’s reign was marked by a power struggle with the Pope, during which Henry II had Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, murdered (1170). It was not the last of his troubles. The second period of his reign was overshadowed by a severe conflict with his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and his sons’ revolt.

Henry was an energetic and sometimes ruthless ruler, driven by a desire to restore the lands and privileges of his royal grandfather, Henry I. During the early years of the younger Henry’s reign he restored the royal administration in England, re-established hegemony over Wales and gained full control over his lands in Anjou, Maine and Touraine. Henry soon came into conflict with Louis VII and the two rulers fought what has been termed a “cold war” over several decades. Henry expanded his empire, often at Louis’s expense, taking Brittany and pushing east into central France and south into Toulouse; despite numerous peace conferences and treaties no lasting agreement was reached. Although Henry usually worked well with the local hierarchies of the Church, his desire to reform England’s relationship with the Church led to conflict with his former friend Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury. This controversy lasted for much of the 1160s and resulted in Becket’s death in 1170.

In 1173 Henry’s heir, “Young Henry”, rebelled in protest against his father; he was joined by his brothers Richard and Geoffrey and by their mother,

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Eleanor. France, Scotland, Flanders and Boulogne allied with the rebels against Henry. The Great Revolt spread across Henry’s lands and was only defeated by his vigorous military action and talented local commanders, many of them “new men” appointed for their loyalty and administrative skills. Henry was mostly generous in victory and appeared for the moment to be at the height of his powers, but Young Henry and Geoffrey revolted again in 1183, resulting in Young Henry’s death. Despite invading Ireland to provide lands for his youngest son John, Henry struggled to find ways to satisfy all his sons’ desires for land and immediate power. Philip successfully played on Richard’s fears that Henry would make John king, and a final rebellion broke out in 1189. Decisively defeated by Philip and Richard and suffering from a bleeding ulcer, Henry retreated to Chinon in Anjou, where he died.

§10.1. Henry II’s Sons: Richard I and John

In 1189, Richard I the Lion Heart, or Coeur de Lion (r. 1189–1199) succeeded his father. In his reign the Third Crusade was under way, and he spent most of his reign and his subjects’ money fighting in Palestine. While returning home he was captured by the Duke of Austria, who handed him over to the German emperor Henry VI, and he was held prisoner until a large ransom was raised.

As a result of an incident during Richard’s coronation celebrations, religious and political persecution of the Jews took place throughout the country. Richard has been criticised for doing little for England, siphoning the kingdom’s resources by appointing Jewish moneylenders to support his tirades away on Crusade in the Holy Land, indeed, he spent only six months of his ten year reign in England, claiming it was “cold and always raining.”

Richard had one major reason for discontent with his father. Henry had appropriated Princess Alice (not the same Alice as Richard’s half-sister), the daughter of the French king and Richard’s betrothed, as his mistress. This made a marriage between Richard and Alice technically impossible - at least in the eyes of the church, but Henry, not wishing to cause a diplomatic incident, prevaricated and did not confess to his misdeed. As for Richard, he was discouraged from renouncing Alice because she was Philip’s sister.

Leaving the country in the hands of various officials he designated (including his mother, at times), Richard spent only a small fraction of his reign in England, being far more concerned with his possessions in what is now France and his battles in Palestine. He had grown up on the Continent, and had never seen any need to learn the English language. Soon after his accession to the throne, he decided to join the Third Crusade, inspired by the

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loss of Jerusalem to the “infidels” under the command of Saladin. Afraid that, during his absence, the French might usurp his territories, Richard tried to persuade Philip to join the Crusade as well. Philip agreed and both gave their crusader oaths on the same date.

Richard did not concern himself with the future of England. He wanted to engage in an adventure that would cause the troubadours to immortalise his name, as well as guaranteeing him a place in heaven. The evidence suggests that he had deep spiritual needs, and he swore an oath to renounce his past wickedness in order to show himself worthy to take the cross. He started to raise a new English crusader army, though most of his warriors were Normans, and supplied it with weapons. He spent most of his father’s treasury (filled with money raised by the Saladin tithe), raised taxes, and even agreed to free King William I of Scotland from his oath of subservience to Richard in exchange for 10,000 marks. To raise even more money he sold official positions, rights, and lands to those interested in them. He finally succeeded in raising a huge army and navy. After repositioning the part of his army he left behind so that it would guard his French possessions, Richard finally started his expedition to the Holy Land in 1190. Richard appointed as regents Hugh, Bishop of Durham, and William de Mandeville, who soon died and was replaced by Richard’s chancellor William Longchamp. Richard’s brother John was not satisfied by this decision and started scheming against William.

There is no doubt that Richard had many admirable qualities, as well as many bad ones. He was a military mastermind, and politically astute in many ways; yet incredibly foolish in others, and unwilling to give way to public opinion. He was capable of great humility as well as great arrogance. He loved his family, but behaved ruthlessly to his enemies. He was revered by his most worthy rival, Saladin, and respected by the Emperor Henry, but hated by many who had been his friends, especially King Philip. He was often careless of his own safety: the wound which killed him need not have been inflicted at all if he had been properly armoured. Almost the same thing had happened, ten years earlier when, while feuding with his father, he had encountered William Marshal while unarmed and had to beg for his life. Richard’s existence had been one whole series of contradictions. Although he had neglected his wife and had to be commanded by priests to be faithful to her, she was distraught at the news of his death.

In his ten-year reign Richard I spent a total of only six month in England. The last years of his reign were spent in warfare in his continental possessions, where he was killed.

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The 13th century began under a new king, the brother of Richard I, and a third Plantagenet, John, nicknamed the Lackland (r. 1199–1216).

In the feudal medieval triangle “the crown - the barons - the church” he was rash enough to fight both the barons and the church simultaneously, under the unfavorable circumstances of inefficiently conducted warfare with the king of France who was bent on reconquering the continental lands of the Angevin kingdom.

John lost Normandy and almost all the other continental possessions to the king of France by 1205. His repressive policies brought him into conflict with his barons. In 1215, King John was forced by the barons to sign the Magna Carta, the document which limited the king’s power. When the king later repudiated the Carta (Charter), it led to the barons’ revolt (the first Barons’ War, 1215–1217) during which he died.

Contemporary chroniclers were mostly critical of John’s performance as king, and his reign has since been the subject of significant debate and periodic revision by historians from the 16th century onwards. Historian Jim Bradbury has summarised the contemporary historical opinion of John’s positive qualities, observing that John is today usually considered a “hardworking administrator, an able man, an able general”. Nonetheless, modern historians agree that he also had many faults as king, including what historian Ralph Turner describes as “distasteful, even dangerous personality traits”, such as pettiness, spitefulness and cruelty. These negative qualities provided extensive material for fiction writers in the Victorian era, and John remains a recurring character within Western popular culture, primarily as a villain in films and stories depicting the Robin Hood legends.

§10.2. Henry III and Edward I

After John’s death in 1216, his son Henry, a nine-year-old child, was crowned king. The barons entrusted the administration of the country in the infant king’s name to their representatives constituting the Great Council with Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, at the head.

Henry III (r. 1216-1272) did not rule until 1227. Later his huge payments to the church and financial support of numerous foreign favourites led to the second barons’ revolt (1258). After the barons got what they wanted (the lands and castles of the king’s favourites, the chance to rob the country to their heart’s content, the power), they began to ignore those who had helped them, the knights of the counties and the citizens of towns. So a civil war began in 1264, with Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, heading the army consisting of knights and citizens, free peasants and a number of barons.

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The king’s army was defeated, he and his eldest son Edward were imprisoned. Simon de Montfort became the ruler of England.

Half a year later, in January, 1265, Simon de Montfort convened a parliament.

Prince Edward escaped from prison and gathered an army. In August, 1265, Edward won the battle, killed Montfort and freed his father.

On his release Henry III was weak and indifferent to worldly matters, that’s why his eldest son, Edward, took charge of the government.

Edward I (r. 1272-1307) was the king who brought together the first real parliament. Simon de Montfort’s council had been called a parliament, but it included only nobles.

In 1275, Edward I commanded each shire and each town to send two representatives to his parliament. Under Edward, the knights and the citizens sat in one and the same chamber with earls and bishops. They were surely not given any legislative power. What Edward wanted was their money. This was the beginning of the idea that there should be “no taxation without representation”. During the 150 years following Edward’s death the agreement of the parliament became necessary for the making of all statutes.

Edward I was less interested in winning back his continental possessions than in bringing the rest of Britain under his control. He managed to established English rule over all Wales (1282-1284), and secured recognition of his overlordship from the Scottish king, although the Scots fiercely resisted actual conquest.

He spent much of his reign reforming royal administration and common law. Through an extensive legal inquiry, Edward investigated the tenure of various feudal liberties, while the law was reformed through a series of statutes regulating criminal and property law. Increasingly, however, Edward’s attention was drawn towards military affairs. After suppressing a minor rebellion in Wales in 1276–1277, Edward responded to a second rebellion in 1282–1283 with a full-scale war of conquest. After a successful campaign, Edward subjected Wales to English rule, built a series of castles and towns in the countryside and settled them with Englishmen. Next, his efforts were directed towards Scotland. Initially invited to arbitrate a succession dispute, Edward claimed feudal suzerainty over the kingdom. In the war that followed, the Scots persevered, even though the English seemed victorious at several points. At the same time there were problems at home. In the mid-1290s, extensive military campaigns required high levels of taxation, and Edward met with both lay and ecclesiastical opposition. These crises were initially averted, but issues remained unsettled. When the king died in 1307, he left to his son,

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Edward II, an ongoing war with Scotland and many financial and political problems.

§11. The England of the 14th century

§11.1. The England of the 14th century. Part I

King Edward II (1307–1327) was no worthy successor to his father. Edward I had done his best to train him in war and in statecraft, but his habits of extravagance and frivolity were incurable. He also lacked the political sense and determination necessary in a monarch. This led to his deposition in 1327. Edward I had pacified Gwynedd and some other parts of Wales and the Scottish lowlands, but never exerted a comprehensive conquest. However, the army of Edward II was devastatingly defeated at Bannockburn, freeing Scotland from English control and allowing Scottish forces to raid unchecked throughout the north of England. In addition to these disasters, Edward II is remembered for his probable death in Berkeley Castle, allegedly by murder, and for being the first monarch to establish colleges at Oxford and Cambridge: Oriel College at Oxford and King’s Hall, a predecessor of Trinity College, at Cambridge.

After the deposition of Edward II his eldest son, Edward III, was crowned King of England (1327–1377).

At first he was a puppet in the hands of his mother, Isabella of France and her paramour Roger Mortimer. Only in 1330 Edward III and his followers managed to overthrow the Queen Mother and Mortimer. Mortimer was executed. Isabella was treated with every respect and given honourable retirement.

The fourteenth century was disastrous for England as well as most of Europe, because of the effects of wars, bad harvests and plagues. Probably onethird of Europe’s population died of plague. Out of the 4 million people that lived in England, little more than 2 million remained. The rural population, the poor population of towns, weakened by the hardships, ill nourishment and excessive labour, were easy game for the Black Death as the plague was called by the panic-stricken people.

§11.2. The England of the 14th century. Part II

In the 14th c. Britain and France suffered from the damages of war. The English king was the vassal of the French king for his continental possession, the duchy of Aquitaine, and the French king wanted control of the duchy; this was one of the events that started the fighting. The English king, Edward III, had a claim to the French throne through his mother, a princess of France.

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The war between England and France is called the Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453). It was the result of a dynastic conflict dating back to William the Conqueror who became King of England while remaining Duke of Normandy. As dukes of Normandy, the English kings owed homage to the King of France but as with earlier dukes they retained a great deal of autonomy. Feudal homage was a ceremony in which a feudal tenant or vassal pledged reverence and submission to his feudal lord. This practice ceased in the fourteenth century when Edward III failed to give homage to Philip VI of France and Philip did not maintain his promise to restore a portion of Guienne taken by Charles IV. Other important factors include various contrasting attempts to control the market for English wool. It was fought in France. The fighting consisted largely of sieges and raids. French villages and towns 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.

§11.3. The England of the 14th century. Part III

After the epidemic of plague shortage of labour was the greatest problem that the government of Edward III was faced (1348–1349). The countryside was in a disastrous state: herds of cattle perished as well, vast areas of land went out of cultivation because of shortage of hands and cattle; foodstuffs were hard to get and the prices soared sky-high. The wage labourers demanded higher wages for they could not buy enough bread to sustain them with the money they got for their work. The villeins demanded their freedom.

The government of Edward III was that if they did not check the labourers’ demands, the landlords would be ruined or would have to do the work themselves. That’s why the Parliament where only landowners were invited adopted the Statutes of Labourers.

The Statutes ordered that “every person able in body under the age of sixty years, not having wherewith to live should be bound to serve, or else committed to jail”, and “if a workman or servant depart from service before the time agreed he shall be imprisoned”. And then: “the old wages (that is the pre-plague wages) and no more, shall be given… If any take more wages than used to be paid he shall be committed to jail…”

The English labourers refused to obey the Statutes. If obeyed, it meant starvation. They continued to ask for more money for their work. We know they did this because the king and Parliament tried again and again to control wage increases.

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Because of the shortage and expense of labour landlords returned to the twelfth-century practice of letting out their land to energetic freeman farmers. In the 12th century, however, the practice of letting out lands had been a way of increasing the landlord’s profits. Now it became a way of avoiding losses. The farmers who rented the lands gradually became a new class, known as the yeomen. All these events finally led to the end of serfdom.

The Black Death may also have promoted the use of vernacular English, as the number of teachers proficient in French dwindled. This, in turn, would have contributed to the late-fourteenth century flowering of English literature, represented by writers such as Geoffrey Chaucer and John Gower.

§11.4. The England of the 14th century. Part IV: The Age of Chivalry

Edward III and his eldest son, Edward, the Black Prince (so called from the colour of his armour), were greatly admired in England for their courage on the battlefield and for their courtly manners. They became symbols of the “code of chivalry”, the way in which a perfect knight should behave.

According to the code of chivalry, the perfect knight fought for his good name if insulted, served God and the king, and defended any lady in need.

Edward III introduced the idea of chivalry into his court. Once, a lady at court accidentally dropped her garter and the king noticed some of his courtiers laughing at her. He picked up the garter and tied it to his own leg, saying in French, “Honi soit qui mal y pense”, which meant “Let him be ashamed who sees wrong in it”. From this strange yet probably true story, the

Order of the Garter was founded in 1348. Edward chose as members of the order twenty-four knights. They met once a year on St George’s Day at Windsor Castle. The custom is still followed, and “Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense” is still the motto of the royal family.

Chivalry was a useful way of persuading men to fight by creating the idea that war was a noble and glorious thing. But in fact cruelty, death, destruction and theft were the reality of war. The Black Prince, who was the living example of chivalry in England, was feared in France for his cruelty.

From the 12th century onward chivalry came to be understood as a moral, religious and social code of knightly conduct. The particulars of the code varied, but codes would emphasize the virtues of courage, honor, and service. Chivalry also came to refer to an idealization of the life and manners of the knight at home in his castle and with his court.

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§11.5. The England of the 14th century. Part V

The Black Prince died in 1376. The king himself died in 1377. Richard II, the ten-year-old son of the Black Prince, was crowned King of England.

Richard’s reign was dominated by his uncle John of Gaunt (the third son of Edward III). In 1381 the king presented a brave face to the rebels in the peasants’ revolt, but his self-conceit, arrogance and inability to control his barons led to a great social conflict. Richard II inherited the problems of social discontent but had neither the diplomatic skill of his grandfather, nor the popularity of his father. Trying to overcome John of Gaunt, Richard II made some false steps. These actions courted disaster, but the king took his fatal step in 1399, when, after the death of John of Gaunt, he confiscated his estates. This provoked John’s son Henry Bolingbroke, to invade England. Landing from France with a small force, Henry quickly acquired a following. The king had to surrender. He abdicated in the September, 1399, and died a few months later in prison.

During the 14th century there was a continuous struggle between the king and his nobles. The first crisis came in 1327 when Edward II was deposed and murdered. His 11-year-old son, Edward III, became king and as soon as he could, he punished those responsible. But the principle that kings were neither to be killed nor deposed was broken.

Towards the end of the 14th c. Richard II was the second king to be killed by ambitious lords. Unlike Edward II, however, Richard II had no children. There were two possible successors. One was the 7-year-old grandson of

Edward III’ second son. The other was Henry, son of John of Gaunt. It was difficult to say which had the better claim to the throne. But Henry was stronger. He won the support of other powerful nobles and took the crown by force.

Henry IV (1399–1413) spent the rest of his reign establishing his royal authority. But although he passed the crown to his son, Henry V (1413–1422) peacefully, he had sown the seeds of civil war. Half a century later the nobility would be divided between those who supported his family, the Lancastrians, and those who supported the family of the other royal claimant, the Yorkists.

§11.6. The England of the 14th century. Part VI: The Poor in Revolt

The English never rebelled against Edward III, though he was an expensive king at a time when many people were very poor. At the time of the Black Death he was busy with expensive wars against France and Scotland. The demands he made on merchants and peasants were enormous, but Edward III handled these people with skill. Richard II was less fortunate. As he was only a

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child, others governed for him. In the year he became king, his advisers introduced a tax payment for every person over the age of 15. Two years later, this tax was enforced again. The people paid.

But in 1381 this tax was enforced for a third time and also increased to three times the previous amount. There was an immediate revolt in East Anglia and in Kent.

The new tax had led to revolt, but there were also other reasons for discontent. The landlords had been trying for some time to force the peasants back into serfdom, because serf labour was cheaper than paid labour. The leader of the revolt, Wat Tyler, was the first to call for fair treatment of England’s poor people: “We are men formed in Christ’s likeness”, he said, “and we are kept like animals”.

The Peasants’ Revolt lasted only for four weeks. During that period the peasants took control of much of London. A number of poorer townspeople also revolted.

When Wat Tyler was killed, Richard II promised to meet all the people’s demands, including an end to serfdom, and the people peacefully went home. As soon as they had gone, the king’s position changed. His officers hunted down the rebellious peasants and their leaders and hanged them.

§11.7. The England of the 14th century. Part VII: Heresy

There was another aspect to the discontent of the wide masses. The Roman-Catholic church was becoming more and more corrupt arousing anger and indignation. This corruption was publicly condemned by village priests, many of whom were poor.

John Wycliffe, Oxford University professor, spoke with great indignation of the immoral practices of the church selling “indulgencies” (papers proclaiming the Pope’s pardon of all sins committed by the buyer in the past, present or future). He spoke of the luxury and worldliness of monks and the immense wealth of the church.

John Wycliffe was in fact initiator of the movement that was to assume a mighty swing in a couple of centuries, the Reformation.

John Wycliffe’s followers, the Lollards, preached to the people in the streets of villages and towns. They condemned the privileges of the church, demanded social equality.

The Lollards had supporters among the lords because Wycliffe preached the confiscation of monastery lands and all the wealth of the monastic orders. There were rivalries among the lay and ecclesiastical landowners.

In 1401 the statute declared Wycliffe’s teaching heretical, which made its support a political crime, punishable by death.

In England the Lollards’ most notable contribution was that they preached in England and popularized the English translation of the Bible.

§11.8. The England of the 14th century. Part VIII

After the Norman Conquest the French language became the official language of the country. The next three centuries, however, saw the decline of French and the reestablishment of English. This change came about as a result of certain historical events.

First, in the early part of the 13th c., the French king demanded the Norman nobles living in England to give up their continental estates, thus beginning the true separation of French and English nobility, even though the latter were of Norman or French origin. Shortly after that, during the reign of Henry III, great numbers of French came over to England and were given special favours by the king. This increased the hostility between the English and the French culminated in the Hundred Years’ War.

The decrease in population favoured the poorer labourers: the shortage of labour meant that they could sell their services at a higher price. This factor as well as the Peasants’ Revolt (1381) was decisive in the breakdown of the feudal system: by the end of the Middle Ages a new class, the yeomen, or farmers, had come the backbone of English society. English craftsmen, merchants had also assumed new powers and demanded new rights.

As the common people increased in importance, the language they spoke assumed a new importance, too. All these contributed to the decline of French and the supremacy of English.

By the end of the fourteenth century, then, a new national spirit had emerged. It was important to be English – and it was vitally important to speak English. Although French was still used in legal affairs and was still studied by the well educated people, it was considered a foreign language.

By the 15th c. English had become the language of all classes of English population.

§12. Results of the Hundred Years’War. The Wars of the Roses

England lost all of its Continental possessions, except Calais. French farmland was devastated. Population, both in England and France, declined.

In England, the need for money led kings to summon parliaments more often, which gave the nobility and merchants more power. No taxes could be

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