1. High Middle Ages World History Drowne
Literary Development
High Middle Ages
World History
Drowne

2. Development of Language
Vernacular -
National Epics
Fabliaux (fab-blue-oh)- comic stories in rhymed verse that ridiculed chivalry, human foolishness, etc.
Drama – plays about mysteries, miracles, which enhanced church services. It was an easy way to convey stories of Christianity in acted out plays.

3. Universities
At first schools just for the nobles and clergy were educated, then later extended to all males
Early, simple schools were similar to the tutor system
Universitas (“association of people”)
Developed late 1000-late 1200
Major universities – Oxford, Paris, Bologna, Salerno
Schools specialized in theology, religious doctrine, liberal arts, Latin, grammar, logic, arithmetic, and geometry
Later, there were more uniform courses of study
Stages of progress – bachelors, then masters

4. Geoffery Chaucer England, 1340 Father of modern English
Canterbury Tales
Story about pilgrims on their way to Thomas Becket’s shrine
Pokes fun at the English Society, clergy

5. England’s Renaissance man! (c. 1340)
Geoffrey Chaucer
England’s Renaissance man! (c. 1340)
Chaucer is known as the father of modern English, with as much or more influence on the development of the English language as Shakespeare!
Chaucer had other professions in addition to being one of the most influential and famous writers of his day. He was also:
A solider in his early life
An esquire (servant) of the king's household.
A diplomat for the English government in foreign countries in southern Europe (Spain, Italy and perhaps France).
A customs officer (in charge of taxation on foreign imported goods).
A justice of the peace, a judicator of minor disagreement.
A Member of Parliament (the British legislature), and therefore would have become VERY politically connected, later in life.
A clerk of the king's works (essentially an architect and building director) in charge of building and repair of TEN major castles of the king.
A forestry official for a while, thus he knew about trees and the ever important sport of medieval hunting.

6. The Canterbury Tales
His most famous work (and the second most popular book in England, after the Holy Bible) is about a group of pilgrims on their way to visit the tomb of St. Thomas Beckett.
The pilgrims are from all walks of life and represent the spread of late medieval society.
Different characters tell their tales through different genres that suit their personalities:
Knight – Chivalric Romance (courtly, upper class genre)
Miller – Fablieau (Crude, vulgar, low or middle class genre)
Wife of Bath – mock Chivalric Romance (King Arthur)
Pardoner – Exemplum (tale about people with a moral)
Nun’s Priest – Beast Fable (tale about animals with a moral)
Parson - Sermon (a speech, preaching how to be virtuous)

7. Satire Valentine’s Day!
Chaucer is often considered the father of English satire. Satire is when art or literature criticizes society with the goal of causing change.
Chaucer tore his society to shreds in his writing. The Knight’s first tale sets up conservative, patriarchal society and the following characters proceed to tear society apart with their tales (especially the Wife of Bath).
The upper class is most heavily criticized, both religious and secular people. The Pardoner scams people by selling fake relics and indulgences (pardons), the Friar impregnates young girls and then marries them off to cover himself, and the disgusting Summoner uses his legal powers to manipulate women into doing whatever he desires.
The lower class, by contrast, is the most virtuous, with the Parson (a poor parish priest) and the Plowman (poor farmer) being by far the most upstanding pilgrims on the expedition.
Valentine’s Day!
Chaucer seems to have invented the romantic association with February 14th, the day of the feast of Saint Valentine (there is another possible, much older origin coming from the ancient Roman feast of Luprical).
Chaucer's "Parliament of Fowls" is a poem about lovebirds falling in fast romantic love on the feast of Saint Valentine (2/14) and this is the first definitive text to include such a detail that might contribute to our modern holiday, Valentine's Day.

8. The Wife of Bath and the Miller
There was a housewife come from Bath,
Who was somewhat deaf from a lover’s wrath.
At making cloth she had so great a bent
She bettered those of Ypres and even of Ghent.
In all the parish there was no goodwife
Should offering make before her, on my life;
And if one did, indeed, so wroth was she
It put her out of all her charity.
Her kerchiefs were of finest weave and ground;
I dare swear that they weighed a full ten pound
Which, of a Sunday, she wore on her head.
Her hose were of the choicest scarlet red,
Close gartered, and her shoes were soft and new.
Bold was her face, and fair, and red of hue.
She'd been respectable throughout her life,
With five churched husbands bringing joy and strife,
Not counting other company in youth;
But thereof there's no need to speak, in truth…
She could tell much of wandering by the way:
Gap-toothed was she, it is no lie to say.
Upon an ambler easily she sat,
Well wimpled, aye, and over all a hat
As broad as is a buckler or a targe;
A rug was tucked around her buttocks large,
And on her feet a pair of sharpened spurs.
In company well could she laugh her slurs.
The remedies of love she knew, perchance,
For she'd learned well that art’s old dance.
The miller was a stout churl, be it known,
Hardy and big of brawn and big of bone;
Which was well proved, for when he went on lam
At wrestling, never failed he of the ram.
He was a chunky fellow, broad of build;
He'd heave a door from hinges if he willed,
Or break it through, by running, with his head.
His beard, as any sow or fox, was red,
And broad it was as if it were a spade.
Upon the coping of his nose he had
A wart, and thereon stood a tuft of hairs,
Red as the bristles in an old sow's ears;
His nostrils they were black and very wide.
A sword and buckler bore he by his side.
His mouth was like a furnace door for size.
He was a jester and could poetize,
But mostly all of sin and ribaldries.
He could steal corn and full thrice charge his fees;
And yet he had a thumb of gold, begad.
A white coat and blue hood he wore, this lad.
A bagpipe he could blow well, be it known,
And with that same he brought us out of town.

9. William Shakespeare (c.1564-1616)
He wrote 37 plays and many more poems, and his spelling choices have often be carried on into modern English
Shakespeare is the most famous English playwright, and one of (if not the most) influential English authors of all time. He too is a Renaissance writer, though not as multi-faceted as Chaucer.

10. Dante Aligheri Florence, 1265 Scholarly work in Latin
Considered the father of modern Italian
Wrote in vernacular for other works, such as Divine Comedy
About a pilgrimage of 3 souls to different realms of the afterlife – hell, purgatory, paradise – guided by Virgil (Roman poet)
It criticized the society of own time (ex. His allies were in heaven and his enemies in hell)

11. Dante’s Divine Comedy
Three parts and each part has 33 cantos (verses), which are in turn divided into 11 syllable, rhyming 3-line sections called “tertsinas”
The story is written in the vernacular, the everyday language of Dante.
Three is a symbolic number in Christianity and therefore in Dante’s work as reference to the Trinity
Completed just before Dante died
It is a story of Dante as a pilgrim through the depths of hell and then into purgatory and paradise.
Dante’s friends and enemies appear throughout the poem

12. The Inferno… Dante’s poem made the afterlife REAL for people.
Before Commedia, there were few depictions of heaven and hell, and we credit Dante with defining the afterlife for all subsequent generations.
The name is unknown: While Dante was considered the divino poeta (divine poet), it is not a comedy in any sense.
Each afterlife had levels….

15. Dante’s Inferno
Dante’s poem associates crimes of love to motion and those who commit such crimes are damned with punishments of motion.
Canto 15 – Those who are punished are being rained on by drops of fire, and in order to keep them selves from lighting afire and burning they must be in motion constantly.
Those who committed crimes that shunned love suffered punishments involving immobility.
Simonists and popes (Canto 19) were buried alive upside down with their feet sticking out of the ground. Also, at the bottom of hell, those punished are frozen alive in a lake of blood. If they cry for their own despair, the tears will freeze and they will be even more immobile!

16. Canto 7 – Struggling in the swamp…

17. Crossing the River Styx into the City of Dis

18. Canto 33/34 – The bottom of hell;
Lucifer and the Frozen
Lake of Blood