1. Elements of Literature 6th Course By David Adams Lemming
The Middle Ages
Elements of Literature
6th Course
By David Adams Lemming

2. In October 1066, a battle near Hastings England changed the course of history.
A Frenchman, Duke William of Normandy, defeated and killed King Harold of England.
Catch me if you can…

3. Duke William, the conqueror of England, was the illegitimate son of the previous duke of Normandy.
That duke of Normandy had been cousin to the English king known as Edward the Confessor.
When Edward the Confessor died, he had no children so the throne went to Harold of Wessex.
Enter stage right….Duke William of France.

4. Duke William of France claimed that King Edward had promised the throne to him before he died.
So…
Determined to claim what he considered to be rightfully his, Duke William sailed into England with his army and killed King Harold.

5. Claims King Edward promised the throne to him.
French
English
Duke of Normandy
King Edward
The Confessor
Cousins
Base
Born
Son No
Kids
Murders
Duke William
The Conqueror
King Harold
of Wessex
Claims King Edward promised the throne to him.

6. Unlike the Romans, the Normans from Normandy, France never left England.

7. William was an efficient and ruthless ruler, but he wanted to rule the Anglo-Saxons, not eliminate them.
The British culture today is mixed with Norman and Anglo-Saxon elements.
The Anglo-Saxon had democratic and artistic tendencies, and the Normans had more emphasis on law and order and cultural unity.
William

8. The Anglo-Norman culture helped bring England into mainstream European civilization.
William divided the holding of the fallen English landowners with his own followers. These men and their families brought a new social system called feudalism.
Feudalism took the place of the old Nordic social structure that is described in Beowulf.
Anglo-Norman

9. Feudalism Feudalism is really a caste, property, and military system.
It was based on the religious concept of rank.
Feudalism

11. Relationships King is all-powerful overlord and landowner.
Lord (noble) has the power to grant land to vassals.
Vassal (noble) is an aristocratic dependent tenant who receives land from a lord (fief) in exchange for military service and other expressions of loyalty.
Relationships

12. Knights are armored warriors
Knights are armored warriors. Vassals had to provide their lords with military service in the form of knights. The larger the fief, the more knights a vassal had to supply.
Serfs are peasants who work on (and are bound to) vassals’ lands. Serfs were not involved in the complicated oaths of loyalty between vassals and lords.

13. “The bond between lord and vassal was affirmed or reaffirmed by the ceremony of homage. The vassal knelt, placed his clasped hands within those of his master, declared, ‘Lord, I become your man,’ and took an oath of fealty. The lord raised him to his feet and bestowed on him a ceremonial kiss. The vassal was thenceforth bound by his oath ‘to love what his lord loved and loathe what he loathed, and never by word or deed do aught that should grieve him.’”
Historian Morris Bishop

15. The feudal system did not always work.
Tucked safely away in a well-fortified castle, a vassal might choose not to honor his obligations to a weak lord. The ensuing battles between iron-clad knights fighting around moated castles is an enduring image of the Middle Ages.

16. To Be Continued….

17. Women in Medieval Society
Women had no political rights.
A woman was always subservient to a man, whether husband, father, or brother.
A father’s social standing determined the degree of respect she commanded.
Women in Medieval Society

18. Peasant women had a ceaseless cycle of childbearing, housework, and very hard fieldwork.
Women of higher stations in life were busy with childbearing and household supervision.
These women would even manage entire estates while their men were away. However, the moment they returned, all power was taken away.
No Voice, No Choice

19. Chivalry was a system of ideals and social codes governing the behavior of knights and gentlewomen.
The rules included:
Taking an oath of loyalty to the overlord
Observing certain rules of warfare (never attacking an unarmed opponent)
Adoring a particular lady (not necessarily one’s wife)
Chivalry

20. Courtly Love: Ideal but Unreal

21. The idea that adoring a lady would make a knight braver and nobler was central to one aspect of chivalry and courtly love.
Courtly love was, in its ideal form, nonsexual.
A knight would wear his lady’s colors in battle.
He might glorify her in words and be inspired by her.
However, the lady always remained pure and out of reach.

22. She was set above her admirer, just as a feudal lord was set above his vassal.
Naturally, this concept goes against human nature and provided material for poets and storytellers (King Arthur, Sir Lancelot, and Queen Guinevere).

23. Chivalry brought about an idealized attitude towards women, but it did little to improve their actual position.
A woman’s value still remained tied to the value of the lands she brought to a marriage.
However, chivalry did bring about a new form of literature called the romance.
Romance literature is not always about courtly love, but romance literature is about a hero who takes on a quest to conquer an evil enemy. This is usually done with the help of magic.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy shows that the romance is still alive and well today.
The Rise of Romance

24. Medieval society centered on the feudal castle, but as the population grew, an increasing number of people lived in towns and cities.
Eventually, these population centers would make the feudal system obsolete.
The New City Classes

25. The development of the city classes:
Lower
Middle
Upper middle
The city classes made their livings outside of the feudal system.

26. The emerging class had its own tastes in the arts and the ability to pay for what they wanted.
Much medieval art is not aristocratic; it’s middle class or the “people’s art.”
The people of the city were free, tied neither to land or knighthood and chivalry.
Ballads were sung to express their point of view.
Merchant Class

27. The Crusades (1095-1270) were a series of holy wars waged by European Christians against Muslims.
These wars were disastrous military expeditions.
The positive side was the exposure to Eastern mathematics, astronomy, architecture, and crafts which helped to enrich the lives of the people back in England.
The Crusades

28. The Martyrdom of Thomas á Becket
Becket had risen to power under his friend King Henry II.
At this time, the King was a vassal to the Pope. The Catholic Church owned everything.
By appointing Becket the archbishop of Canterbury (head of the catholic Church in England) King Henry thought he would have an ally when dealing with the Church.
The Martyrdom of Thomas á Becket

29. Murder in the Cathedral
Unfortunately, Becket sided with the Pope on more than one occasion.
King Henry II was infuriated and raged, “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?”
Taking this literally, four of King Henry’s knights murdered Becket in his own cathedral.
An eyewitness described the gory scene…
Murder in the Cathedral

30. “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 with blood, dyed the surface of the virgin mother Church with the life and death of the confessor and martyr in the colors of the lily and the rose.”

31. There was public outrage over the murder of Becket.
There became a devotion to Saint Thomas the Martyr, and it created a backlash against King Henry II.
This was a significant setback for the monarchy in its power struggle with Rome.
These setbacks allowed for much corruption to take place within the church because they had unchecked power.

32. England’s first national war was waged against France.
This war was based on weak claims to the throne of France by two English Kings (Edward III and Henry V).
The long war was militarily unsuccessful for the English, but it was an important factor in the gradual development of a British national consciousness.
The Hundred Years’ War

33. After the War, the English were no longer best represented by the knight in shining armor.
The English were best represented by the green-clad yeoman (small landowner) with his long bow.
The English yeoman were what formed the center of the English armies in France.
Their yard-long arrows could fly over the castle walls and pierce the armor of knights.
They were now a dominant force in the new society that grew from the ruins of feudalism.

34. The Black Death (bubonic plague) hit England from 1348-1350.
This was another blow to feudalism.
The plague reduced the nation’s population by a third which caused a labor shortage.
This shortage gave bargaining power to the lower classes.
Serfs gained freedom which completely knocked out feudalism.
When King Henry VIII married in 1486, the Tudor line began which would lead to Elizabeth I and the beginning of the Renaissance.
The Black Death