Referat LIVING CONDITIONS

Mai jos puteti citi fragmente din Referat LIVING CONDITIONS si de asemenea puteti face Download Referat LIVING CONDITIONS

Citeste fragmente din Referat LIVING CONDITIONS

LIVING CONDITIONS Indoors – In its simplest form the medieval Londoner’s house was a squalid, unhealthy hovel. Built of timber and clay, as we have seen, it would probably have no more than two rooms. The floor would be of beaten earth, perhaps strewn with rushes. In winter it would be cold, damp, and smelly; in summer hot and smelly. If it had a fire at all, it would be in a clay-lined depression or on a slab of stone in the floor, the smoke having to escape as best it could through the thatch. The “windows” would be small and unglazed, and in cold weather wooden shutters, cutting down the already limited light to almost total darkness, would close them. After sunset the only lighting would be by tallow candles (cheaper than wax) or more probably by tallow dip- smoky, dim and evil- smelling. If the house had more than one floor the stair would be an external ladder. Sanitary arrangements were primitive and consisted at most of a rudimentary earth closet; but many of the citizens had to use the public latrines provided in each ward. Such animals as the householder might own would share the “comforts” of the home with the family. The furniture would hardly compete with what a modern camper- and a stoic at that – would consider the absolute minimum; a trestle table, a wooden bench, a couple of stools, the beds mere ledges with straw-filled palliasses. One can imagine with what joy the medieval family would welcome the end of winter and the approach of spring, with the prospect of escape from these miserable surroundings into the fresh air. In the better- class town houses one might find wooden floors and in the wealthiest even stone paving or tiles. Furniture would include a few wooden chairs and stools, and probably big chests both for seating and for storing household vgoods. Rushes would still be strewn on the floor, unless the owners were able to afford an imported rug or two. The wooden bed- frames would have a criss- cross mesh of rope netting to support the feather mattresses, and for the richer a four- poster canopy with hangings would help to keep out the injurions night air after bedtime. In the poorer houses wooden platters and bowls would be used at tables with the minimum of cutlery- the normal eating implements in most homes were knives and fingers. The middle- class Londoner would use pewter plafes and mugs, and perhaps a spoon made of cow’s horn. His wife might also be the proud possesor of a piece or two of glazed eartheaware- but one imagines this would be kept “for best”. There are some examples of green glaze and of brown and yellow slipware in the Guildhall Museum. The top – class merchant would probably have provided his house with tapestries or some form of fabric wallhangings. There might be down – filled cushions on the wooden chairs and rugs on the floor- perhaps even a skin or two if he had a friend in the fur trade. There would be plenty of good wax candles in sconces or lanterns. If his wife still scattered rushes as a floor – covering, she would mix some sweet – smelling herbs among them. If the house were suitably placed, for instance backing on to the Walbrook, it might have a privy or latrine discharging straight into the stream – a very refined adjunct not enjoyed by many citizens. Even such sophisticated furnishings as these, however, would not spell comfort to us; no interior-sprung mattresses, no upholstered armchairs, no electric light or gas fires, no washing up liquid kind to your hands’, no running water, and no draught-excluders! The streets - The streets of medieval London must have been unbelievably sordid. When they were paved, which was by no means general, they were cobbled, and the surface sloped inward from the sides to a runnel down the middle. There were no pavements for pedestrians; these were not considered necessary until the comparatively modern method of draining the roadway from the centre to gutters at the sides was introduced. Householders were supposed to bring their slops out of the house and empty them into the runnel, but often the temptation to throw them out of an upper window was too great. Kitchen refuse was thrown out to rot in piles in the streets, blocking up the channel and sometimes causing foul-smelling floods which would seep over the door sill if the housewife had not taken the precaution of fitting a foot-high board in the doorway to prevent it. The butcher did their slaughtering in the streets, and the offal and blood added to the awful tide. You probably know that the Great Fire of 1666 broke out in Pudding Lane running from Eastcheap down the hill towards the river; but the name apparently has nothing to do with the cooking of delectable puddings. The 16th-century chronicler Stow says it was so called because ‘’ the butchers of Eastcheap have their scalding houses for hogs there, and their puddings and other filth of beast are voided down that way to the Thames dung boats’’ In those days of no refrigeration butchers and fishmongers could not hope to keep their wares fresh in warm weather; and this added to the noisome condition of London’s streets. This disgusting state of affairs was in no way due to neglect on the part of the city fathers. They did what they could, issuing innumerable ordinances against the fouling of the streets and taking action against offenders whenever possible, but almost to no avail. In this matter of cleanliness the medieval Londoner was his own worst enemy. There is a story of man known as a rakyer who was employed by the ward of Cheapside to collect the dung and filth in the ward, but who found it easier to shove it over the boundary into the adjacent ward of Coleman Street. He was prosecuted, but this example could probably be multiplied a thousandfold. In 1421 another citizen was present [that is, summoned] for ‘making a great nuisance and discomfort to his neighbours by throwing out, horrible filth on to the highway the stench of which is so odious that none of his neighbours can remain in their shops’. The City Corporation appointed scavengers to supervise street cleaning. Originally they had been Customs officials of the same standing as Chaucer was at one time, responsible for overlooking the unloading of imported goods at the wharves and quays. They were given the additional task of supervising the cleaning of the streets; then they were made responsible for the repair of the pavements; and later they undertook the supervision of fire precautions in new buildings. Carts were supplied to take the city’s garbage to laystalls outside the walls, and boats to clear the rubbish from the riversideareas. By 1400 special had been appointed on which houschold rubbish was to be put outside house does for collection by the rakvers. But all these efforts were fruitless because of citizens’lack of cooperation, and London remained an easy prey to the epidemics of plaque and lesser visitations throughout the Middle Ages. Although the City has been largely rebuilt several times and has received face-lifts in the way of roadwidening here and there, many of the streets are still the same width as they were in medieval times. Walk along Cannon Street of King Williams Street and look down the side turnings. This, plus your imagination, will give you some idea of the roadways of medieval London. Food - With 50,000 inhabitants, medieval London was a large and prosperous sales district for food producers, and its supplies came from a much wider area than the meadow and pasture immediately outside the walls. Also, a large tract north and cast of city was reserved as a royal forest [‘forest’ in this connection meant an uncultivated region used as a royal hunting ground and not necessarily a wooded area] and produced little in the way of food. Meat - It is clear that meat was an important part of the diet, and cattle probably provided 60 per cent or more of it. The quality seems to have varied, from fat beef cattle reared for the market and driven long distances to be fattened and shaughtered in the London area to lean old plough oxen and worn-out cows from points nearera hand. But all found a market, regardless of quality. The supply of meat was seasonal because supplies nof winter-feed for cattle were very limited and many animal, had to be slaughtered in the autumn. The medieval Londoner had no means of keeping meat fresh, so most of the surplus autumn meat was either smoked or salted in casks of brine. Beef and mutton were usually salted; pork was often smoked for ham and bacon. Another problem was the provision of the large quantities of salt needed to preserve meat on such a scale, and some places on the coasts of Essex and Kent flourished on the extraction of salt from seawater. This led in turn to the slaughtering of cattle and their salting down for transport to London as ready-prepared meat. Game and poultry - Game such as deer, hares and rabbits were a welcome source of fresh meat to relieve the winter monotony of salt meat, but it is doubtful whether anyone but royalty, nobility, and poachers tasted much venison-and the penalty for poaching deer from the royal forests was usually death. Domesticated birds were a more widely available source. Geese, ducks, and chickens were to be had all the year round. Pigeons were reared for eating, which accounts for the many handsome stone-built dovecotes one sees in the grounds of old manor houses and medieval monasteries. Geese and ducks came to London “on the hoof”, so to speak, and to preserve the birds’ feet on the march [what could one do with a lame duck-carry it?] they were first driven through wet tar or pitch spread on the ground and then through sand. This provided a’sole’for their webbed feet and enabled them to complete the long trek from the country to London. Fish - Fish was an important item on the menu, apart from its obligatory use in Kent and on fast days. Apart from those caught in the Thames and numerous smaller streains in the district there were many artificial fishponds in palaces and monasteries, where species like carp and tench were bred, and where fish caught elsewhere could be kept alive until needed. Shellfish and crustaceans were popular; cockles, mussels, whelks, crabs, lobsters, and shrimps were eaten, and of course oysters, which from the quantities of shell turned up during archacological ‘digs’ seem to have been the most popular. A great deal of dried and salted fish-cod, haddock, herring, and whiting particularly-was imported from Scandinavia, the Baltic, and the Netherlands. Vegetables - It is clear that most of our modern vegetables were known in the Middle Ages, but there is very little evidence of their use. Root vegetables either were not often eaten or else they were considered so ordinary as not to merit any mention, in the writings of the time. Apart from cabbage, beans, and peas, the only varieties, which constantly crop up are onions, garlic, and lecks, and perhaps this gives us a clue. These strong-flavoured vegetables, together with many herbs some of which we would regard as weeds, must have been used to sharpen up the flavour of that dull old salt meat, or to disguise the fact that the fresh meat was a bit on the high side. Peas and beans could be dried and cabbage could be pickled, for use in the winter when nothing fresh was available. Fruits - The medieval man-in-the street ate much the same varieties of home grown fruits as we do, with the addition of some, like quince and mulberry, which are not common these days, but the foreign fruits which we accept as part of our normal diet-oranges, bananas, and so on-were not imported in the Middle Ages. Dairy produce - Dairy produce was an important element, but fresh milk was probably little used in London, as it would not keep or travel. Most of it would be made into cheese and butter on the farms. The medieval cow was small, and goats’and ewes’ milk was used to supplement the butter and cheese making. Bread - Although a lot of home baking obviously went on, it was by no means as universal as we might imagine, as can be seen from the many references to professional bakers and to the sizes, prices, and quality of loaves. This was probably due mainly to lack of suitable baking ovens in the smaller houses Drinks - Ale was the staple drink of everyone in the Middle Ages, but cider and perry were also available. Wine was imported in large quantities, much of it from the English territories in France, but it was not drunk in anything like the same quantities as ale, even in the wealthy households. Cooking the food - Most cooking was of course done on an open fire, and there were three methods; in a cauldron-which was very much more than just a big stewpot. It was in fact a medieval pressure-cooker in which several foods could be cooked in separate jars at the same time; baking in a closed oven-which we often, mistakenly, call roasting; and roasting proper on a turning spit before the fire. A baking oven for bread and pies was found only in the bigger houses, and was quite separate from the open fire, from which it derived no heat though it might for convenience be alongside it. Built of brick and clay the oven was pre-heated by making a fire inside it. When the right temperature had been reached, the fire and ash would be raked out and the bread, pies, or cakes put in to bake. If the medieval housewife got tired of ‘slaving over a hot stove’ [and if her husband could afford it] she could always nip down the street and buy some of the many varieties of hot or cold food, which were on sale in the city. Water supply - The provision of water for the citizens of London was a constant and growing problem as the population increased. The main sources in early medieval times were the numerous streams such as the Walbrook, the Fleet, and the Thames itself, and also many wells within the City. The situations of some of the wells are recalled by place-and street-names such as Well Court and Clerkenwell [the clerks’ well]-but wells had a habit of drying up or becoming polluted. The river and its tributaries became more and more foul as the City grew, and many ponds, which had earlier existed, were drained and built over. In the early 12th century the citizens has asked the king’s permission to pipe water from Tyburn to the City, and by 1285 the Great Conduit in Cheapside was under construction. This was a big lead cistern with stone supports round it into which water was piped from Tyburn, probably through bored-out elm trunks, which were normally used for piping as they did not rot The Conduit was fitted with brass taps at which the people could fill their buckets and casks. On festive occasions such as coronations, it is said the Conduit ran with wine-but basically what the Londoner wanted was water, if not drinking then for cooking and washing. Other conduits were laid, but it was not until Elisabeth’s reign that an enterprising Dutchman built the first watermill, or ‘forcier’, near London Bridge; this made use of rush of water through the arches to provide pressure to pipe the water into streets and houses. But by this time the river was so polluted that an Italian visitor described it as ‘hard, turbid, and stinking’. Even in the mid-19th century, when cast-iron mains were laid by the nine water companies then operating, the supply was turned on only for two or three hours three times a week. One can appreciate that in the Middle Ages it must have often been impossible to wash oneself frequently owing to lack of water, and it is no wonder that King John was regarded as rather peculiar because he had as many as eight baths in the short space of six months! Language - From the Norman Conquest onward, three languages were used in England; Norman french by the court and nobility, Latin by the Church and in official documents, and English by common folk of Anglo-Saxon stock. The first state document to be issued in English was the proclamation of Henry III’s assent to the Provisions of Oxford [a constitutional document reforming the government of the country] in about 1269. I n 1362 Edward III’s parliament enacted a statute terminating the use of French in the law courts, and in the same year the king made the first royal speech to Parliament in English. . By the end of Richard II’reign [1399] English had become the everyday language of the court, though one presumes that the king and family, noblenen and bishops could all speak French as well. About twelve years earlier Geoffrey Chaucer had written his famous Canterbury Tales, one of the oldest surviving poems in English. Traces of Norman French still survive, however. For instance, the Queen’s assent to parliamentary bills is announced in the House of Lords with the words ‘a Reine le veult’-‘The Queen wills it’. The English accent in the Middle Ages, and indeed as late as Shakespeare’s day, was not the Southern English speech we know today. It was much more akin to the Northcountryman’s dialect. Muirhead’s Blue Guide to England says of Langstrothdale, a remote valley at the head of Wharfedale in Yorkshire, that ‘the dialect of this dale agrees more nearly than any other with Chaucerian English as used, for example, in the Reeve’s Tale’. So if you would like to hear medieval English, go to Ilkley and drive northward up Wharfedale. Follow B6160 from Threshfield to Buckden and turn left there onto an unclassified road into Langstrothdale! . THE AGE OF CHIVALRY Edward III and his eldest son, the Black Prince, 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 a perfect knight should behave. During the reign of Edward interest grew in the legendary King Arthur, if he ever existed, was probably a Celtic ruler who fought the Anglo-Saxons, but we know nothing more about him. The fourteenth-century legend created around Arthur included both the imagined magic and mystery of the Celts, and also the knightly values of the court of Edward III. 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. These ideas were expressed in the legend of the Round Table, around which King Arthur and his knights sat as equals in holy brotherhood. Edward introduced the idea of chivalry into his court. Once, a lady at court accidentally dropped her garter and Edward III 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, the same number the legendary Arthur had chosen. They met once a year on St George’s Day Windsor Castle, whereKing Arthur’s Round Table was supposed to have been. The custom is still foollowed, 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. War could also, of course, be profitable. But in the fact cruelty, death, destruction, and theft were the reality of war, as they are today. The Black Prince, who was the living example of chivalry in England, was feared in France for his cruelty. Who were the English? The Anglo-Saxons, or English, came from the continent of Europe and began settling in Britain about 200 years before the time of the Sutton Hoo burial. Until about AD400, Britain had been part of the great Roman Empire, which covered most of the known world. In the fifth century, a great movement of peoples known as barbarians invaded the western half of this great Empire. To us a barbarian is brutal, uncivilised person. But the Romans called all foreigners barbarians, even though many of them were far from being savages. The Romans in Britain had been threatened by barbarian attacks many times before they left the country in about 410. They had fought to keep out the fierce Picts from the North, the Scots [then living in Ireland] who attacked thr west coasts, and raiders called Soxons from across the North Sea. But when the Roman legions were ordered back to fight in Italy the Britons had to defend themselves. The Saxons and other seafaring peoples from the Continent saw their chance. At first they had come for plunder; carrying away corn, weapons and slaves. But after the Roman legions had gone, they turned from piracy to full-scale invasion. The fertile soil and mild climate of Britain must have been very inviting to these tribes from the bleack, windswept lands of northern Europe. The Romans, and many earlier peoples, left written records of their history. But hardly any barbarians could read or write. So the threads of history are difficult to unravel in the few centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire. We call this period the ‘Dark Ages’ because so little is known about it. Historians have to work like detectives, piecing together astory from few-scattered clues. The English invaders are usually said to have come from three different barbarian tribes-Angles, Saxons and Jutes. The Angles and Saxons probably came from the borderlands of present-day Denmark and West Germany. But historians are still not sure about the Jutes. It used to be thought that their homeland was in the part of Denmark we call Jutland [Jute-land]. But archaeologists have found remains in the lands round the mouth of the River Rhine similar to those in the Jutish parts of England. Possibly Jutland was the original home of the Jutes before they moved south, first to the Rhine estuary and then, later, to England. One thing we are sure about is a link between the language of the English settlers and that spoken by the Frisians, who lived in the area that is now the Netherlands. This may mean that there had been some mixing of the tribes in Frisia before the invasions began. No doubt Frisians took part in the great movement of peioles, just as Angles, Saxons and Jutes did. The Frisians had a good reason for wanting to leave home. Their lands, mostly at or below sea level, were often flooded, and they had to build homes on artificial mounds to raise them above the surrounding marshland. The story of Hengest and Horsa There are no written eyewitness accounts dating from the start of English invasion, so we have to rely upon stories passed on and written down many years later by monks. Much our information comes from the Venerable Bede, a monk who wrote a detailed history of England 300 years after the Romans left Britain. Although it was the Angles who later gave their name to England [Angleland] there is no evidence that they took a lead in the invasions. The first invaders to settle were said to have been a band of Jutes led by two brothers, Hengest and Horsa, in the year 449. The story goes that a local British king called Vortigern had invited Hengest and Horsa to come and help him fight the northern Picts. In return, the Jutes were given the Isle of Thanet [which was not joined to the mainland, as it is today]. But after sending for reinforcements from their homeland, the brothers turned against Vortigern. Horsa was killed, but Hengest overthrew the British leader and set up a kingdom of his own in Kent. From then on a steady stream of settlers rowed across the sea to Britain. They sailed along the coasts and up the river estuaries-especially the Thams, Wash, and Humber. The English invaders were primitive people who lived by hunting and farming. They were also warlike. After beaching their longboats, they marched inland, killing, plundering and burning as they went, taking the best land from the Britons [whom they called Welsh- their word for foreigners]. The boats, which carried these settlers, were rowing galleys. They held about sixty to eighty people, thirthy of them at the oars. We know this from various remains that have been found. The best example was discovered in the last century, preserved in a peat bog at Nydam, near the Danish-German border. The ‘Nydam ship’, built of oak planks, dates from about 400. Such ships must have been very unsafe because the sides were only just above the waterline. Shipwrecks would have been common in storms and rough seas. Experts say that an open voyage straight across the North Sea would have been madness in a ship like this; especially as there were no navigation charts or compasses. So the invaders almost certainly ‘hugged the coastline’ for most of the way. Perhaps they aied to get to Cap Gris Nez, in France, where Channel swimmers start or finish. From here the English coast is just over twenty miles awayand can be seen on a clear day. A British Revival –The Legend of Arthur Many Britons fled to escape the invaders. They went westwards, into the hills of what are now Cornwall and Devon, Wales, the Lake District and southwest Scotland. Some even crossed the seas, to Ireland or to Brittany in France. It must have been heart breaking for them to leave their homes and crops, but even this was better than death or slavery. However in some areas the Britons banded together and fought the invaders. Roughly 50 years after the first English settlements there seems to have been a British recovery. We learn from several sources that in about the year 500 the Britons won a big battle at a place called Mount Badon. They drove out invaders from a large part of England and seem to have stopped their advance for more half a century. Written records suggest that the Britons had two successful war leaderd at this time. The first, Ambrosius Aurelianus, was descended from a Roman family. After him, so we are told, came Arthur, the inspiration of many legends in later centuries. The earliest known reference to Arthur was made by a Welsh monk called Nennius, whose History of the Britons was probably written in the early ninth century. According to Nennius, Arthur-who was not himself a king-commanded the Britons in twelve major battles, of which only the last is given a name familiar to historians: It seems likely that Arthur was a real historical figure. But he would not have been much like the character in the famous stories of the Round Table. And his followers would not have been splendid knights like Sir Lancelot and Sir Galahad, althought they may have fought on horseback. They would have been a band of brave Britons, fighting desperately to save their country from invasion. EARLY ENGLISH LIFE AND CUSTOMS It is difficult to find out about the lives of ordinary people in the early English kingdoms. Monks who kept historical records usually wrote only about kings and churchmen. Even then, most of the kings are just names to us. We usually know the dates of their reigns and battles they fought. But we have no pictures of them and little idea of what they were like as people. All we have left are some of their possessions-armour, weapons, jewels, rings, and perhaps coins. Their wooden buildings and furniture have rotted away, so to imagine the halls kings lived in we must turn to the works of poets. Old English was mainly a spoken language. Only a tiny fraction of Anglo-Saxon verse was written down and preserved. But luckly we have all 3,182 lines of Beowulf, a stirring tale of kings and warriors, composed in England probably some time in the eighth century. ‘The joys of the hall’ Beowulf, the hero of the poem, goes to help the Danish king and his followers, who are living in fear of an evil monster called Grendel. After a fierce struggle Beowulf overcomes the monster, and then dives into the sea to kill its mother in her under-water cave. Years later he becomes a king himself, and has to rescue his people from a terrible dragon, which destroys their homes with its fiery breath. The aged Beowulf slays the dragon in its lair, but in the struggle he is wounded and dies. The story is a fairy tale, yet its background helps us to understand the way real kings, and their followers lived. For instance the Danish king, Hrothar, had a banqueting hall, which was a large barn building, made of wood. To celebrate Beowulf’s killing of Grendel, we are told that Hrothgar decorated its walls with golden tapestries and had agreat feast prepared. The guests drank toasts of mead, an intoxicating drink made with honey. The evening closed with a visit from the queen, who carried a jewelled goblet round the hall for all to drink. The royal couple left to sleep in a separate chamber, but the king’s followers, or thanes, stadyed in the hall. ‘Benches were cleared away and pillows and bedding spread upon the floor’ .The warriors slept with their weapons close at hand, for’…it was their practice to be ready to fight at any moment’ This reminds us that there was more to a thane’s life than ‘the joys of the hall’. He had to serve and protect his lord at all times. Thanes accompanied the king when he rode out to hunt the stag, fox, and wild boar. They also went on longer expeditions, to fight wars and help keep law and order in the kingdom. A king’s power depended on the loyalty, strength, and courage of his thanes. Kings and thanes In Bede’s “History”, the Christian kings of Northumbria seem peace loving, almost saintly men. Priests and monks were honoured members of their household. No doubt this was true, but it is a rather one-side picture. Bede was not a fighting man. From Beowulf we get a more down-to-earth view of kinks surrounded by their warriors. In the poem we see how important it was for a king to have plenty of gold and precious things. In return for their services, thanes expected to be given weapons, horses and other gifts; and also food and drink - ‘the joys of the hall’. The most valuable gift of all was land, the real basis of wealth and power. From time to time each king called together an assembly of thanes, to discuss new laws, gifts of land and other such matters. Church leaders were also invited – bishops, abbots of the larger monasteries and perhaps the king’s own priest. This assembly was called a Witan. The word means ‘wise men’, although not everyone who attended was necessarily wise. Churls and thralls The ordinary people in the English kingdoms farmed the land or worked in village trades. Most were freemen called churls, but there were also thralls, or slaves. From laws and other documents we can get some idea from of the way these ‘lower orders’ of society lived. Many thralls were descended from the unfortunate Britons who lost their lands to the English invaders. In fact the word Briton was ofen used to mean ‘a slave’. Churls were mostly peasant farmers, owning a hide – a piece of land large enough to support a household. The size of a hide varied from place to place, but it was normally at least 50 acres. The churls and his family lived in a simple wooden hut, its roof thatched with straw, reeds, or heather. Inside there was probably one all purpose-room. In cold weather a fire burned in a open hearth and the smoke escape through a hole in the roof. Nearby there may have been outbuildings for storing grain and keeping tools. THE ROMAN CHURCH –ST BENEDICT AND GREGORY ‘THE GREAT’ About the year 500 a young man named benedict left his comfortable home in central Italy and travelled to Rome. His parents, who were weathy Christians, had sent him to finish his education and prepare to work in government service. The Rome that greeted Benedict was different from the proud city that for centuries had ruled the Mediterranean world. During the previous 100 years ‘barbarian’ invaders from the north had ransaked the city. They had destroyed public buildings, carrying away tonnes of valubles, melted down beautiful bronze statues, smashed stone monuments and left the streets littered with rubble. Even the great aqueducts [canals on brides], which fed the city’s taps and fountains, were broken down or chocked with vegetation. Many people had left the city and there werw open spaces where houses once stood. The palace of the emperors was deserted. The most important citizen was now the Bishop of Rome- the Pope [father] of the Christian Church. Cristianity had become the official religion of the Roman Empire and there were by this time many Christians in Western Europe, including barbarians who had been converted. Some of them still looked to Rome and the Pope for leadership and guidance. St Benedict Benedict was a deeply religious young man. He was shocked by the lawless and sinful behaviour of many Romans. So he have up his studies, left the city and travelled eastwards to the hills. There, on the mountain of Subiaco, he found a cave and lived alone as a hermit. To Benedict it seemed the best way of getting closer to God and living a truly Christian life. After some years Benedict left Subiaco with a small band of his closest followers. They travelled south, to the top of hill overloking the village of Monte Cassino, and there, about the year 525, Benedict founded his first and most famous monastery. He lived at Monte Cassino until his death in 543. Some of the time he spent writing a Rule for monks to live by. This ‘Benedictine Rule’, which is in fact a large number of rules, is still practised today by monks in many countries. St Benedictine ‘Rule’ St Benedict’s idea of a monastery was a place where ordinary men would want to come and lead a Christian life, praying and working together. He ordered that the monks’ clothes, although plain, should be warm and comfortable. They were to have a good eight hours of sleep, and two daily meals of simple but nourishing food. No personal belongings were allowed. Even a monk’s clothes were the property of the monastery. A monk could not receive a letter from his parents without the abbot’s agreement. On top of this there were strict rules about silence. The monks were rarely allowed to speak to each other. And, of course, all relationships with women were forbidden. St Benedict’s Rule was practical and full of common sense. In the year to come monasteries all over Europe copied it. Nuns, too, lived according to its basic vows of obedience, poverty and chastity. Their example encouraged ordinary Christians to live better lives. Monasteries were also centres of learning and education. Gregory ‘the Great’ In Benedict’s lifetime the Rule was only followed in monastiries he set up himself. It later became famous mainly through the efforts of a pope-Gregory I, called ‘the Great’. He was only in his early thirties when he was chosen Prefect of Rome, the highest position in the government of the city. It was a time of great hardship for the people. Italy was again being invaded by barbarians-the fierce Lombards [‘Longbeards’] who came from north Germany. Pouring through the Alps, they quickly overran most of northern Italy [part of this area is still called Lombardy today]. Seeing all the misery and destruction around him, Gregory felt sure the world was coming to an end. He wrote: Beaten down by so many blows, the ancient kingdom [Rome] has fallen from its glory and shows us now another kingdom [Heaven] , which is coming, which is already near. After only a year as Prefect, Gregory decided to give up his position and devote his life to serving God. His father had just died, leaving a large fortune. Gregory gave some to charity and used the rest to set up six monastiries in Sicily. His own house in Rome was turned into a seventh, and there Gregory became a monk. Not long afterwards some monks from Monte Cassino arrived in Rome and it was probably from these monks that Gregory first learned about the Rule of St Benedict. It was a great inspiration to him and he put it into practice in his own monastery. Later h4e wrote about Benedict’s life and work, making it known ti Christians in many countries. ‘ The first of the great popes ‘ The most important part of Gregory’s life begane in 590, a year of floods and plague, when he was chosen to be Pope. By then he was in poor health. Yet right up to his death, in 604, he worked tirelessly to strengthen the organisation of the Church and to unite Christians in many lands. He kept in close contact with bishops and clergy, and wrote a special handbook called The Pastoral Rule, which told them how to carry out their duties. Abouve all, Gregory worked to spread the faith among heathens [those who were not Christian]. Missionaries sent by Gregory converted the barbarian king of Spain, and most of the King’s subjects soon became Christians. Gregory also sent aband of monks to convert the English. The Church was only part of Gregory’s concern. He also felt responsible for the poor and plague- stricken people of Rome. In a time of invasion, plague and famine, the organisation of the Roman Church might easily have collapsed, just like the Roman Empire, had it not been for Gregory’s work. He has been rightly called ‘the first of the great popes’. HEATHENS BECOME CHRISTIANS Christianity first came to Britain when the country was part of the Roman Empire. But the English invaders were heathens, so Christian workship died out wherever they settled. The English wore charms to keep away evil spirits, and they believed gigants, dragons and other monasters lived in the lonely moors, woods and swamps. They worshipped nature gods and made sacrifices to them. Chief among their gods was Woden. Nearly all Anglo-saxon kings claimed to be descended to him. Other gods included tiw, a war-god; Thunor, god of thunder, the sound of wich was belived to come from his chariot rolling across the heavens; and Frig, a goddes supposed to bring good harvest. All are still remembered in our days of the week – Tuesday (Tyw), Wednesday (Woden), Thursday (Thunor), and Fryday (Frig). Saturday probably comes from Saturn, the Roman god of agiculture. Sunday and Monday are named after the sun and the moon, both worshipped by the Anglo-Saxons. The heathen English certanly expected some kind of future life. Otherwise they would not have buried the goods of the dead – as at Sutton Hoo. But we cannot be sure what kind of afterworld they belived in. AUGUSTINE’S MISSION When he beacame Pope, Gregory decided to send missionaries to convert the English. He gathered a party of forty monks from his own monastery in Rome. Under their leader, Augustine, they landed om the Isle of Thanet in Kent, in 597. The king if Kent, Ethelbert, had a Christian wife called Bertha. She was a princess from the kingdom of the Franks (now France) wich had been converted 100 years befor. Ethelbert himself was still heathen. Before the year was out, Eyhelberg had been baptised a Christian, and so had thousands of his people. Soon more converts were gained in the neighbouring kingdoms. It was an encouraging start. Gregory made Augustine Archbishop of Canterbury and sent him instruction on how to organise the English Church. He advised Augustine not to destroy the heathen temples but to change them into churches, replacing the idols with altars. Gregory also suggested turning the heathen sacrifices into regular Christian festivals. Christmas therefore replaced the winter feast of Yule, and Easter is still named after a Saxon spring goddes, Eostre. Soon after wards there was a return to heathen ways in many parts of southeastern England. The northern English were soon brought back to Christianity, but not by the Roman missionaries. CHRISTIANS FROM IRELAND Right throught the years of Anglo-Saxon settlement, the Christian faith had been kept alive in the unconquered western parts of Britain. Ireland in particular became a stronghold of Christianity throught the efforts of St Patrick, a Briton who became a monk in Gaul. In the middle of the fifth century Patrick travelled throughout Ireland preaching and baptising the people. After about thirty years he and his followers had made Ireland a Christian country. THE SYNOD AT WHITBY Christianity, therefore, came to the English by two different routes. Rroman missionaries converted many peoplke in the South, bringing rhem into the Roman Catholic [or universal] Church. ‘Celtic’ Christians led the conversion of the North and Midlands from Iona the land of the heathenPicts. The Vikings and Alfred the Great Towards the end of the eight-century new raiders were tempted by Britain’s wealth. These were the Vikings, a world that probably means either “pirates” or “the people of the sea inlets”, and they came from Norway and Denmark. Like the Anglo-Saxons they only raided at first. They burnt churches and monasteries along the east, north and west coast of Britain and Ireland. London was itself raided in 848. Plunder was not only aim. They were also searching for new places to live. Norsemen began the to settle on the treeless islands to the north and west of Scotland: the Shetlands, Orkneys, Faroes and Hebrides. They bought their families and lived by farming, fishing, and seal-hunting. These islands were ideal bases for attacks on Ireland. Lonely Iceland was the next place to be settled by Norsemen. Although it was too cold for growing grain crops it had grassy regions suitable for cattle and sheep. Later sagas (stories) of the Icelanders describe further voyages they made across the unknown Atlantic Ocean. In 982 a though Norseman called Eric the Red (He had red hair) killed a man and was banished from Iceland for three years. He spent the time exploring a snow-covered land to the west, which had earlier been sighted by fishermen. After much searching he found a few areas of grassland along the coast. When Eric returned to Iceland he called this new country ‘Greenland’. The Norsemen also wanted to settle along the North American coast but all their attempts failed because of the attacks by people the Norsemen called Skraelings, probably the red Indians. At the time of the early Norse settlements around the British Isles, Danish, and Vikings were spreading panic in France, Germany and eastern England. At first they plundered coastal villages and monasteries. Then they grew bolder and sailed up great rivers bringing destruction deep in to the heart of the countryside. Late in 870 the Great Danish Army, let by Guthrum, set up a base near Reading and prepare to attack Wessex - the strongest English kingdom. King Ethelred and his brother Alfred led the men of Wessex straight into the attack and they defeated them in a great battle on the Berkshire Downs. Ethelred died suddenly in 871 living the kingdom and all English hopes in the hands of his brother. After many hard struggles, Alfred’s men defeated the Danes and made peace. Guthrum was baptized a Christian, and then the Viking chief let his men across the country to east England, where they settled peacefully to plough the land and sow crops. Soon, a frontier between the English lands and the Danelaw, where Danish laws and customs were followed was fixed. In the rest of the country Alfred was recognized as king. During his struggle against the Danes, he had built walled settlements to keep them out. These were called burghs (this where the word ‘borough’ comes from) and they were built at places like Exeter, Bath and Winchester. Who should be king? By 950 England seemed rich and peaceful again after the troubles of the Viking invasion. But soon afterwards the Danish Vikings started raiding westwards. The Saxon king, Ethelred, decided to pay the Vikings to stay away. To find the money he set a tax on all his people, called Dangeld, or “Danish money”. It was the beginning of a regular tax system of the people, which would provide the money for armies. The effects of this tax were most heavily felt by the ordinary villagers, because they had to provide enough money for their village landlord to pay Danegeld. When Ethelred died Cnut (or Canute), the leader of the Danish Vikings, controlled much of England. He became king for the simple reason that the royal council, the Witan, and everyone else, feared disorder. Rule by a Danish king was far better than rule by no one at all. Cnut died in 1035, and his don died shortly after, in 1040. The Witan chose Edward, one of Saxon Ethelred’s son to be king. Edward, known as “the Confessor”, was more interested in the Church than in kingship. Church building had been going on for over a century, and he encouraged it. By the time Edward died there was a church in almost every village. The pattern of the English village, with its manor house and church, dates from this time. Edward started a new church fit for a king at Westminster, just outside the city of London. In fact Westminster Abbey was spent almost all his life in Normandy, and his mother was a daughter of the duke of Normandy. As their name suggest, the Normans were people from the north. They were the children and grandchildren of Vikings who had captured, and settled in northern France. They had soon become French in their language and Christian in their religion. But they are still well known for their fighting skills. Edward only lived until 1066, when he died without an obvious heir. The question of who should follow him as king was one of the most important in English history. Edward had brought many Normans to his English court from France. These Normans were not like by the more powerful Saxon nobles, particularly by the most powerful family of Wessex, the Godwinson. It was a Godwinson, Harold, whom the Witan chose to be the next king of England. Harold had already shown his bravery and ability. He had no royal blood, but he seemed a good choice for the throne of England. Duke William of Normandy challenged Harold’s right to the English throne. William had two claims to the English throne. His first claim was that King Edward had promised it to him. The second claim was that Harold, who had visited William in 1064 or 1065, had promised William that he, Harold, would not try to take the throne for himself. Harold, would do not deny this second claim, but said that he had been forced to make promise, and that because it was made unwillingly he was not tied by it. Harold was faced by two dangers, one in the south and one in the north. The Danish Vikings had not given up their claim to the English throne. In 1066 Harold had to march north into Yorkshire to defeat the Danes. No sooner had he defeated them than than he learnt that William had landed in England with an army. His men were tired, but they had no time to rest. They marched south as fast as possible. Harold decided not to wait for the whole Saxon army, the fyrd,, to gather because William’s army was small. He thought he could beat them with the men who had done so well against the Danes. However, the Norman soldiers were better armed, better organized, and were mounted on horses. If he had waited, Harold might have won. But he has defeated and killed in battle near Hastings. William marched to London, which quickly gave in when he began it burn villages outside the city. He was crowned king of England in Edward’s new church of Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day, 1066. A new period has begun. During the coronations ceremony all the people assembled in the church were asked to say whether they accept William as their lord. A great shout of agreement went up. On hearing this, the Norman guards outside feared William was being attacked. They panicked and set fire to the buildings around the abbey. Amidst the crackle of flames, the screams and the sound of brawling outside, William stayed calmly at the altar while the Archbishop of York finished the service. No one could doubt the new king’s determination! Although William was now crowned kings, his conquest had only just begun, and the fighting lasted for another five years. There was an Anglo-Saxon rebellion against the Norman army marched from village to village, destroying places it could not control, and buildings forts to guard others. It was a true army of occupations for at least twenty years. Few Saxon lords kept their lands and those who did were the very small number who had accepted William immediately. All the others lost everything. William gave the Saxon lands to his Norman nobles. But he was careful in the way he gave land to his nobles. In England, as each new areas of land was captured, William gave parts of it as a reward to his captains. At the same time, he kept enough land for him, to make sure he was much stronger than his nobles. He kept the Saxon system of sheriffs and use these as a balance to local nobles. William organized his English kingdom according to the feudal system, which had already begun to develop in England before his arrival. The word ‘feudalism’ comes from the French word ‘feu’, which the Normans use to refer to land held in return for duty or service to a lord. The bases of feudal society were the holding of land and its main purpose was economic. The central idea was that the king owned all land but others, called vassals, in return for services and goods, held it. There were two basic principles to feudalism: everyman had a lord and every lord had land. At each level a man had to promise loyalty and service to his lord. This was called “homage” and has remained part of the coronation ceremony of British kings and queens until now. On the other hand, each lord had responsibilities to his vassals. He had to give them land and protection. The king had to make sure he had enough satisfied nobles who would be willing to fight for him. William gave out land all over England to his nobles. By 1086 he wanted to know exactly who owned each piece of land, and how much was worth. He needed this information so that he could plan his economy; find out how much was produced and how much he could ask in tax. He therefore sent a team of people all through England to make a complete economic survey. This survey was the only one of its kind in Europe. Not surprisingly, it was most unpopular with the people because they felt they could not escape from its findings. It so reminded them of the paintings of the Day of Judgment (or doom), on the walls of their churches that they called it the “Domesday Book”. The Domesday Book still exists and gives us an extraordinary amount of information about England at this time: population, the effects of the Norman Conquest and the lands they owned. Kingship: a family business William controlled to large areas: Normandy, which he had been given by his father, and England which he had won in war. When William died in 1087 he left the Duchy of Normandy to his elder son, Robert. He gave England to his second son, William, known as Rufus. When Robert went to fight the Muslims in the Holy Land, he left William Rufus in charge of Normandy. After all, the management of Normandy and England was a family business. After the death of Rufus, their younger brother Henry crowned himself king three days later. Robert was very angry and prepared to invade. But it took him a year to organize an army. Robert’s invasion was a failure and Henry invaded Normandy and captured Robert. Normandy and England were united under one ruler. Henry I’s most important aim was to pass on both Normandy and England to his successor. Thus, he married his daughter Matilda to another great noble in France, Geoffrey Plantagenet, the heir to Anjou, a large and important area southwest of Normandy. Henry hoped that the family lands would be made larger by this marriage. After Henry death, his nephew, Stephen of Blois, raced to England to claim the crown. Matilda invaded England four years later and their conflict led to a terrible civil war. Neither side could win, so they both agreed that Stephen should keep the throne if Matilda’s son, Henry could succeed him. Henry II was the first unquestioned ruler of the English throne for a hundred years. He destroyed the castles, which many nobles had built without royal permission during Stephen’s reign, and made undefended. The manor again became the centre local life and administration. Henry II was ruler of far more land than any previous king. As lord of Anjou he added his father’s lands to the family empire. After his marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine he also rules to the lands south of Anjou. His empire stretched from the Scottish border to the Pyrenees. Henry was followed by his son Richard I, one of England’s most popular, nicknamed Coeur de Lion, ”lion heart”. Richard was everyone’s idea of the perfect feudal king. He went to the Holy Land to make war on the Muslims and fought with skill, courage and honour. On his way back from the Holy Land, Richard was captured by the duke of Austria, with whom he had quarreled in Jerusalem. The duke demanded money before he would let him go, and it took two years for England to pay. Richard had no son and he was followed by his brother, John. John already made himself unpopular, because he was greedy, with the three most important groups of people: the nobles, the merchants and the church. The king took land for himself, in order to benefit from its wealth and increased the amount of the taxes that people had to pay. King John became even more unpopular with his nobles when he invaded Normandy and English nobles lost their lands there. John had also quarreled with the pope over how should be Archbishop of Canterbury. John was in a weak position in England and gave in, accepting the pope’s choice of archbishop. In 1215 John hoped to recapture Normandy, but on his way to London, at Runnymede was forced to sign a new agreement. MAGNA CARTA –This new agreement was known as Magna Carta, the Great Charter and it was an important symbol of political freedom. The king promised all “freemen” protection from his officers and the right to a fair and legal trial. At the time perhaps less than one quarter of the English were “freemen”. Most were not free, were serfs or little better. But the nobles who made John sign it had another aim: to make sure that John did not go beyond his rights as feudal lord. Magna Carta marks a clear stage in the collapse of English feudalism. Feudal society was based on link between lord and vassal. At Runnymede the nobles were not acting as vassals but as a class. They established a committee of twenty-four lords to make sure John kept his promises. That was not a “feudal” thing to do. In addition, the nobles were acting in co-operation with the merchant class of towns. Feudalism, the use of land in return for services, was beginning to weaken. But it took another three hundred years before it disappeared completely. LANGUAGE AND CULTURE With the spread of literacy, cultural life in Britain naturally developed also in the cities, plays were performed at important religious festivals. They were called “mystery plays” because of the mysterious nature of events in the Bible, and they were a popular form of culture. In the larger cities some guilds made themselves responsible for particular plays, which became traditional yearly events. The language itself was changing. French had been used less and less by the Norman rulers during the thirteenth century. In the fourteenth century Edward III had actually forbidden the speaking of French in his army. It was a way of making the whole army aware of its Englishness. After the Norman Conquest English (the old Anglo-Saxon language) continued to be spoken by ordinary people but was no longer written. By the end of the fourteenth and fifteenth Centuries, was very different from Anglo-Saxon. This was partly because it had not been written for three hundred years, and partly because it had borrowed so much from the Norman French. Two writers, above all others, helped in the rebirth of English literature. One was William Langland, a mid-fourteenth century priest, whose poem ‘Piers Plowman’ gives a powerful description of the times in witch he lived. The other, Geoffrey Chaucer, has become much more famous. He lived at about the same time as Langland. His most famous work was ‘The Canterbury Tales’ , written at the end of the fourteenth century. The Canterbury Tales describe a group of pilgrims traveling from London to the tomb of Thomas Becket at Canterbury, a common religious act in England in the Middle Ages. During the journey each character tells a story. Collections of stories were popular at this time because almost all literature, unlike today, was written to be read out about. The stories themselves are not Chaucer’s own. He used old stories, but rewrote them in an interesting and amusing way. The first chapter, in which he describes his characters, is the result of Chaucer’s own deep understanding of human nature. It remains astonishingly fresh even after six hundred years. It is a unique description of a nation: young and old, knight and peasant, priest and merchant, good and bad, townsman and countryman. By the end of the Middle Ages, English as well as Latin was beeing used in legal writing, and also in elementary schools. Education developed enormously during the fifteenth century, and many schools were founded by powerfulmen. One of these was William Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester and Lord of England, who founded Winchester School, in 1382, and New College, Oxford. Like Henry VI’s later foundation at Eton and Cambridge they have rremained famous for their high quality. Many other schools were also opened at this time, because there was a growing need for educated people who could administer the government, the Church, the law and trade. Clerks started grammar schools where students could learn the skills of reading and writing. These schools offered their pupils a future in the Church or the civil service, or at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. The universities themselves continued to grow as colleges and halls where thre students could both live and be taught were built. The college system remains the basis of organization in these two universities. The Middle Ages ended with a major technical development: William Caxton’s firsrt English printing press, set up in 1476. Caxton had learnt the skill of printing in Germany. At first he printed popular books, such as Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and Malory’s Morte d’Arthur. This prose work described the adventures of the legendary King Arthur, including Arthur’s last battle, his death, and the deathof other Knights of the Round Table. Almost certanly Malory had in mind the destruction of the English nobility in the Wars of the Roses, which were taking place as he wrote. Caxton’s printing was as dramatic fot his age as radio, television and the technological revolution are for our own. Books suddenly became cheaper and more plentiful, as the quicker printing process replaced slow and expensive copywriting by hand. Printing began to standardise spelling and grammar, thought this process was a long one. More important, just as radio brought information and ideas to the illiterate people of the twentieth century, Caxton’s press provided books for the newlyeducated people of the fifteenth century, and encouraged literacy. Caxton avoided printing any dangerous literature. But the children and grandchildren of these literate people were to use printing as a powerful weapon to change the world in which they lived. Church and state John’s reign also marked the end of the long struggle between Chrch and state in England. This had begun in 1066 when the pope claimed that William had promised to accept him as his feudal lord. William refused to accept this claim. He had created Norman bishops and given them land on condition that they paid homage to him. As a result it was not clear wheather the bisops should obey the Church or the king. Those kings and popes who wished to avoid conflict left the matter alone. But some kings and popes wanted to increase their authority. In such circumstances truble could not be avoided. The struggle was for both power and money. During the eleventh and twelfth centuries the Church wanted the kings of Europe to accept its authority over both spiritual and earthly affairs, and argued that even kings were answerable to Gos. Kings, on the other hand, chose as bishops men who would be loyal to them. The first serious quarrel was between William Rufus and Anselm, The man he had made Archbishop of Canterbury. Anselm, with several other bishops, fearing the king, had escaped from England. After William’s death Anselm refused to do homage to William’s successor, Henry, meanwhile, had created several new bishops but they had no spiritual authority without the blessing of the archbishop. This left the king in a dificult position. It took seven years to settle the disagreement. Finally the king agreed that only the Church could create bishops. But in return the Church agreed that bishops would pay homage to the king for the lands owned by their bisoprics. In practice the wishes of the king in the appointment of bishops remained important. But after Anselm’s death Henry managed to delay the appointment of a new arcbishop for five years while he benefited from the wealth of Canterbury. The struggle between Church and state continued. The crisis came when Henry II’s friend Thomas Beket was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury in 1162. Henry hoped that Thomas would help him bring the Church more under his control. At first Becket refused, and then he gave