social and cultural british history - curs

8/6/2019 Social and Cultural British History - Curs

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LECTURE NOTES

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COURSE UNIT DESCRIPTION

COURSE TITLE: Social and Cultural British

History

SEMESTER: I, 1

st

year English Major and Minor,Applied Modern Languages

COURSE TYPE: Survey course

HOURS/WEEK: One-hour course, one-hour seminar

STATUS OF THE COURSE IN THE STUDY

PROGRAME: Fundamental

COURSE DESCRIPTION / OBJECTIVES:

The course is meant to suit the needs of students in

Applied Modern Languages. The target group is formed

by the first-year English major and minor students.

The course aims at offering students an overview

of the essential aspects pertaining to British culture and

civilization. The main focus is on the history of England

from the earliest times to the present, with emphasis on

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the early political and cultural evolution of the English

people, the relationship between people and monarchy,as well as on the establishment of parliamentary

government. The course also approaches social and

political problems, community and industrial

developments, the expansion of the Empire, domestic

affairs of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

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CONTENTS

The History of the British Isles (politics, social

history, economy, religion, colonial history)

1. The British Isles from pre-Roman Britain to theMiddle Ages. The Roman Conquest. Celts,

Saxons and Vikings. The Rise of Large

Kingdoms.

2. The Middle Ages: The House of Normandy.

Magna Carta.

The 14th Century: Crises in England. The 15th

Century: The War of the Roses.

3. The 16th century: Reformation. The Elizabethan

Age.

4. The 17th Century: James I. Civil War in England.

The Restoration of the Stuarts. The Glorious

Revolution.

5. The 18th Century: The Growth of British Empire.

The Loss of America.

6. The Industrial Revolution. The First Reform Act.

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The Victorian Age.

7. The U.K. in the 20

th

Century. Irish Independence.The two World Wars. The Loss of the Empire.

Integrated topics:

The development of the English language. Old

English to Middle English. From (Early) ModernEnglish to English as a world Language.

Institutions: The Monarchy and the Church

(development, interdependence, their roles in

contemporary British society)

The judiciary system. Characteristics of English law.The Parliamentary system: The development of

Anglo-Saxon democracy. The State from pre-Roman

Britain to the U.K. today.

The class-system. Mentalities, morals, the individual

and society.

Topics suggested for individual study:

Education: types of schools.

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Cultural institutions.

Art, architecture, urbanism.Painting, sculpture, music, crafts.

Media and the press.

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PREREQUISITES: -

REQUIREMENTS FOR STUDENTS:

The students are required to answer the questions at the

end of every lecture and are also advised to consult the

reading list for further information. The evaluationconsists of 30% home activity (one report to be

submitted by the end of the semester) and 70% final

exam paper.

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THE HISTORY OF THE BRITISH ISLES

1. The British Isles from pre-Roman Britain to

the Middle Ages. The Roman Conquest. Celts, Saxons

and Vikings. The Rise of Large Kingdoms.

1.1. Pre-Roman and Roman Britain

Before the Roman Conquest of the British Isles, the

present territory of Britain was known as Albion, a name

that had been used by Greeks as early as 6000 BC. Later,

in the 4th century BC, Britain and Ireland were known as

the Pretanic Islands the Romans used the term

generically to denote people belonging to a Celtic-

speaking tribe.

In ancient times the territory was inhabited by

Iberians, of whom very little is actually known. Before

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the formation of the English state, the territory was

invaded, in turn, by Celts, Romans and Anglo-Saxons.In the 7th-3rd centuries BC, the Celtic tribes,

originally occupying the northern and western parts of

Germany and the Netherlands, were moving across

Europe in successive waves. Some of them settled in

France, others in Italy. The Celtic invaders of Britaincame in successive tribal waves and imposed themselves

as an aristocracy on the conquered tribes throughout

Britain and Ireland.

The Roman occupation occurred between the

coming of the Celts and the coming of the Saxons. In 55

and 54 BC (after having conquered Gaul in France),

Julius Caesar launched expeditions against Southern

England, but met strong resistance from the Celtic tribes.

It was only in 43 AD that Emperor Claudius, encouraged

by internal discord among the British tribes, invaded

Britain, which was incorporated into the Roman Empire.

The Britons, led by the legendary Queen Boadicea,

fought the Romans, but were defeated. Legend has it that

the queen chose to drink poison rather than be taken

prisoner. By 78 AD England and Wales were under

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Roman control, a situation that was to last until links

with Rome collapsed in 409 (possibly 449).The British Isles were, however, not conquered

entirely (Highland Scotland was never conquered, while

Ireland was never attacked). A frontier zone (Hadrians

Wall) was consolidated by the Romans to protect

England from invasion from the North. The Romanstried for over a century to conquer Caledonia, as they

called Scotland, but were unsuccessful. Once the border

with Scotland was consolidated, the Romans made it the

farthest outpost of their Empire. They never succeeded

in conquering the Scots, whom they identified with the

Barbarians from the farther northern regions.

Moreover, Hadrians Wall was frequently destroyed by

the repeated invasions of the Picts from Scotland, and it

was ultimately abandoned.

In the South, the Roman society encouraged a

process of Romanization, granting rights to the native

population. The Romans imposed their superior

civilization on the inhabitants of the conquered territory.

They left behind Welsh Christianity, the roads and the

city sites, which gained in importance. Many of the

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towns were originally army camps and the Latin name

for camp, castra, has remained in many modern townnames ending in caster, chester or cester, such as

Manchester, Doncaster or Leicester.

Nevertheless, the Romans were not successful in

imposing Latin, which influenced the English language

only later, namely after the Norman Conquest of 1066,when it was imposed as the official language in religion,

written documents and education.

The end of Roman Britain was brought by

increasing attacks from Barbarian peoples: Picts

Celtic-speaking tribes from Scotland, Angles, Jutes and

Saxons from north Germany, Jutland and Frisia, and

Saxony, respectively. These attacks caused the decline of

trade and the stagnation of activity in urban centers. The

Romans gradually withdrew from Britain. Having had

the support of the extremely well organized Roman

army, the natives had not consolidated any form of

defense and were now powerless and unable to resist the

attackers.

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In 409 AD the Roman-Britons expelled the

officials of Emperor Constantine III and were left toresist the attacks by themselves. According to most

historians, it was the lack of an efficient army and of

consolidated sites that made Britain so vulnerable to

invasions from that moment onwards.

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1.2. Angles, Saxons and Jutes

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The Anglo-Saxon settlement, which began in the

5

th

century AD, was, most likely, not the arrival of aunified army, but rather that of successive groups of

warriors, who saw the possibility for expansion and

began to settle on the island.

The Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes came from

the regions of continental Europe that correspond to themodern territories of Holland, Southern Denmark and

Western Germany. It has yet not been established to

what an extent there were large-scale movements of

peoples, or bands of warriors who settled in different

parts of the country. There was a long-lasting struggle

with the Roman-Briton population and domination was

not established until late in the 6th century, apparently,

the age of the legendary King Arthur.

These tribes gradually took over the area that is

now known as England (the land of the Angles), while

the Celts retreated north and west to Scotland and Wales.

The Saxons attacked England, the Jutes established

themselves in Kent and the Isle of Wight, and the Angles

went farther North. By 700, these peoples had occupied

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most of the land, with the exception of Cornwall and part

of southern Scotland.

In the conquered areas the Roman-Britons

survived as slaves and peasants. The Old English wordwealh, initially meaning foreigner, came to mean,

after the Anglo-Saxon settlement, both Celt,

Welshman, and servant, slave, which is indicative

of the survival of the Britons, but also of their low status

in the new society.

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As trade declined, England relapsed to a more

violent stage and Christianity faded away, as theinvaders were all pagans. The Anglo-Saxons brought

with them an extensive body of tribal culture. Some of

them used a runic alphabet, but the runes were only used

for short inscriptions. Writing was not used extensively

until the conversion to Christianity, when manuscripttechnology was introduced from Rome; even then, a

Celtic version of the Roman alphabet was used, but runic

signs were also introduced in it.

The Anglo-Saxons lived in small villages; they

used mud, wood and straw to build their houses, which

were grouped around the house of the lord. The lord, or

thane, was the most important man in the village, as he

kept order and made people obey the laws. There was no

body of laws in Anglo-Saxon society, but there were

compensations one had to pay for a crime. Offenders or

criminals were, depending on the severity of their deed,

either hanged or compelled to pay a sum of money called

wergild. On the whole, the Anglo-Saxons formed a

peaceful society. Once they settled the English territory,

they ceased carrying on wars and their biggest enemies

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became disease and starvation, as life expectancy was

very short.

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1.2.1. The Language

The Anglo-Saxon invasion meant the settlement

of a whole people, which means that their language

became the dominant one and only a few traces of the

Celtic language remained. The English language retained

the names of some towns (London, Leeds), regions(Kent, Devon, Cornwall the land of the Welsh), and

of rivers (Avon water, the Thames dark river).

The fact that the Celtic language (namely two of

its branches, Gaelic and Britannic Cornish and Welsh)

did not influence Old English to any great extent, does

not mean that the Britons were all killed or driven out,

but that their language simply did not have any impact

on the conquerors.

The English language proper derives from the

early Germanic, which, like the Celtic, is a branch of the

Indo-European family of languages. The Germanic

languages derived from the Proto-Germanic dialect of

the Indo-European family of languages. The Proto-

Germanic dialect was first mentioned by Tacitus in

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Germania, written in 98 AD. As a result of the

expansion of thee Germanic-speaking peoples,differences in the dialects within the Proto-Germanic

became more marked, until three distinct branches

(North, East and West Germanic) emerged.

The West-Germanic branch is subdivided into

two dialects: High German, which evolved into Germanand Yiddish, and the Low German dialects of North

Germany (called Old Saxon in their earliest form). They

include Dutch, Afrikaans, Flemish, Frisian and English.

Frisian is the language most closely related to English. It

was once spoken along the coast of the North Sea, from

Northern Holland to Central Denmark. Historians

speculate the possibility that the Anglo-Saxons might

have been near-neighbors with the Frisians before the

former migrated to England.

After the Anglo-Saxons conquered England, the

result in terms of language was a variety of dialects

(especially due to the fact that they had come and settled

in successive waves). In The Ecclesiastical History of

the English People (731), the Venerable Bede mentioned

these three powerful Germanic tribes. They were

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referred to as groups related in language and culture, and

they regarded themselves as people belonging to oneculture. In this respect, the Old English words Engle

(the Angles) and Englisc (English) were used to denote

all these peoples and the language they spoke.

Old English, the earliest phase in thedevelopment of the English language, lasted until

approximately the year 1100. Old English simplified the

Proto-Germanic language system - it had four cases for

the nouns, reduced the number of declensions to three or

four, it had fewer distinctive case endings, which were

further reduced in time. Old English relied for its case

distinctions on the adjectives, which had preserved more

distinctive endings than the nouns, and on the definite

article se. In its verb system, it preserved a Proto-

Germanic two-tense system, but it also saw the

beginning of a new tense system using auxiliaries and it

developed forms for the present/past perfect and for the

passive voice.

In terms of syntax, Old English had greater

variety of word order than today, because of its

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inflectional system. Negation was achieved by means of

the particle ne, which was used so frequently that itoften mixed with certain words, producing forms like

nis (is not) or nolde (would not). It retained the

use of prefixes and suffixes from the Proto-Germanic (in

words such as blodig, thancful, freondleas). Adverbs

were commonly formed from adjectives by means ofsuffixes (faest firm, faeste firmly). Prefixes

were added to verbs in order to intensify their force or to

denote destruction (baernan to burn, forbaernan

to destroy by burning. The prefix ge, for instance,

indicated the completion of an action: ridan to ride,

geridan to conquer, to occupy; siglde to sail,

gesiglde to get somewhere by sailing.

Compounding was also frequent: OE boccraeft (book-

skill) for literature, OE rimscraeft (number-skill)

for arithmetic. Some of the compound words have

survived in Modern English: OE sunnebeam >

sunbeam, OE wifmann > woman.

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1.3. The Heptarchy

The Anglo-Saxons established several kingdoms

before they united slowly. The Angles established

themselves in East Anglia and Middle Anglia, the

Saxons settled mainly in the south and west (Wessex,Essex, Middlesex, Sussex), and the Jutes settled in Kent,

the Isle of Wight and parts of Hampshire. In Scotland,

Picts and Scots formed the kingdom of Alba. Ireland had

a rather obscure position, as there was no post-Roman

continuity here. Christianity spread in Ireland in the 5th

century, not as a consequence of Roman Christianity, but

as a result of the missionary activity of St. Patrick, a

monk who came from England.

There is little information about Wales as well.

Once it was no longer part of the Roman Empire, it split

into a number of political unions, governed by powerful

warlords. Latin was used for religious purposes, but the

Celtic language survived as an active vernacular and

developed into Welsh.

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In England, gradual political union reduced the

kingdoms to seven (the Heptarchy): Northumbria(southern Scotland and England north of the river

Humber), Mercia (the West Midlands), East Anglia,

Essex, Wessex, Sussex and Kent. In the 7th century,

Northumbria was the strongest center of power, while in

the 9

th

century it was Wessex, whose kings finally unitedEngland.

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However, there was no consciousness of England

or of Wales as such until the 6

th

century, even if Waleswas dissimilar. As the Welsh had carried on a long

struggle with the invaders, Wales was culturally and

politically individualized. Literature was written in

Welsh and Wales became culturally a survivor from an

older civilization. There was a long struggle with theinvaders: in the 8th century, for instance, marked the

definition of a border between Wales and England. After

the Anglo-Saxon settlements, the identity of the Welsh

was defined in terms of otherness, but Wales

nevertheless became the most important area of

surviving Roman-Briton civilization.

In England, the West-Saxon dialect became the

literary standard. Even if there are surviving texts from

the Old English period written in four major dialects

(West Saxon, Kentish, Mercian and Northumbrian),

there was a tendency for the manuscripts to be copied by

West Saxon scribes and put into West Saxon form (e.g.

Beowulf). However, the West Saxon dialect is not the

direct ancestor of the English language.

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1.4. The Spread of Christianity

The English were converted to Christianity in

about the year 600 and it took them a century to

complete the process. It was carried out from twodirections, the Celtic church penetrating from the north-

west and the Roman church from the south-east.

In 597 a mission from Pope Gregory thee Great

came to Canterbury in Kent and it was successful in

southern England. Augustine, the monk sent by the

Pope, became the first Archbishop of Canterbury.

However, it was the Irish Church that was the base of

conversion for most of England. Christian missionaries

also arrived in Scotland from Ireland, where the Church

of Iona had been founded by Columba, an Irish monk, in

563. The Irish had a major influence in England as far as

religion was concerned. The first Saint Pauls Church

was built in London in 607.

As a result of the Synod at Whitby (664), the

Roman custom prevailed in the English Church, which

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1.5. The Development of the English State

In the 6th and 7th centuries, the relationship between the

kingdoms of the Heptarchy was subject to change. Some

of them flourished, while others lost their independence,

until three major kingdoms remained on the map of

Britain (Northumbria, comprising southern Scotland andEngland north of the river Humber,, Mercia, namely the

present-day West Midlands and Wessex).

It was difficult, for any of the rulers of these kingdoms,

to maintain lasting and effective control over the others,

as each of the kingdoms was defeated, in turn. For

instance, Aethelbert of Kent acted as an overking in 590;

Mercia dominated East Anglia from 654. Northumbria

was defeated by Mercia from 670 to 685. Ireland was

divided into about 100 small kingdoms, among which it

was hard to establish any hegemony. After it ceased to

be part of the Roman Empire, Wales was also divided

into a group of political unions, governed by powerful

local warlords.

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There were faint indications of a sense of national

identity. The Synod at Hertford (672) issued canons forthe English people, while Bede also wrote about the

English people in his Ecclesiastical History (731), but

neither had political echoes.

Despite the lack of a sense of national unity and identity,

some of the rulers of the dominant kingdoms were oftencalled King or Overlord of the English. Most probably,

the sintagm was first used with reference to Offa, the

ruler of Mercia, who managed to control formerly

independent kingdoms (Essex, East Anglia, Sussex and

Kent). Durable and effective control of much of Britain

was beyond the capability of any one of the rulers of

these kingdoms. However, the institution of monarchy

originated in the struggle for supremacy among the

kingdoms of the Heptarchy, and it was consolidated by

the Viking invasions.

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1.6. The Viking Invasions

From about 750 to 1035, another group of

peoples invaded the British territories. They were

generically known as Vikings, a term that used to mean

creek-dweller, or pirate, and which comprises theSwedes, the Norwegians and the Danes. The invasion of

the Scandinavian Vikings was the last phase of the

expansion of the early Germanic peoples. In the 8th

century, Charlemagne destroyed the power of the

Frisians, who had been the greatest maritime power, and

thus he left open the sea-route for the Vikings, who, in

turn, had become the strongest boat-building people and

were at the same time attacking, pirating, and trading in

new territories. They are said to have reached the shore

of America long before it was actually discovered, in

about the year 1.000.

The Vikings who conquered England were called

Dene. The first Danish raid took place in 787, and the

subsequent ones greatly contributed to the emergence of

the idea of English national unity. In 829, Egbert, king of

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Wessex, was recognized as overlord of England. In 835

he defeated the Danes, but in 870 they conquered EastAnglia. Aethelred died fighting them at Merton (871).

He was succeeded by Alfred the Great, who became king

of Wessex in 871. Alfred prevented the Danes from

conquering the whole of England, but there were

massive Scandinavian settlements in the north and east(the Norwegians settled in Lancashire and Cumbria, the

Danes in Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire,

Norfolk). Many present-day place-names ending in

thorpe are of Scandinavian origin.

1.6.1. Old English and Old Norse

The language of the Scandinavian invaders, Old

Norse, had a tremendous impact on Old English. Some

words are identical or very similar in the two languages,

and they had the same result in Middle English (OE na

and ON nei produced nay, later no in Middle

English). Often a word is not recorded in Old English,

but it is in Old Norse. For instance, the verb to take has

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its origin in the on word taka, while its OE

correspondent was niman. Both words existed inMiddle English, but then to nim meant to steal. The

word gate comes from the OE gatu, but in the

northern dialects it also meant way, street, from the

ON gata (in Leeds and York there still are streets called

Kirkgate, the corresponding version of Churchstreet.Most Scandinavian loan-words first appeared in

writing in the Middle English period, but their form

shows that they had been taken over in the late Old

English period, for they underwent the transition from

Old English to Middle English. Many of the words that

were taken over are ordinary ones, relating to everyday

life and denoting the similarities between the two

cultures (sister, bag, cake, fog, knife, skin,

skill, window, flat, loose, odd, ugly, they,

them, their). However, their number is rather small

compared to the number of words that were later

borrowed from French and Latin.

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1.6.2. Anglo-Saxons and Vikings

In 878, the Danelaw was established. When

Alfred defeated the Danes he allowed them to inhabit

part of England east and north of a line from Chester to

London. Initially, the Danelaw designated the parts of

north, central and eastern England where Danish, ratherthan Saxon, customs and laws, prevailed. Later, King

Edgar (959-75) would grant autonomy to the inhabitants

of the Danelaw.

At the same time, Ireland was attacked by the

Norwegians. Consequently, the conflict with the Vikings

played a crucial role in the development of the English

state, just as the Viking invasions of Scotland

contributed to the increase of the power of the kingdom

of the Scots.

Alfred the Great (871-99) was regarded as

English, rather than West-Saxon king. The West-Saxon

rulers claimed ownership of the overlordship of all

Britain, and in 920, the rulers of Scotland, York and

Northumbria accepted Edwards lordship. The West-

Saxon dynasty was dominant in the incipient English

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monarchy. Athelstan (924-39) and Eadred (946-55) were

regarded as the first kings of the English. In 973, Edgarstaged an elaborate coronation at Bath, in which he was

the first ruler to be crowned king of the English, even if

the title itself had been used before (by Offa and

Athelstan).

Monarchy in Anglo-Saxon times had noextensive rights. Its duties were to defend the people, to

uphold the law, to administer justice. The laws that were

promulgated were declaratory, rather than legislative.

However, most laws were given with the help of the

Witan, the council of Anglo-Saxon kings.

The Witan had developed from earlier Germanic

assemblies, and it had become, under the Anglo-Saxon

rulers, a formal gathering of the main noblemen and

bishops. They were summoned by the king in order to

give him advice and to witness acts of royal

administration, new laws, to make decisions on taxation,

foreign policy and defense. The Witan played a

fundamental role in checking royal power and in

preventing autocracy it was an incipient element in the

development of English democracy.

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Ireland, Scotland and Wales were at most times

independent of England. Ireland generally resisted to theViking attacks due to a succession of kings who

weakened the attackers power. In Scotland, Kenneth

McAlpin conquered the Scots and united them with the

Scots. There was no ethnic union between England and

Scotland. What eventually became Scotland wasethnically, geographically and culturally diverse and

included Scots, Picts, Britons and some Angles. For

instance, until mid-12th century it was unclear whether

much of what is now Northern Ireland, and especially

Cumbria and Northumbria, would be part of England or

of Scotland.

In Wales there were few attacks from the

Vikings, but there was pressure from England. The

division of property among sons had eventually made it

difficult for Wales to achieve unity. Thus, even if they

were individualized (they even had their own coins), the

Welsh in the south made some kind of submission to

Alfred, who offered them help against the Vikings, and

they later became subordinates of Athelstan.

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In the 11th century, the English kingdom created

by the rulers of Wessex was overthrown by foreigninvasion. The Danish raids culminated with the taking

over of the country by King Canute (1017-35). Canute

also inherited Denmark and he made England part of it.

As king of a number of kingdoms, Canute complied with

the English governmental system, he treated Englishmenand Danes as equals and faced no rebellion. His empire

fell apart after his death.

Under Edward the Confessor (1044-66) the royal

titles of King of the English and King of the British

were used indifferently even if Ireland was completely

independent, Wales and Scotland were dependent on

England and offered her military help.

In actual fact, from the 10th century onwards,

when Edgar ruled England, as well as Wales and

Scotland, England was perceived as a single territory,

whether it was rule by Danish kings (Canute), half-

English (Edward the Confessor) or Norman French ones,

like William the Conqueror and his immediate

successors; all of them were perceived as rulers of a

single country.

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By the time of Canutes reign, the country hadalready been divided into shires (later counties), which

were unequal in size and wealth (some of them were

former kingdoms). Each shire had a court which met

twice a year and was presided over by the kings

representative (sheriff). Shires were divided intohundreds, each with its court (of rural population). By

the 11th century the existing laws reveal a carefully

defined hierarchy: ones position in society was

established not only by laws, but also by titles. At the

base were the slaves, some of them descendants of pre-

Saxon peoples, above them were the cottagers, who were

tied in their work and obligations to their lords will, and

at the top were the magnates and the warriors. The bond

between man and lord was essential and lordship gained

in importance.

This was the social background against which,

with the battle of Hastings in 1066, the Normans

conquered England.

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CONCEPTS AND KEYWORDS

1. Celts, Angles, Saxons, Jutes

2. Old English

3. Kingdoms the Heptarchy

4. Viking invasions Old Norse

5. The Witan

QUESTIONS

1. How did the Roman occupation influence the

development of the Celtic people?

2. What is the origin of the English language?

3. What was the significance of the Heptarchy in the

development of the English state?

4. How did Christian religion spread on the English

territory?

5. What was the influence of Old Norse on Old

English?

6. What was the impact of the Witan on the

development of English democracy?

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2. England in the Middle Ages. House ofNormandy.

2.1. House of Normandy William the Conqueror

(1066-87) signified the advent of a new era in English

history, the beginning of the Middle Ages. England wasnow centered on the ruler, on his views and entourage.

The very character of his reign depended entirely on the

personality of the monarch.

With the coming of the Normans, there was a social

revolution at the level of the Anglo-Saxon elite, while

the new rule of foreigners affected the ordinary people to

a lesser degree.

The Normans introduced the social system of

feudalism in England, a system that was to change the

social structure of the country dramatically. Under the

Normans, the main economic unit was the manor the

home farm and the surrounding estate. The lord was

entitled to day labor and rent. Even if rents and labors

had existed under Anglo-Saxon rule in order to offer

people protections against invaders, the system was

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refined and consolidated. Under the feudal system

instituted in England by the Normans, manors weregiven to the kings vassals in return for military service.

The social system of the country was characterized by

personal relationship. The king granted lands to his

subjects in return for military service and this exchange

was consolidated by the act of homage paid by the vassalto the lord.

The Normans built castles that were symbolic of

their power and which became centers for governmental,

political and religious activity. Peasants were more

closely controlled and the status of free men became

lower.

In contrast to Canutes reign, Williams rule

caused strong opposition. Even if those noblemen who

willingly submitted to William the Conqueror were

allowed to keep their lands, there was strong resistance

to the spread of Norman rule. Many noblemen revolted

and in 1069 the revolt spread throughout the north of

country. The stifling of the revolt, the harrying of the

North, resulted in the Normanization of both Church

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and land. The English were denied clerical appointments

and landlords were dispossessed of their properties.Latin was introduced as official language, as the

Norman invasion had enjoyed the support of the Pope.

These changes intensified resistance, and more uprisings

in the North and in the West Midlands took place

parallel to Danish and Scottish invasions in support ofthe English. As there was lack of coordination among the

rebellions, they were unsuccessful. Malcolm III of

Scotland was forced to submit and in 1086 most of the

important landlords paid homage to William.

In order to get an estimate of the land and to gain

as much as possible by land tax, William conceived the

Domesday Survey Book, a record of property that

functioned as the final authority in any disputes over

property, and from which there was no appeal. Royal

commissioners visited each shire and village, made

reports on the identity of the landowners, the size and

use of land, the number and status of its cultivators.

Juries that consisted of both Englishmen and Normans

attested the truth of the answers, and the information was

tabulated on an abacus.

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Despite the fact that Williams rule was regarded

as an excessively oppressive one, the process ofcentralization of the state powers had begun its course,

and future monarchs of the House of Normandy

contributed to this ongoing process.

During the reign of Henry I (1100-1135), whowas mainly concerned with consolidating his political

and military position in the newly conquered Northern

France, means had to be found to rule England in the

absence of the king. Consequently, his reign witnessed

the growth and rationalization of the royal administrative

and judicial systems. From about 1130, itinerant justices

(justices in eyre) toured the country and later royal

judicial activity expanded as the Crown appointed local

justices, in order to keep England stable.

The Exchequer, the financial and accounting

office of medieval England, dating from King Williams

time, was also consolidated (in 1172 it settled at

Westminster). Records were made by means of counters

on a chequered table, based on the abacus. [At present,

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the Finance Minister of the U.K. is called Chancellor of

the Exchequer.]

2.2. Changes in Language

The year 1100 is regarded as the approximatedate when Old English was replaced by Middle English,

a further phase in the development of English language,

which was to last, conventionally, until 1500. Old

English did not, of course, die out suddenly, but for

some centuries English ceased to be the language of the

upper classes and it was replaced by French.

Even if English was still spoken by the ordinary

people, there was no longer any standard literary

language. The Anglo-Saxons had a tradition of

scholarship that went back to the 7th century (when

Charlemagne had wanted to reform his educational

system, he had called an Englishman to do it). This

tradition had been disrupted by the Viking invasions, but

it was revived in the 10th century under West-Saxon

leadership.

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Once French was decreed the official language,

the West-Saxon dialect lost its place as standard literarylanguage. For about three centuries, there was no single

form of English recognized as a norm, and people spoke

in the language/dialect of their own region. The prestige

languages were Latin and French the former was the

language of the Church, of scholarship, of internationalcommerce, while the latter was used mainly in

administration. But French was never the mother tongue

of the population and, as the French never outnumbered

the English in the way in which Anglo-Saxons had

outnumbered the Britons, French gradually died out in

the 14th century.

Generally, Norman England was characterized by

conflict under various forms. There was rivalry within

the Norman elite (competition between noblemen,

disputes between noblemen and monarchs, most of

which were linked to the dominant principle of the

undivided inheritance, which went to the eldest male

child, a principle which also established succession to

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the throne). Moreover, the military campaigns against

Wales and Scotland, paralleled by hostilities with therulers of France and the civil war within the Norman

elite following Williams death, contributed to the

weakening of Englands military values and potential.

The House of Normandy was replaced for a short

while by the House of Blois (Stephen 1135-54), buteven the future kings were descendants of King William

I.

2.3. House of Plantagenet. Law and

administration. Magna Carta.

King Henry II (1154-89) was granted

overlordship of Ireland by Pope Adrian. Thus, an Anglo-

Irish struggle was started, that was to last ever since.

Henry II obtained the submission of many of the Irish

kings and of the Irish Church. Much of Ireland was

captured, but Henry was just overlord, never king, of

Ireland. He also obtained the homage of the King of

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Scotland, who restored him some territories, and he

subdued the Welsh.In order to put an end to the anarchy in England,

Henry II instituted a number of legal reforms. The most

notable example was the Assize of Claredon (1166),

where the jury system was established, and which was

fundamental in the development of the English judicialsystem.

He became famous for the conflict with his

Chancellor, Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury,

who defended the rights of clerics to be tried in Church

courts (the freedom of appeal to Rome). As a result of

the disputes over the rights of Church and State, Becket

was exiled and murdered at Canterbury. He was

canonized and his shrine became a place of pilgrimage.

The expansion of governmental activity required

an increasing number of professional people. These were

called curiales a word originating in curia regis, the

royal court of Norman kings, which had fulfilled the

functions of royal government. The curiales enforced

justice and collected royal revenues. They contributed to

the increase of the coercive power of government.

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The administration became even more

independent during the reign of Richard I Coeur de Lion(1189-99), whose participation in the Crusades and

frequent absences from the country placed heavy

burdens on Englands finances.

Until 1189, English monarchs had enjoyed great

power, but they had accepted advice and certainlimitations on their authority. King John (1199-1216),

however, ignored these restrictions. He made England a

fief of the Papacy and this, along with the previous

growth in the role and liberty of the State, caused the

opposition of the noblemen, who united against his

dictatorial rule.

In 1215, King John was forced to accept the

terms ofMagna Carta, a document that was originally

intended to protect the aristocracy, not the ordinary

people, but which, in time, became a landmark in British

constitutional history.

Magna Carta was a charter of liberties that

condemned King Johns use of feudal and judicial

powers. It defined and limited royal power and royal

rights and it forced the king to accept advice and

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promoted an aristocratic influence in national affairs. It

guaranteed every mans security from illegal interferencein his person and property, it provided freemen with

some rights and liberties against royal action. It

guaranteed justice to everyone, stipulating that no person

could be punished or kept in prison without a fair,

however speedy, trial.According to the terms of Magna Carta, the

Crown was no longer able to determine its rights alone.

Magna Carta constrained monarchs to accept limitations

in their power, and it was to be enforced by a Council of

barons, who could declare war on the king if he failed to

respect his promises.

Magna Carta was frequently reissued by Great

Councils and, even if later monarchs often tried to ignore

it, and its importance was not perceived as such at the

time, it remained the oldest written constitutional paper

in England.

The 13th century was marked by further decisive

political events. Crises in Anglo-Welsh relationships

culminated in 1277, when Edward I (1272-1307)

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invaded Wales and established a new military order and

political settlement. The Statute of Wales wasestablished in 1284, and it defined the legal and

administrative changes and arrangements made by

Edward for the conquered territories. New government

centers were established, new boroughs and counties

were formed, more castles were built. English criminallaw was made compulsory, while Welsh civil law was

allowed to continue. Edward initiated the English custom

of entitling the kings eldest son Prince of Wales.

The wars with Scotland were not as successful

Scotland was not defeated because, at the same time, a

conflict with France emerged, which was to degenerate

into the Hundred Years War.

2.4. The emergence of Parliament

In 1295 Edward I summoned the Model

Parliament. Basic parliamentary structures had existed

before in 1265 Simon de Montfort had called

Englands first Parliament, composed of nobles and

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minor aristocrats. Parliament emerged out of the need for

an important political body to complement monarchy. In1295, representatives of the clergy, of counties and

boroughs were called to give advice to the King and to

consent on behalf of the communities they represented;

the nobles appeared on their own behalf. The Model

Parliament was to serve as an example for similar futurestructures. Its two sections consisted of the Lords and

Bishops, who were chosen by the King, and the

Commoners, who were elected.

In the 14th century, the practices of Parliament

were established. Tax money from the nobles was no

longer enough to finance the upkeep of administration

and pay for the wars against France, so that the middle

classes were asked to contribute as well. In 1349, during

the reign of Edward III (1327-77) the representatives of

the counties and boroughs (knights, yeomen and

merchants) complied, and began to meet as a separate

assembly, the Council of the Commoners. In return, they

demanded to be consulted by the king when important

decisions mad to be taken (this was the beginning of the

House of Commons).

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Parliament became important because of the

constant need to raise taxes in order to pay for warfare(military troops). At the end of the 14th century, taxation

was established by the House of Commons, with the

consent of the Lords. [However, for most of the Middle

Ages, the Commons were an adjunct to Parliament,

rather than a part of it they met separately and wererepresented in the Parliament Chamber by their speaker,

who was, until the end of the 17 th century, a servant of

the Crown.]

While Parliament did serve as a means to support

royal policies financially, it also constrained monarchial

freedom of political manoeuvre. England was on the

road of becoming the first and only parliamentary

monarchy in Europe. From a situation in which the

monarch had enjoyed almost absolute power, by the end

of the Middle Ages, two councils, one made up of

aristocrats and one of commoners, had a say in the

running of the country. England was the first country in

the world where the principle that the representatives of

the people had a right to participate in government was

accepted.

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2.5. England in the 14

th

Century

In the 14th century, social and economic crises

increased. Most of them were triggered by the conflicts

between the nobility and the newly emerged middle

classes.During the reign of Edward II (1307-27) the

Great Famine (1315-17) occurred, as a result of

extensive harvest failure. During the reign of Edward III

(1327-77), the Hundred Years War with France began

(1337-1453), and the most decisive episode was the

Bubonic plague (Black Death), which killed, from 1348

to 1351, one third of the population and disrupted the

economy of the country. Both the war and the plague

hastened the breakdown of the feudal system in England.

In 1377 Edward III was succeeded by Richard II

Plantagenet (1377-99). In 1381 the King was faced with

the Peasant Revolt a revolt against feudal power and at

the poor living conditions against the background of the

Hundred Years War with France. In order to support

war expenses, a poll tax was introduced for all people

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over the age of 14. This tax pressed hard on the rural

population, leading to riots in 1381. The peasants, led byWatt Tyler, occupied London, seized the Tower of

London and murdered the Chancellor and the

Archbishop of Canterbury.

King Richard II granted charters of freedom to

the rebels, but as soon as they had returned to theirhomes, he revoked the charters and punished the leaders

of the rebels.

In 1399 he conducted a successful expedition to

Ireland, where the Irish lords paid him homage. Three

years later, he banished Henry Bolingbroke (Lancaster)

and seized his inheritance, but in 1399 he was deposed.

Henry IV (House of Lancaster) became king until 1413.

The succession of the House of Lancaster to the

throne of England caused the War(s) of the Roses (1455-

86). Both families involved (Lancaster and York)

claimed royal right by descent from Edward III. Internal

political conflict between the House of Lancaster and the

House of York began in 1454, when King Henry VI

(Lancaster) was declared temporarily insane and was

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replaced by Richard, Duke of York, who became

Protector of England.In 1461 Edward, Duke of York, defeated the

Lancastrians and proclaimed himself Edward IV. Henry

VI fled to Scotland. He returned in 1464, but he was

captured and imprisoned. In 1470 he was restored and

Edward fled to Flanders. Henry ruled again for only oneyear, when Edward of York returned and claimed the

Crown. Henry VI was imprisoned again and murdered

(1471). Edward IV became king once again (1471-83).

He was succeeded to the throne by his son, Edward V,

who was king for only one year. In 1483, his uncle,

Richard of Gloucester, imprisoned him in the Tower,

where he was probably murdered.

King Richard III House of York (1483-85) was

not trusted by the noblemen. In 1485, Henry Tudor

(House of Lancaster) invaded the country with the help

of French troops. Richard, supported only by a few

noblemen, was defeated and killed at Bosworth. Henry

became King of England as Henry VII (1485-1509).

When he married Elizabeth of York (1486), the War of

the Roses was ended.

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2.6. The Language. Middle English.

Since the Norman Conquest, three languages had

been used in parallel in England: Norman French was

spoken in Court and by the nobility, Latin was the

language of the Church and of official documents, whileEnglish was the language of the ordinary people. But, at

the beginning of the 13th century, King John lost

Normandy to the French Crown. The ties with

Normandy were gradually severed and the Norman

nobility gradually became English. Gradually, there was

a switch from French to English as the official language.

The first state document to be issued in English

was the Proclamation of Henry III (1216-72) a

constitutional document that reformed Parliament in

1269. In 1362 Edward IIIs Parliament enacted a statute

whereby the use of French in the court laws was

terminated (even if records were still kept in Latin) and

in the same year the king made the first royal speech to

Parliament in English. By the end of Richard IIs reign

(1399), English had become the everyday language of

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the Court. In the 14th century there was a switch from

French to English as the medium of grammar schooleducation.

When, in 1399, Henry Lancaster seized the

throne of England, he would be the first king whose

native language was English, and in the 15th century

there were members of the nobility who spoke no Frenchat all.

As English became the language of

administration and culture, there came a re-establishment

of an English literary language a standard form of the

language, which could be regarded as a norm (there

were, in fact, two standard forms of the language, that of

England and that of Scotland). In England, the new

standard language was no longer based on the West-

Saxon literary language, but on the East Midland dialect,

as the East Midlands had a superior cultural, economic

and administrative life. The North remained a rather

backward region, but in the south, the London speech

imposed itself and its prestige grew gradually.

Nevertheless, the 13th and 14th centuries

represented a code-switching, transitional period, as both

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languages were used simultaneously. More French

words were adopted in English now than they had beenwhen French had been the official language, because

back then it had not been spoken by the ordinary people.

An illustrative example is that of the 2nd person

pronouns. Originally, the English words had been thou

(singular) and ye (plural), and thee (singular) andyou (plural) after a preposition or as an object,

respectively. Due to the ambiguity of the French vous,

the English word you took over the functions of the

plural ye, and then you took over the functions of the

singular thou, so that the distinction between singular

and plural was lost.

With the emergence of a new class the

merchants who took control of an international trade,

with London guilds beginning to use English for their

records, specialized terms, in which English was

deficient, were taken over from French. By mid-15th

century, the tradesmen had become an almost separate

literate group, apart from the clergy and the nobility.

Sometimes, English, French and Latin occurred together

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in their documents (the symbol & was first used in

their documents).

2.6.1. French Loan Words

Most French words were not borrowed in English

while French was the language of the upper classes (theordinary people in England did not speak French), but in

the 13th and 14th centuries, when there were bilingual

speakers changing over to English for purposes such as

commerce, administration and literature. They were not

homely words such as the Scandinavian ones. The

influence of French was a vertical one, reflective of

cultural and political dominance, and they are more

common in the fields of administration (chancellor,

council, government), the law (to accuse, attorney,

crime, to punish), heraldry, arts (costume, apparel,

dress), military and ecclesiastical life (castle, tower,

abbey, clergy, prayer). Most words denoting titles

of rank in English are also of French origin (baron,

count, duke, peer, prince), while the language

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retained the English words king, queen, lord, lady,

earl, knight.When they were first borrowed, French words

were given a French pronunciation, but they were soon

adapted to the English phonological system and they

were pronounced in the English manner. This process of

assimilation made it easier for later Romance and Latinwords to be adopted by the English language (French

stems with English prefixes and suffixes, such as

beautiful, faithless, preaching, ungracious).

The dominance of French for so many centuries

had a huge impact on writing as well: English writers

began writing verse chronicles in the French manner.

However, in certain places, some English literary

traditions were preserved until the 2nd half of the 14th

century, there was a line of poets using the alliterative

line descending from Old English poetry. With Geoffrey

Chaucer, whose versification was deeply influenced by

Italian and French models, Old English versification

became obsolete.

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2.6.2. Characteristics of Middle English

Linguists conventionally date Middle English

from 1100 and 1500. Old English did not disappear

suddenly in the years following the Norman Conquest.

The West-Saxon literary tradition was continued for a

while in some monasteries, but the changes that hadbegun to occur in the language before the conquest now

developed at a much higher speed. Significant changes

took place in spelling: the Norman scribes disregarded

Old English spelling altogether they spelled words as

they heard them and often resorted to the conventions of

Norman French.

A sound change that took place in late Old

English but did not become apparent until the Middle

English period, was the lengthening of short vowels

before certain consonant groups, under the influence of

French pronunciation. For instance, the OE word bakan

(to bake) became baken in Middle English, but it was

still pronounced with a long a. With the French

influence, it then became to bake, and its pronunciation

was the one used nowadays. The Middle English

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lengthening of vowels in open syllables of disyllabic

words also affected the spelling conventions of theEnglish language. In early Middle English, words like

bake had two syllables. After the first vowel was

lengthened, the final e was lost and such words became

monosyllabic.

In the field of morphology, there was a greatreduction in the inflectional system inherited from Old

English (the period of reduced inflections). The loss

and weakening of unstressed syllables at the end of the

words destroyed many of the distinctive inflections of

Old English. The Old English word-finals a, -u, -e

became en in Middle English, to be finally reduced to

e. The endings as and es for the Nominative plural and

Genitive singular became es. Even the final e

ultimately disappeared in the Nominative during the

Middle English period and many endings became

identical. By the 15th century the es plural became

universal.

A similar process of loss of case distinctions took

place in adjectives and demonstratives. In the case of

adjectives, the language used two forms: the base form

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(e.g. fair) and a form with the ending e used for the

plural (faire). Towards the end of the Middle English period, the e was lost and the adjective became

indeclinable. In Old English, the definite article showed

three genders, but by the end of the Middle English

period the became the only form of the definite article.

In Old English, the definite article and theadjective played a major role in marking the distinctions

of case and number. When they lost this function by the

end of the Middle English period, the language changed

a lot. Grammatical gender disappeared in favor of the

natural gender (in Old English, for instance, the word

wifmann woman was masculine, while wif

wife was neuter).

Word order became very important, because

inflections were no longer capable of showing which

noun was the subject of the sentence. In the verb system,

there was also a tendency for inflections to be replaced

by more analytical devices. If, in Old English, there were

many inflections, but only two tenses (present and past),

in Middle English the system of inflections was reduced,

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but a new system of tenses was built up by means of the

primary auxiliaries and of the modal auxiliaries.

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2.7. Literacy and Education in the MiddleAges

In the Anglo-Saxon period, the control of

education in England became the responsibility of the

Christian church (the first schools were founded in the6th century). In the Middle Ages, the monastic and

cathedral schools, which had originally been established

for the clergy and for those intending to enter the

monasteries, gradually admitted lay pupils and

broadened the curriculum to include the study of the

classics, grammar, logic, rhetoric, geometry and

arithmetic. The Church continued to dominate education

until the end of the Middle Ages.

In Norman and early medieval times only a few

people were educated especially churchmen. Before

the Norman Conquest, Alfred the Great had attempted to

bring the benefits of literacy to a wider section of the

community (he founded a court school and translated

some works from Latin into Anglo-Saxon himself).

However, Alfred was something of a unique figure in

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this respect. With the Normans, education was regarded

as something incompatible with fighting men (Williamthe Conqueror could not even sign his name and he

signed charters with a cross).

However, there were schools attached to

monasteries in the Middle Ages. It was to the greatest

extent the Church that enjoyed the prerogatives ofeducation, but the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge

developed around centers of learning established by the

clergy in the 12th and 13th centuries. During the Middle

Ages, the number of cathedral grammar schools rose to

approximately 400. By the 14th century, grammar

schools existed for the education of boys who were not

destined for the Church.

With the Black Death, many of these schools had

closed by the 15th century. They were restored

afterwards, this time by certain citizens and companies

who founded new schools by donation. These were the

Livery Companies the London trade and crafts

associations such as those of the weavers, merchants

and vintners, who were the successors of the guilds and

dominated Londons political and economic life in the

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Middle Ages. They began to control trades in the mid-

13

th

century and exercised power over all aspects ofcommercial organization. As they were immensely

wealthy, they also engaged in charitable and educational

activities, so that they founded boys schools, took over

responsibility for running them and provided

scholarships at schools and universities. At the sametime, a basic education was also provided in some areas

for the children of the poor, usually by the local parish

priest.


1. Feudalism

2. Domesday Survey Book, Exchequer

3. Transition from Old English to Middle English

4. Magna Carta

5. Model Parliament

6. Middle English

7. The Great Famine, the Plague, the Peasant Revolt

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QUESTIONS

1. How did the Norman Conquest influence the early

English democracy?

2. What was the feudal system characterized by?

3. How did judicial activity expand in the Middle Ages

(House of Plantagenet)?4. How did early Parliament structures emerge in the

13th century?

5. Discuss the main social crises in the 14th century.

6. How did the War(s) of the Roses influence monarchy

in the 15th century?

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3. The 16

th

Century: Reformation. TheElizabethan Age.

England in the 16th century was characterized by

significant changes. On the whole, there was moreemphasis on religious division, there were problems at

home and abroad, and transoceanic developments. The

population of the country had nearly doubled by mid-16th

century, which brought about a growth in economic

demand.

Inflation also grew, rents and food prices grew faster

than wages. This brought about a growth of the number

of beggars. The 1495 Parliament Act concerning

vagabonds and beggars was followed by a number of

laws regarding the poor: paupers who were not able to

find work became the responsibility of parishes in

England, whereas in Scotland paupers had to earn the

right to beg and beggars were required to wear a

distinctive blue badge.

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The discrepancy between the rich and the poor

created a rift in the social order. The rich displayed theirgrowing wealth, which was visible in clothes, furniture,

music instruments. Homes were no longer built like

fortresses they had large windows and were

surrounded by ever more elaborate gardens.

The gentry tried to adopt a code of aristocraticconduct and developed an interest in education, which

distinguished them from the rest of the community.

Caxton had introduced printing in England in 1474.

Books thus ensured the possibility of a more private and

individual culture. Theaters appeared towards the end of

the 16th century (The Globe was opened in 1599) under

the patronage of aristocrats.

The coal industry developed in the north mainly

to supply London. The role of the market economy

became more consistent and affected areas that had been

poor before (Edinburgh in Scotland). Welsh cattle and

sheep were brought to England and Welsh coal was

mined and exported.

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3.1. House of Tudor

Under the Tudors, England flourished and was

introduced to Renaissance learning. It also became an

important power in European diplomacy. Henry VII

(1485-1509) was the first Welshman to become King of

England. The process of administrative assimilation ofWales was begun during his reign and it was completed

during the reign of Henry VIII, from 1536 to 1547.

Henry VIII had an active role in reasserting the

monarchs control over the nobility. The nobility had

been weakened by wars and by internal conflicts so from

1485, in Tudor England there was a return to royal

dominance. The noblemen were often excluded from

policy-making. Consequently, Tudor monarchs

controlled Parliament and summoned it only when they

wanted to raise money.

The reign of Henry VIII (1509-47) King of

Ireland from 1540 was significant for the Reformation

of the Church. The Reformation was a religious and

political movement in 16th century Europe, inspired by a

wish to reform the Roman Catholic Church and resulting

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in the establishment of Protestant Churches in several

countries.The first part of Henry VIIIs reign was

dominated by his desire for a glorious foreign policy. He

was determined to make England an influential country

in Europe and in this sense he sustained military

campaigns that brought the country close to bankruptcy.Apart from these concerns, Henry VIII also had

dynastic concerns. His first wife, Catherine of Aragon,

had given him one daughter, Mary. Henry tried to end

his marriage when he fell in love with Anne Boleyn. As

divorce was almost impossible, Henry needed a Papal

dispensation. He asked Pope Clement VIII for an

annulment of his marriage, which he was not granted.

One of the reasons for the Popes refusal was the fact

that, at the time, Catherines nephew was Emperor

Charles V, the most powerful ruler in Italy, and he did

not want to upset him.

In a dramatic gesture, Henry rejected Papal

jurisdiction over the English Church. Until 1533, the

English Church was subject to the papacy. The clergy

owed loyalty to the King and to the Pope in Rome. They

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also had the right to be tried in Church courts (the right

of Appeals to Rome). A series of statues (the Restraint ofAppeals to Rome) ended the papal jurisdiction over the

English Church and also brought papal authority to an

end in England. This Act permitted Henry to divorce

Catherine and marry Anne Boleyn.

In 1533 Henry VIII proclaimed England anEmpire, governed by one supreme head and king. By

being declared an Empire, England was proclaimed self-

sufficient from a jurisdictional point of view. Henry

established the sovereignty of Law made in Parliament.

In 1534, the term majesty was used for the first

time in proclamations and documents (it replaced your

grace as a form of address to the king). Henry devised

the doctrine of royal supremacy, and developed the

theory that the monarch was not responsible to the

people, but to God alone (the mystique of kingship).

In the same year (1534), the Act of Supremacy

established that Henry would be the Supreme Head of

the Church. A dramatic turn took place in religion, a

shift that was to change the political future of the country

as well.

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There had been no indications that England

would become, from a Catholic country, a Protestantone. In 1517, in Germany, Luther had challenged the

Papacy. Not only had Henry (a devout Catholic) not

responded, but he had written a book against Luther. The

Pope had rewarded him with the title Fidei Defensor

(Defender of Faith). But later, his break with Romeencouraged Protestants in England.

Henry VIII moved in the direction of

Lutheranism. He changed those aspects of the Church

that he viewed hostile. In 1536 the dissolution of the

(extremely wealthy) Catholic monasteries was set in

motion. The properties of the monasteries were

transferred to the Crown. Beckets shrine at Canterbury

was destroyed and pilgrimages were forbidden.

As a result of the royal supremacy, all religious

questions became political questions and any form of

dissent became a direct challenge to the Crown. Those

who did not accept thee Reformation were persecuted.

The Treason Act of 1534 extended the notion of treason

to words, not just deeds. Religious dissent was identified

with the denial of royal supremacy. Thomas More, who

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had persecuted Protestants before, resigned as Lord

Chancellor in protest at Henrys divorce and wasexecuted for treason.

In 1534 an Act was passed in Parliament,

establishing that Henrys marriage to Anne Boleyn was

undoubted, true, sincere and perfect, and that their

children would succeed to the throne of England. Mary,Catherines daughter, was declared illegitimate. After

Elizabeth was born, Anne Boleyn was beheaded in 1536.

Henry married Jane Seymour, who bore him a son,

Edward. In 1536 an Act replaced that of 1534, and

provided for the succession of Henrys children with

Jane Seymour. In 1544, a final Act settled the order of

succession to the throne of England: Edward I, Mary I,

Elizabeth I.

In England, the general reluctance to accept

Protestant religion was counterbalanced by the

unwillingness of most people to overthrow the King, but

this political move had weakened the authority of the

Crown. Scotland was determined not to follow the

English lead, and, even if Henry VIII attacked it in 1542,

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the negotiations failed and Scotland would accept the

Reformation much later.Wales accepted the Reformation easily, as it was

threatened by Spain, the most powerful Catholic country,

and it needed English help. From 1536 to 1543, the

Union of Wales with England was consolidated. Wales

was assimilated into the English governmental systemand the Welsh people became English subjects, with

representatives in Parliament. In 1543, the introduction

of English law and administration contributed to the

prosperity of the country, but the replacement of Welsh

with English as the official language had a devastating

effect on Welsh culture.

Ireland rejected the Reformation and the

Protestant colonists whom the King sent there. This

resulted in a war that lasted for nine years, but in 1540

the Irish Parliament accepted Henry VIII as King of

Ireland.

During the reign of Edward VI (1547-53),

Protestantism was consolidated, despite the general

hostility to religious change. Two Acts of Uniformity

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that were passed during Edwards reign established that

the moderately Protestant Book of Common Prayershould be used in Anglican service, and that fines should

be paid for non-attendance at church.

When Mary I (1553-58) succeeded her brother to

the throne of England, there was a dramatic return to

Catholicism. Mary was a fervent Catholic; she alsomarried Philip of Spain (an unpopular marriage that

caused revolts in the country). England was absolved

from Schism, and a synod restored Catholicism. Massive

persecution of Protestants (Bishops and about 270

Protestants were burnt at the stake) earned her the name

Bloody Mary.

In 1558 Elizabeth I became Queen of England

and Ireland. Having been declared illegitimate after her

mothers death, she had been imprisoned in the Tower of

London by her half-sister Mary, who had seen in her an

exponent of Protestantism.

Even if she opposed religious extremism, she

inherited a country (nation) that was deeply divided by

religious strife. She restored her fathers moderate

Anglicanism - in 1559 she reintroduced Anglican service

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and in 1563 the 39 Articles formulating the established

doctrine of the Church were issued. She maintainedcontrol over the Church and over the bishops, and the

Act of Supremacy that was passed during her reign (the

Elizabethan Settlement) defined once again the

sovereign as the Supreme Head of the Church.

Moreover, she made use of her prerogative (the

powers and privileges that the law recognizes as

belonging to the sovereign) and claimed that Parliament

had no right to initiate discussion of the religious

settlement, her marriage, and the succession to the

throne.

She accepted only those aspects of the Protestant

doctrine and practice that were consistent with order, and

she made it clear that there would be no further

Reformation of the Church. This brought about the

conflict with the Puritans (the radical exponents of

Protestantism). She only offered moderate and cautious

help to the Dutch Protestants and the French Hughenots.

Her moderate Protestantism had political reasons,

as England was threatened by two great Catholic powers,

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France and Spain. Philip of Spain attacked the heretical

Queen, but the powerful Spanish Armada was defeatedby the English in 1588.

Elizabeth I showed great interest in the welfare of

her subjects, who called her Gloriana. She was prudent

in her economic decisions she often financed

Government from her own revenues and rarely raisedtaxes. She helped create a national self-confidence that

was reflected in the works of Marlowe, Spenser and

Shakespeare.

The basis of Britains trading Empire was set in

1600, when the East India Company was founded to

trade there. At the same time, the first English colony in

America (Virginia) was established and some

unsuccessful attempts were made to break into

Portugals trade with West Africa.

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3.2 Linguistic Changes in the 15

th

and 16

th

Centuries

The English language in the 16th century

underwent dramatic changes, which represented a new

stage in its development (early) Modern English(1500-1700). As early as the 15th century, the emerging

literary standard made it possible for the English

language to create some kind of recognizable order out

of the chaos of co-existing regional, social and stylistic

variations.

The disproportionate growth of London and the

growing mobility of the population in general combined

to spread London prestige linguistic forms in waves out

to the regional dialects, after the language of the written

documents was affected first. The social varieties also

affected one another increasingly, in the sense that the

speech of the educated determined the norms of the

middle class.

It is generally accepted that the beginning of the

Early Modern English can be dated back to 1500.

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Several social factors were brought in support of this

theory. One of them was the expansion of a writtenstandard form and its increasing homogeneity (book

printing had begun in England in 1476). Another factor

was the beginning of humanism in England (the Oxford

reformers 1485-1510). Another major contribution was

the translation of the Bible into English, as aconsequence of the breakaway of the English Church

from Rome in 1533-34.

Both linguistically and culturally, the 15th century

had been a transitional period, and many 16th century

language features had their beginnings in the preceding

century the reduction of inflections, the rise of

Chancery English as the standard after 1430, the increase

in middle-class readership.

Another factor in favor of English was the

increase in national feeling, particularly during the

Renaissance and the reign of Elizabeth I. The rise of the

modern nation-state in the 15th and 16th centuries brought

greater interest and pride in the national language. The

rise of social groups, educated and eager to read and

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learn, increased translations and book printing in

English.In terms of grammar, the speakers of early

Modern English often had a choice of terms and

constructions that are not possible nowadays in verb

inflections, personal pronouns, relative pronouns,

negative and interogative sentences (e.g. has/hath,you/thou goest/goes).

3.2.1. The Great Vowel Shift was a change in

the quality of all the long vowels, which became shorter

in quality. It began in the 15th century and was completed

in the 17th century. In relation to this, many linguists

believe that the causes of early Modern English variation

among long vowels and of the rift between spelling and

pronunciation go back to Middle English times. The

social reasons for these innovations are unexplained.

According to a hypothesis advanced by some linguists,

the upper classes, highly competent in French in the 15th

century, may have substituted a more refined

pronunciation of English. Moreover, the medieval

concept of spelling presupposed a kind of phonetic

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spelling (scribes in Norman times spelled words as they

heard them). Therefore, in the 16

th

century, spelling hadremained extremely archaic. While pronunciation had

changed a lot, spelling had lagged behind. It is generally

believed that, in many ways, modern spelling in English

still represents medieval pronunciation.

Latin was also influential during the Renaissanceperiod, a period that was remarkable for the rediscovery

of the classics. To some extent, Latin remained the

linguistic ideal it was still the international language of

scholarship, the lingua franca that would safeguard a

writers international fame. Thomas More, William

Camden, Isaac Newton, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes

still wrote in Latin, so that, if works in Latin were

ignored, the cultural history of England would be

incomplete. In grammar schools, Latin was still used

because of the medieval belief in its superiority. The

educational system would adopt the English medium

education only in the 17th century, when the influence of

Puritans, who equated Latin with Roman Catholicism,

increased; it was only the upheaval of Civil War that

disrupted the old traditions of the schools.

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If, at the beginning of the 16th century, English

had still been considered a rather rude, barbarianlanguage, by the end of the 16th century, after the Golden

Age of the English language, there was an unparalleled

sense of pride in the national language.

3.3. Education

In the 15th and 16th centuries, English humanists,

such as John Colet (who founded St. Pauls School) and

Sir Thomas More helped to establish a revival of

classical learning and liberal studies. During the 16th and

17th centuries, the spread of Calvinist reforms by the

Puritans in England and by the Presbyterians in Scotland

led to an emphasis on the study of English, the sciences,

modern languages and sport. Many Kings schools

(public schools) appeared in most cathedral cities.

However, for a long time, the state played no role

in the school system. There were exceptions some

monarchs opened schools (Henry VI opened Eton one

of the most exclusive colleges nowadays, and Edward VI

founded some dozen schools still known as King Edward

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VI Grammar Schools), but, apart from that, the state was

reluctant to intervene in the educational sphere.


1. Henry VIII and the Reformation: Restraint ofAppeals to Rome

2. Sovereignty of Law made in Parliament

3. Act of Supremacy

4. Lutheranism and Protestantism; the

Elizabethan Church Settlement

5. Union of Wales with England

6. Early Modern English the Great Vowel

Shift

QUESTIONS

1. Define Lutheranism and Protestantism.

2. Discuss the impact of the Reformation on Wales and

Ireland, respectively.

3. Mary I and the Counterreformation.

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4. The 17

th

Century: James I. Civil War inEngland. The Restoration of the Stuarts. The

Glorious Revolution.

4.1. The 17

th

Century: House of Stuart

The reign of Tudor monarchs ended with Queen

Elizabeths death and with the accession of James I

(1603-25) to the throne of England and Ireland. The son

of Mary, Queen of Scots, he was an infant when he

succeeded to the Scottish throne as James VI, following

his mothers enforced abdication in 1567. Mary, Queen

of Scots, who was related to Elizabeth, had been

executed for treason, as Queen Elizabeth feared that she

might be the focus of Catholic conspiracies against the

authority of the English Crown.

In 1586 he was awarded an English pension, and

social and cultural british history - curs

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