HISTORY

THE GERMANIC INVASIONS (410 - 1066)

THE NORMANS (1066 - 1154)
THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD (1066 - 1485)

The 'Dark Ages'. From the time that the Romans more or less abandoned Britain, to the arrival of Augustine at
Kent to convert the Saxons, the period has been known as the Dark Ages. Written evidence concerning the
period is scanty, but we do know that the most significant events were the gradual division of Britain into a
Brythonic west, a Teutonic east and a Gaelic north; the formation of the Welsh, English and Scottish nations;
and the conversion of much of the west to Christianity. By 4l0, Britain had become self-governing in 3 parts, the
North (which already included people of mixed British and Angle stock); the West (including Britons, Irish, and
Angles); and the South East (mainly Angles). With the departure of the Roman legions, the old enemies began
their onslaughts upon the native Britons once more. The Picts and Scots to the north and west (the Scots coming
in from Ireland had not yet made their homes in what was to become later known as Scotland), and the Saxons,
Angles, and Jutes to the south and east.

The Anglo-Saxons had little use for towns and cities. But they had a great effect on the countryside, where they
introduced new farming methods and founded the thousands of self-sufficient villages which formed the basis of
English society for the next thousand or so years. In most of lowland Britain, Latin had become the language of
administration and education, especially since Celtic writing was virtually unknown. Latin was also the
language of the Church in Rome. The old Celtic gods had given way to the new ones introduced by the Roman
mercenaries; they were again replaced when missionaries from Gaul introduced Christianity to the islands. By
3l4, an organized Christian Church seems to have been established in most of Britain, for in that year British
bishops were summoned to the Council of Arles. By the end of the 4th century, a diocesan structure had been set
up, many districts having come under the pastoral care of a bishop. It was during the time of the Saxon
invasions, in that relatively unscathed western peninsular that later took the name Wales, that the first
monasteries were established (the words Wales and Welsh were used by the Germanic invaders to refer to
Romanized Britons). They spread rapidly to Ireland from where missionaries returned to those parts of Britain
that were not under the Roman Bishops' jurisdiction, mainly the Northwest.
By the end of the 7th century we can also begin to speak of an Anglo-Saxon political entity in the island
of Britain, and the formation and growth of various English kingdoms.
Britain experienced another wave of Germanic invasions in the 8th century. These invaders, known as
Vikings, Norsemen or Danes, came from Scandinavia. In the 9th century they conquered and settled the extreme
north and west of Scotland, and also some coastal regions of Ireland. Their conquest of England was halted
when they were defeated by King Alfred of the Saxon kingdom of Wessex. This resulted in an agreement
which divided England between Wessex, in the south and west, and the 'Danelaw' in the north and east. The
Vikings’ invasions were thus different from those of the earlier Saxons who had originally come to defend the
British people and then to settle. Though they did settle eventually in their newly conquered lands, the Vikings
were more intent on looting and pillaging; their armies marched inland destroying and burning until half of
England had been taken, and it seemed as if there was no one strong enough to stop them. However, just as an
earlier British leader, perhaps the one known in legend as Arthur had stopped the Saxon advance into the
Western regions at Mount Badon in 496, so a later leader - Alfred of Wessex - stopped the advance of the
Norsemen at Edington in 878. Most of modern-day Scotland was also united by this time, at least in name, in a
(Celtic) Gaelic kingdom.
There are over 1040 place names in England of Scandinavian origin, most occurring in the north and
east, the area of settlement known as the Danelaw (the land where the law of the Danes ruled). The evidence
shows extensive peaceable settlement by farmers who intermarried their English cousins, adopted many of their
customs and entered into the everyday life of the community. Though the Danes and Norwegians who came to
England preserved many of their own customs, they readily adapted to the ways of the English whose language
they could understand without too much difficulty. There are more than 600 place names that end with the
Scandinavian -by, (farm or town); some 300 contain the Scandinavian word thorp (village), and the same
number with thwaite (an isolated piece of land). Thousands of words of Scandinavian origin remain in the
everyday speech of people in the north and east of England. There was another very important feature of the
Scandinavian settlement which cannot be overlooked. The Saxon people had not maintained contact with their
orginal homelands; in England they had become an island race. The Scandinavians, however, kept their contacts
with their kinsman on the continent. Under Cnut, England was part of a Scandinavian empire; its people began
to extend their outlook and become less insular. The process was hastened by the coming of another host of
Norsemen: the Norman Conquest was about to begin.
The Battle of Hastings 1066

October 14, 1066

Battle, East Sussex

Saxons under Harold, King of England vs. Norman French under Duke William of Normandy

When Edward the Confessor died he left no direct heir, and the throne of England passed to Harold.
However, William of Normandy claimed that Edward had promised the crown to him, and indeed that Harold
himself had sworn a sacred oath to relinquish his claim in William's favour.

The Results. Although there were sporadic outbreaks of Saxon resistance to Norman rule after the
Battle of Hastings - notably in East Anglia under Hereward the Wake, and in the north of England - from this
point on England was effectively ruled by the Normans.
The story of the Norman Conquest does not start in 1066, but 50 years earlier, with another invasion
and another group of Norsemen. In 1016, Cnut, King of Denmark, seized the kingdom of England by exploiting
the bitter rivalries between king Aethelred Unraed, his son Edmund Ironside and his closest advisors. Cnut
stunned the English with the murder of ealdorman Eadric, his supporters and every member of Aethelred's royal
family he could get his hands on. Only Edward and his brothers, the younger sons of Aethelred, survived. They
fled to Normandy, where they took refuge with Duke Richard II, brother of their mother Emma. In place of the
murdered magnates, Cnut installed his own men, both Danish and English, loyal to himself. The most prominent
of these were Earls Leofric and Godwine. Edward spent the next 30 years in exile under the protection of his
uncle, Duke Richard II and his successors. On his return to England in 1042, as Edward the Confessor, he
promoted many of these Frenchmen into positions of influence, as a counterbalance to the overweening power
of the Godwine family.
The Godwines had prospered greatly while Edward was away. Under Cnut and his successors, they had
amassed so much land that they were second only in power and wealth to that of the King.
William of Normandy. Meanwhile, Normandy was embroiled in its own succession crisis. Duke
Richard II's son, Robert, had died in 1035, leaving an 8-year-old bastard son, William as his heir. William was a
large man, of exceptional strength and appearance. He promoted his two half-brothers into key positions: Robert
became Count of Mortain and Odo became Bishop of Bayeux.
Edward the Confessor. Edward, by contrast, was already an old man. He had spent his entire adult life
waiting for the chance to be King of England. In 1051, he acted against the Godwines. Edward was in the most
powerful position he had achieved since his accession in 1042. He had got rid of the Godwines and his
appointees were in all the positions of power.
The increasing personal power of William is demonstrated by the change in terminology on Norman
charters at this time. Norman nobles cease being fidelis (faithful) men, and the duke becomes their dominus
(lord). The change is significant. William was now exercising control in Normandy through his own personal
patronage, favouring his most powerful friends and supporters. Among these were his childhood friends
William fitzOsbern and Roger de Montgomery, who had become his closest and most trusted advisors and
confidants, alongside his half-brothers Robert de Mortain and Odo of Bayeux.

The Bayeux Tapestry: Unpicking the Past

The Bayeux Tapestry is probably the most important pictorial image of the 11 th century. But the tapestry is not a
docile, dead depiction, it's alive with controversy and myth. Unpick its secrets and discover how truth was
embroidered after 1066.
On the orders of King William I, the Domesday survey of 1085-6 was drawn up and on the basis of it
Domesday Book described in remarkable detail, the landholdings and resources of late 11th-century England,
demonstrating the power of the government machine in the 1 st century of the new Millennium, and its deep thirst
for information.
Domesday Book - compiled in 1085-6 - is one of the few historical records whose name is familiar to
most people in this country. It is the earliest public record, the foundation document of the national archives and
a legal document that is still valid as evidence of title to land.
What doesn't appear in Domesday? The Domesday Book does not cover certain important cities,
such as London, Winchester, Bristol and the borough of Tamworth; nor Northumberland and Durham or much
of north-west England. For Wales, only parts of certain border areas are included. Neither was it ever fully
completed, being abandoned at some stage early in the reign of William Rufus, who succeeded to the throne in
1087.
Great and Little Domesday. Domesday was never a single volume but originally two books, Great
Domesday and Little Domesday (which was a longer version, covering the counties of Essex, Norfolk and
Suffolk, which was never written up into the main volume). It is now contained within 5 volumes, having been
rebound in 1984 to improve the prospects for its preservation for another millennium.
Great Domesday was mostly written by a single scribe, with the hand of a second clerk appearing, checking his
work and adding some notes and further entries. Minor errors were inevitable and led to some inconsistencies
for later scholars to worry over.
Who appears in Domesday Book? Most of the names that appear are those of landowners. The king and his
family held about 17 per cent of the land, bishops and abbots about 26 per cent and around 190 tenants-in-chief
held about 54 per cent. Of the 268,984 individuals described in Domesday, some 40 per cent are listed as villani.
This Latin term has been translated in different ways by historians, as villein, villager, and villan (? members of
the vill). At the bottom of the social pile came the servi or slaves, about 10% of the total population, who had no
property rights and could be bought and sold.

The Middle Ages

Far from their dour reputation, the Middle Ages were a period of massive social change, burgeoning
nationalism, international conflict, terrible natural disaster, climate change, rebellion, resistance and
renaissance.
Norman legacy. In December 1154 Henry II became king of England following the anarchy and civil
war of Stephen's reign. Stephen had acknowledged Henry, grandson of Henry I of England, as his heir-
designate. The Britain of Henry II, and of his sons Richard I and John, was experiencing rapid population
growth, clearance of forest for fields, establishment of new towns and outward-looking crusading zeal. The
country also witnessed the cultural feast of the '12th-century renaissance' in the arts, exemplified by the
Winchester Bible of c. 1160, created from the skins of over 300 calves and lavishly decorated with lapis lazuli
and gold applied by a team of manuscript illuminators from continental Europe. Legacies of the Norman
invasion of 1066 remained. The aristocracy spoke French until after 1350, so saxon 'ox' and 'swine', for
example, came to the table as French boeuf and porc. Ireland was less dominated by Normans. However, much
of the regional indigenous culture survived despite Norman monarchy and aristocracy. A combination of
external factors made England more inward-looking and more dissonant after 1200. Internationally the
crusading ideal was weakening. Population continued to rise in the 1200s, primogeniture became more
established and there were many younger warrior sons looking for lands and glory.
Magna Carta. In 1215 John hoped to recapture Normandy. He called on his lords to fight for him, but
they no longer trusted him. They marched to London, where they were joined by angry merchants. Outside
London at Runnymede, John was forced to sign a new agreement. This new agreement was known as “ Magna
Carta”, the Great Charter, and 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, and were serfs or little better. Hundreds of years later, Magna
Carta was used by Parliament to protect itself from a powerful king. In fact Magna Carta gave no real freedom
to the majority of people in England. The nobles who wrote it and forced King John to sign it had no such thing
in mind. They had one main aim: to make sure 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
links between lord and vassal. At Runnymede the nobles were not acting as vassals but as a class. They
established a committee of 24 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. The nobles did not allow
John’s successor’s to forget this charter and its promises. Every king recognised Magna Carta until the Middle
Ages ended in disorder and a new kind of monarchy came into being in the 16th century.
Henry III (1216 - 1272) was not a soldierly king. His half-hearted campaigns in France were
unsuccessful in regaining lands lost by his father, John. By the Treaty of Paris (1259) he admitted failure and
secured remote Gascony by giving up claims to lands in northern France, including iconic Normandy. Henry
III's reign witnessed many closer links with France, where Louis IX (St Louis) was his brother-in-law. French
culture was echoed in Britain, especially in Gothic architecture. But despite Frenchness of manners and names,
English barons became increasingly conscious of their Englishness, which they declared in anti-foreign attitudes
which focused on immigrant courtiers. It is no accident that scholars have dubbed the spare, simple Gothic
architecture of the 13th century 'Early English', epitomised by Salisbury Cathedral, largely built between 1220
and 1258.
England dominant. Crusading continued during the 13th century, indeed Edward I (1272 - 1307) was
away crusading when his father died in 1272 and did not return for two years. Such a smooth transition was a
tribute to effective government administration in England. Tributes to growing institutions of English
government - and hints of a less dominant monarchy - are prevalent in this period: Richard I's realm was
governed successfully in his absence for almost his entire reign; Henry III inherited from his unpopular father as
a child of nine, with a regency lasting almost a decade; and the transition of power from Henry III to Edward I,
when the latter was absent for two years. There was a downside to effective financial organisation. The
prosperity arising from peasant agriculture, growing urbanism and burgeoning population growth meant
England could focus more directly on its near neighbours Wales, Scotland and to a lesser extent Ireland, in the
13th and early 14th centuries. Wales was partly subdued by Edward I, who put his government's wealth into
building the great castles through which he gained control of north Wales. But expansionism wasn't the sole
preserve of England. Scotland regained the Western Isles from Scandinavian colonists following the Battle of
Largs in 1263.
An opportunity arose for England to become involved at the centre of Scottish politics with the
untimely death of Alexander III, who died in a riding accident in 1289. Edward I was called upon to judge
different claimants to the Scottish throne, which he did, and his pre-eminence is displayed in a contemporary
manuscript illumination which shows him with Llywelyn, Prince of Wales, and Alexander, King of Scotland, on
his right and left respectively.
Rebellion. In the last quarter of the 13th century, English dominance over Ireland, Scotland and Wales was
apparently being achieved. But that famous image of Edward I with Scots and Welsh rulers illustrates a high
point of English predominance. From the last quarter of the 13th century, fundamentals underlying the dynamics
of development in Britain and Ireland changed. Population growth slowed down, inflation began to affect
wealth. Rebellions in Wales are testament to some Welshmen's continuing struggle for independence. Henry
III's struggle with Simon de Montfort, who the king defeated and killed at Evesham in 1265, exemplifies this.
De Montfort's unofficial 'model parliament' of 1263 and Edward I's official model of 1295 were designed by
magnates to curb royal power by increasing representation of counties and boroughs.
Problems with the feudal army also emerged at the 1295 parliament when the earl marshal refused to
serve abroad unless the king was present. He was threatened with hanging, but neither served nor was he
hanged. The remainder of the period from 1300 to 1485 is traditionally seen as a disastrous period in English
history, which in many ways it was. However, Scotland and Ireland achieved growing independence during this
period. A Scottish highlight in the 'wars of independence' was the victory of Robert the Bruce over Edward II at
Bannockburn near Stirling in 1314.
Rebellions in Wales, especially that of Owen Glyn Dwr between 1400 and 1409, are testament to some
Welshmen's continuing struggle for independence, although their own princes were replaced by English princes
of Wales from the time of Edward I.
Famine and plague. The long view of the period from 1300 to 1485 suggests climate and demographic
change were probably key determinants of developments in Britain and Ireland. Climatic deterioration began
from about 1300, with colder winters and wetter summers. These conditions contributed to the Great European
Famine of 1315 - 1322, in which millions perished.
The Black Death, the worst disease in recorded history, which arrived in Europe in 1347 and in
England the following year - the disease killed 50% of the population within a year, but the main effect was that
it returned with alarming regularity in 1361, 1374 and regularly thereafter until it disappeared from Britain in
about 1670. The population of Britain and Ireland before the Black Death may have been 8 million, of which
three-quarters lived in England. Decline continued until about 1450, when the population was perhaps two or
three million, the lowest count during the last millennium. By 1485 the population was beginning to rise again.
Succession struggle. Climate change and plague were not the only external factors to affect Britain and
Ireland. The Capetian royal dynasty in France, which had produced male heirs since 987 AD, died out in 1328,
provoking a succession struggle in which Edward II and his son Edward (III to be) were prime claimants. These
claims lay dormant for several years, as Edward II's French wife Isabella and Roger Mortimer invaded England
in 1326, imprisoned and murdered Edward II and brought Isabella's son Edward III to the throne in January
1327. Isabella and Mortimer were effectively in power, but in 1330 Edward III asserted himself, had Mortimer
executed, and staked a claim to the throne of France.
Scotland, like England, could function effectively without a king for long periods. This led to the
Hundred Years' War, which lasted from 1337 until the English were defeated and driven from France, except
Calais, in 1453. Kings of Scotland spent considerable periods in English captivity, such as David II who was in
captivity from 1346 - 1357, and James I who spent 18 of his 31 years as king in prison between 1406 and 1424.
The church and its leading institution, the papacy, like the monarchy so strong in the 12 th and early 13th
centuries, also became weak and disorganised in the later Middle Ages.
Propaganda. Upheavals occurred lower down the social scale following the Black Death and during the wars.
The Peasants' Revolt of 1381 was one manifestation of this, while Jack Cade's rebellion in 1450 another. The
topsy-turvy world of late medieval Britain and Ireland did not stabilise abruptly when, as Shakespeare put it, the
Tudor Henry VII rescued the crown of England from a bush on Bosworth Field after the defeat of the reigning
monarch Richard III in August 1485. Henry V's giant ship of 1,600 tons was a unique achievement and brought
 peace to the Channel. Much of what the Tudors claimed as 'new government' was already in place in Yorkist
England. War against France and Scotland continued, while Ireland remained semi-independent. At the end of
the Wars of the Roses at Bosworth in 1485, England actually came under a Welsh dynasty.
Much of the bad press of the 1400s derives from Tudor propaganda. There was, in fact, much to praise
in 15th-century Britain.
Common Law - Henry II and the Birth of a State. Whilst many remember Henry II for his turbulent
relationship with Thomas Becket and his sons, Richard the Lionheart and John, it was the establishment of
permanent professional courts at Westminster and in the counties for which he might be best remembered.
These reforms changed forever the relationship of the King to Church, State and society.

 Law and the State. By the 1230s, therefore, law was seen as an important element in national identity, even
though English law in reality still had many resemblances to that of France and indeed of other areas. Such an
association of law and national identity may be related to the development of the sovereign state, and certainly
in modern thinking law and the state are often closely associated. However, 'state' is a problematic word in
writing of the Middle Ages. It was not used in its modern sense in the England of c. 1200. It has implications of
impersonality which seem inappropriate to a world where the king's anger could have a major impact upon
individuals and upon the affairs of the realm. It is also a word with more than one meaning. It can refer to one
state as opposed to another, say England as opposed to France. But it can also mean the state as opposed to
society, or the state as opposed to the individual.
Law before Henry II and the Impetus for Reform from 1154. Even before the reforms of Henry II (1154-
89), which are often seen as the vital period for the creation of English common law, England had known a legal
regime characterised by considerable royal control. From Anglo-Saxon England came a tradition of law-making
which focused on the king as the protector of the realm, the corrector of wrongs. Likewise, the powerful
administration of the period tackled many of the same problems of theft and interpersonal violence as would
Henry II, and in rather similar ways. This administration, characterised in particular by the courts of the shire
and its sub-division the hundred, survived the Norman Conquest. Crucially, in contrast with some areas of
France and elsewhere in Europe, these administrative areas largely remained under royal control. The Normans
also brought important elements of their own to English law, most notably customs relating to land-holding.
In the middle of the 12 th century, however, both the extensive involvement of the king in particular legal matters
and the general administrative pattern were severely threatened by the civil war of King Stephen's reign (1135-
54). The need to restore royal authority, to return the realm to its condition in his grandfather's reign, was one of
the main forces behind Henry II's reforms. The same desire underlay his efforts to reassert control of the
Church. These efforts brought him into conflict with his own chosen archbishop, Thomas Becket, and the circle
who conducted the dispute with Becket, and developed their ideas of kingship in that context, were the men
whose ideas shaped the legal reforms. At the same time, impersonal factors, such as the growth of literate
government, also had an impact upon legal development.

The beginnings of Parliament. King John had signed Magna Carta unwillingly and it quickly became clear
that he was not going to keep to the agreement. The nobles rebelled and soon pushed John out of the southeast.
But Civil War was avoided because John died suddenly in 1216. John’s son, Henry III, was only 9 years old.
During the first 16 years as king he was under the control of powerful nobles and tied up by Magna Carta.
Henry was finally able to rule for himself at the age of 25. It was understandable that he wanted to be
completely independent of the people who had controlled his life for so long. He spent his time with foreign
friends and became involved in expensive wars supporting the Pope in Sicily and also in France.
Henry’s heavy spending and his foreign advisers upset the nobles. Once again they acted as a class
under the leadership of Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester. In 1258 they took over the government and
elected a council of nobles. De Montfort called it a parliament or parlement, a French word meaning a
“discussion meeting”. This “parliament” took control of the treasury and forced Henry to get rid of his foreign
advisers. The nobles were supported by the towns which wished to be free of Henry’s heavy taxes.
But some of the nobles didn’t support the revolutionary new council and remain loyal to Henry. With
their help Henry was finally able to defeat and kill Simon de Montfort in 1265. Once again he had full royal
authority, although he was careful to accept the balance which de Montfort had created between king and
nobles. When Henry died in 1272 his son Edward I took the throne without question.
Edward I brought together the first real parliament. Simon de Montfort’s council had been called a
parliament but it included only nobles. It had been able to make statutes or written laws and it had been able to
make political decisions. However, the lords were less able to provide the king with money except what they
had agreed to pay him for the lands they held under feudal arrangement. In the days of Henry I (1100-1135), 85
per cent of the king’s income had come from the land. By 1272 income from the land was less than 40 per cent
of the royal income. The king could only raise the rest by taxation. Since the rules of feudalism didn’t include
taxation, taxes could only be raised with the agreement of those wealthy enough to be taxed. Several kings had
made arrangements for taxation before, but Edward I was the 1 st to create a “representative institution” which
could provide the money he needed. The institution became the House of Commons. Unlike the House of
Lords it contained a mixture of “gentry” (knights and other wealthy freemen from the shires) and merchants
from the towns. These were the two broad classes of people who produced and controlled England’s wealth. In
1275 Edward I commanded each shire and each town to sent 2 representatives to his parliament. These
“commoners” would have stayed away if they could, to avoid giving Edward money. But few dared risk
Edward’s anger. They became unwilling representatives of their local community. This, rather than Magna
Carta, was the beginning of the idea that there should be “no taxation without representation”, later claimed by
the American colonists of the 18 th century. In other parts of Europe, similar “parliaments” kept all the gentry
separate from the commoners. England was special because the House of Commons contained a mixture of
gentry belonging to the feudal ruling class and merchants and freemen who did not. The co-operation of these
groups, through the House of Commons, became important to Britain’s later political and social development.
During the 150 years following Edward’s death the agreement of the Commons became necessary for the
making of all statutes, and all special taxation additional to regular taxes.
Church and State. John’s reign also marked the end of the long struggle between Church 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 whether the bishops 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 trouble could not be avoid.
The struggle was for both power and money. During the 11 th and 12th 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 God. 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 I. 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
difficult position. It took 7 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 bishoprics. But after Anselm’s death Henry managed to delay the appointment of a new archbishop for
5 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 Becket was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury in
1162. Henry hoped that Thomas would help him to bring the church more under his control. At first Becket
refused, and then he gave in. later he changed his mind again and ran away to France and it seemed as if Henry
had won. But in 1170 Becket returned to England determined to resist the king. When this news was brought to
Henry in his Christmas court in Normandy, Henry exploded and is said to have uttered the words: 'Will no one
rid me of this troublesome priest?' It was undoubtedly spoken in anger, but four knights took him at his word.
Led by one Reginald fitz Urse, they slipped across the Channel to Canterbury, where they tried to force Becket
to return with them and face the King's wrath. He refused and they retired to bed. Next morning, while he was
leading morning mass, they attempted to drag him out of the cathedral, and he resisted. It was during this
struggle that he received a blow on the head which seems to have tipped the whole thing over into violence and
the four knights fell on him with their swords. He died later that afternoon on 29 December 1170. All Christian
Europe was shocked and Thomas Becket became a saint of the Church. For hundreds of years afterwards people
not only from England but also from Europe travelled to Canterbury to pray at Becket’s grave. The murder of
Thomas Becket and his subsequent martyrdom has so overshadowed the reign of Henry II that it is often as
difficult to see behind to what caused it as it is to see beyond to the rest of the reign.
The Church at local village level was significantly different from the politically powerful organisation
the king had to deal with. At the time of William I the ordinary village priest could hardly read at all, and he was
usually one of the peasant community. His Church belonged to the local lord and was often build next to the
lord’s house. Almost all priests were married and many inherited their position from their father. However even
at village level the Church wished to replace the lord’s authority with its own but it was only partly successful.
In many places the lord continued to choose the local priest and to have more influence over him than the more
distant Church authorities were able to have. The Church also tried to prevent priests from marrying. In this it
was more successful and by the end of the 13th century married priests were unusual
In 1066 there were 50 religious houses in England, home for perhaps 1,000 monks and nuns. By the
beginning of the 14th century there were probably about 900 religious houses with 17,500 members. Even
though the population in the 14th century was three times larger than it had been in 1066, the growth of the
monasteries is impressive.
During the next century discontent with the Church also grew. There had already been a few attacks on
Church property in towns controlled by the Church. In 1381 one rebel priest had called for the removal of all
bishops and archbishops as well as all the nobles. The greed of the Church was one obvious reason for its
unpopularity. The Church was a feudal power and often treated its peasants and townspeople with as much
cruelty as the nobles did. There was another reason why the people of England disliked paying taxes to the pope.
Edward’s wars in France were beginning to make the English conscious of their “englishness’ and the pope was
a foreigner. To make matters worse the pope had been driven out of Rome and was living at Avignon in France.
It seemed obvious to the English that the pope must be on the French side and that the taxes they paid to the
Church were actually helping France against England. This was a matter on which the king and people in
England agreed. The king reduced the amount of tax money the pope could raise in Britain and made sure that
most of it found its way into his own treasury instead. Another threat to the Church during the 14 th century was
the spread of religious writings which were popular with an increasingly literate population. These writings
allowed people to pray and think independently of Church control.
At the end of the 14th century new religious ides appeared in England which were dangerous to Church
authority and were condemned as heresy. This heresy was known as “Lollardy”, a word which probably came
from a Latin word meaning “to say prayers”. One of the leaders of “Lollardy” was John Wycliffe, an Oxford
professor. He believed that everyone should be able to read the Bible in English. He therefore translated it from
Latin finishing the work in 1396. He was not allowed to publish his new Bible in England and was forced to
leave Oxford. However both he and the other Lollards were admired by those nobles and scholars who were
critical to the Church, its wealth and the poor quality of its clergy. If the Lollards had been supported by the
king, the English Church might have become independent from the papacy in the early 15 th century. But
Richard’s successor, Henry IV, was not sympathetic. He was deeply loyal to the Church and in 1401 introduced
into English for the first time the ides of executing the Lollards by burning. Lollardy was not well enough
organised to resist. In the next few years it was driven underground and its spirit was not seen again for a
century.
LANGUAGE, LITERATURE AND CULTURE. The growth of literacy in England was closely
connected with the 12th-century Renaissance. Schools of learning were established in many towns and cities.
Some were “grammar” schools independent of the Church, while others were attached to a cathedral. All of
these schools taught Latin, because most books were written in this language. In spite of the dangers the Church
took a lead in the new intellectual movement. In England two schools of higher learning were established, the
first at Oxford and the second at Cambridge, at the end of the 12 th century. By the 1220s these two Universities
were the intellectual leader of the country. Few could go to the Universities. Most English people spoke neither
Latin, the language of the Church, nor French, the language of law and of the Norman rulers. It was a long time
before English became the language of the ruling class.
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. The language itself was changing. French had
been used less and less by the Norman rulers during the 13 th century. In the 14th 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 14 th century English was once again a written language. But
“Middle English”, the language of the 14 th and 15th centuries was very different from Anglo-Saxon. This was
partly because it had not been written for 300 years and partly because it had borrowed so much from Norman
French. By the end of the Middle Ages, English as well as Latin was being used in legal writing and also in
elementary schools. Universities increased in number and scope. Oxford and Cambridge were joined by
Scotland's St Andrews in 1410 and two other Scottish universities by 1500. Education developed enormously
during the 15th century and many schools were founded by powerful men. One of these was William of
Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester and Lord Chancellor of England who founded both Winchester school in 1382
and new College, Oxford. 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.
The renaissance of Chaucer, Gower, Barbour and Dunbar percolated society. Libraries, such as that of
Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, were established and the art of biography began. Ideals of internationalism
faltered, including crusading, the universal church, monasticism. Nationalism triumphed. Royalty in many
respects were as disreputable at the beginning of the period as at the end. War and depopulation allowed women
to contribute much more effectively and influentially to society. Throughout England much that we recognise
today was established and survives: the parish churches with their towers, now fossilised in their late medieval
form by the Reformation; oak-framed timber buildings scattered across the country; universities and schools.
Ireland, Scotland and Wales all enjoy similar cultural characteristics. Maybe it was the wars of the
period that led the Scots to place their faith in education with their several universities and the Welsh and Irish
to develop their bardic and oral traditions during a turbulent but heroic period of British and Irish history.
 And what of the ordinary people? In 1485 over 95% of the people of Britain lived in the countryside,
towns despite their small share of national populations had an impact far outweighing their demographic
significance.
The Middle Ages ended with a major technical development: William Caxton’s first English printing
press, set up in 1476. At first he printed popular books, such as Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and Malory’s
Morte d’Arthur.