1. The Middle Ages
Begins with William of Normandy (France) who conquered England
He granted land to lords. Lords granted land to knights.
This created hierarchies and a rigid class structure

2. British Class Structure in the Middle Ages
Ruling class
Clergy Class
Middle Class
Trade Class
Peasant Class

3. Chivalry Knight is the symbol of chivalry
Well-born boys left home at age 7 to train
Page –> squire -> knight
Learned manners, courtesy, horsemanship, and use of sword, shield, and lance

4. Society All classes came together in church
Afterlife emphasized over worldly life
Education was handled by the church
Church was tied to politics (the king)

5. National Government
Two families ruled England for over 4 centuries – the Normans (William) and the Plantagenets (Henry II)
Three important events:
Judicial reform
Magna Carta
Parliament

6. Geoffrey Chaucer 1343 - 1400 “The Father of English Poetry”
Wrote in vernacular
Vernacular = common everyday language – the emerging standard English
Everyone else was writing in Latin and French

7. Traveled to Italy
Read Boccaccio’s Decameron and was greatly influenced
Came home and modeled The Canterbury Tales after it

8. The Canterbury Tales Is Chaucer’s greatest work because
1. His language (vernacular)
2. It left a concise portrait of an entire nation – young, old, high, low, male, female, lay, clerical, learned, ignorant, rogue, righteous

9. The Canterbury Tales Chaucer uses iambic pentameter
U/ five beats (iambs)per line
(10 syllables total)
Ex. It happened in that season that one day
Heroic Couplet = rhymed couplet in iambic pentameter

10. The Canterbury Tales
Premise = stories told on a pilgrimage from London to the shrine of Thomas a Becket at Canterbury Cathedral (70 miles)
The group begins at the Tabard Inn
30 pilgrims embark together

11. The Canterbury Tales
Host of the Inn suggests that they exchange tales on the way (2 each) and on the way home (another 2)
30 pilgrims x 4 tales each = 120 tales
Chaucer died before completing the tales