1. The Middle Ages
The Tales They Told

2. Norman F. Cantor
“The medieval world we know was far from perfect.  Life expectancy was short, and disease was mostly incontestable.  It was a world burdened by royal autocracy and social  hierarchy inherited from ancient times. Its piety and devotion were affected by fanaticism and a potential for persecution.  Its intellectuals were given to too abstract and not enough practical thinking.  But it exhibited as elevated a culture, as peaceful community, as benign a political system, as high-minded and popular a faith as the world has ever seen.”

3. Timeline p
While you look at the timeline answer these questions:
What are some of the major literary accomplishments during this time?
What were some of the conflicts during this time? (war, invasions. Etc.)

4. Political and Social Milestones
Norman Conquest
Crowned Kind of England on Christmas Day in 1066
Had to deal with numerous rebellions from the Saxons
Made everyone pledge loyalty to him instead of their immediate superiors: feudal system
Age of Feudalism
Everyone was assigned a position at birth
Peasant answers to farmer who answers to knight who answers to lord who answers to baron who answers to king who answers to God
Decline of Feudalism
English people were introduced to other influences
Trade created a merchant class
People used their skills to make money

5. Read over p. 94-107 Answer the following questions while you read:
What effects did the Norman invasion have in the way English were governed?
What were the main features of feudalism? How did feudalism change the social structure of Anglo-Saxon England?
What developments in the 14th and 15th centuries began to undermine the feudal system?

6. The Norman Influence and William the Conqueror
Claimed that King Edward offered him the throne so he went to take it
Normans brought administrative ability, law and order, and cultural unity
William had an inventory of every piece of property in England
Feudal system
Not like the Romans, the Normans never withdrew from England

7. Feudalism Caste system, property system, and military system
God as supreme Lord
Knights in shining armor=loyalty
Manners and formality

8. Women
No rights, no voice
Husband or father determined social standing

9. Chivalry and Courtly Love
Chivalry: system of ideals and social codes governing the behavior of knights and gentle women
Courtly love: being inspired by a woman but the woman always remained pure and out of reach

10. New City Classes Population increase required expansion from castle
New classes formed: lower, middle, and upper
People were free, not tied down by land or chivalry
Affected art and literature

11. The Great Happenings
Crusades ( ): holy wars where Christians fought against Muslims
Thomas Becket (1170): took the pope’s side and four knights of Henry II murdered him in the cathedral—considered a martyr

12. The Great Happenings Continued
Magna Carta (1215): signed to restore democratic tendencies—basis for English Constitutional law
The Hundred Years War ( ): First national war of England on France—Based on weak claims to the throne of France

13. The Great Happenings Continued
The Black Death ( ): bubonic plague—highly contagious spread by fleas of rats; reduced the nation’s population by 1/3