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Medieval literature
England changed completely with the Norman Conquest (it changed the social system and the cultural life radically), and this conquest implied the arrival to England of a Norman/French king. He came to England with its own court: noblemen and noblewomen speaking their own language (French). This new court had their own literary and cultural tastes, which were mostly European preferences, so England was very influenced by French literature.
There was a clear distinction between the world of the upper classes and the sad and adverse circumstances of the lower ones.
England was constantly in war with the outside.
The peasants had to pay with spices.
S.XIV: The peasant’s revolt :
The Peasants' Revolt , also called Wat Tyler's Rebellion or the Great Rising , was a major uprising across large parts of England in 1381. The revolt had various causes, including the socio-economic and political tensions generated by the Black Death in the 1340s, the high taxes resulting from the conflict with France during the Hundred Years' War, and instability within the local leadership of London. The final trigger for the revolt was the intervention of a royal official, John Bampton, in Essexon 30 May
- His attempts to collect unpaid poll taxes in Brentwood ended in a violent confrontation, which rapidly spread across the south-east of the country. A wide spectrum of rural society, including many local artisans and village officials, rose up in protest, burning court records and opening the local gaols. The rebels sought a reduction in taxation, an end to the system of unfree labour known as serfdom and the removal of the King's senior officials and law courts.
Black Death:
The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, resulting in the deaths of an estimated75 to 200 million people and peaking in Europe in the years 1346– 53. The Black Death is thought to have originated in the arid plains of Central Asia, where it then travelled along the Silk Road, reaching the Crimea by 1343. From there, it was most likely carried by Oriental rat fleas living on the black rats that were regular passengers on merchant ships. Spreading throughout the Mediterranean and Europe, the Black Death is estimated to have killed 30–60% of Europe's total population. In
total, the plague reduced the world population from an estimated 450 million down to 350 – 375 million in the 14th century. The aftermath of the plague created a series of religious, social, and economic upheavals, which had profound effects on the course of European history. It took 150 years for Europe's population to recover. The plague recurred occasionally in Europe until the 19th century.
Many authors criticized the sale of hoaxes and absolutions by the church. Here’s a big difference between upper and lower classes.
New social groups began to appear (manufacturers and yeomen). The yeomen owned small portions of land and the manufacturers sold things that they made themselves. At this time, the business of wool became very important. There was a coexistence of an upper class, which enjoyed privileges, with lower classes that suffered. It was at the end of the medieval period when the middle social class began to stabilize.
Cities became more and more important, such as York or Cambridge. More and more population settled there (they became population centres).
As we can see, the social atmosphere is very different from the Anglo-Saxon period.
LINGUISTIC CONTEXT
The arrival of the Norman court implied that French began to be spoken in England by the members of the upper classes but there were also people speaking in Latin (mainly religious authorities and members of religious institutions). Then we have what is called ‘vernacular language’ or Old English.
French + Latin + vernacular
(Old English) OE > ME (Medieval English) (becoming)
The Pope The King (William the Conqueror) Nobles Religious authorities Soldiers Manufacturers and yeomen Peasants
Anonymous Unknown Anglo-Saxon period (we don’t know anything about the author)
Medieval period (we don’t know his or her name, but we can position the author)
Then, names began to appear such as John Gower or Geoffrey Chaucer (the last one is more important).
Another very interesting thing is the system of Patronage : It was organized around this time and it implied that both religious authorities and members of the court would support, help and encourage writers and artists in general. It was not a question of money but rather providing them with a social circle in which their works were supported and enjoyed. The artists in exchange would support the actions of the politicians.
At this time, works were written in manuscripts. These manuscripts were in charge of scribes and it was very expensive and it took the scribes a lot of time to write books by hand. That is why there are no many books of the first medieval period. Besides, there was another problem: most of the books were kept in the libraries of institutions such as monasteries, churches and the first universities (Oxford and Cambridge). In the 16th century, when Henry VIII broke with Rome, the religious institutions were dissolved and in that process, many books were lost.
Early in the medieval period, what we find are simple poems. There are different types of poetry:
Simple poetry compositions : o Popular poems. o Religious poems.
They have in common a simple language and a repetitive structure. These types of poems were mainly composed for the lower classes; for their enjoyment or education. These types of poems encourage the participation of ordinary people (they could also repeat them). The distinction between both of them is not always clear; formally speaking they are very similar.
Didactic poetry : o Debate poems : These are examples of didactic poetry because they have defences of different positions that try to teach the audience different ways of seeing life/attitudes in life.
The best done artistically speaking and the most important and funny was “The Owl and the Nightingale”. In this case, they debate about marriage, religion, music, etc. This type of poems use human beings that represent different visions but in this case they’re animals (personification).
Other ones are “Vices and Virtues” or “Death and Lyffe”.
These debate poems were also addressed to a popular audience.
Courtly love poems/poetry : Formally speaking, it is much more elaborated/complex than simple or didactic poetry. For instance, they count the syllables in the lines, they employ rhymes and rhythm and we can find stanzas such as ballads and roundels. Love is presented and described in a highly rhetoric way. It has influence of French literature. It was addressed to middle and upper classes.
This type of poetry is related with Ovid, Arab poetry, troubadours and religion (sometimes, the woman is compared with the Virgin).
Alliterative poems/revival. Harley is an important manuscript of the medieval period and it is composed by poems in French and in English and it contains most of the poems of the religion. Other examples are “Pear” and “Piers Plowman”. They are written in alliterative verse. Critics say that it was kept because, despite the arrival of the Norman court, they continued with this type of poems or maybe because it was a spontaneous nationalism against the predominance of French literature among the upper classes. These suppositions are not selective^1. Most of the alliterative poems are: o Dream visions , such as “Pear”^2 or “Piers Plowman”^3 o Romances , such as “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”.
The author of “Pear” is the same as of the “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” but we don’t know who he is. He is known as the ‘Gawain poet’.
(^1) Excluyentes. (^2) It tells us the dream of a father that lost his daughter (she died), who appears in his father’s dreams. In the dream, he finds a pearl in a beautiful garden and it transforms into her daughter, who says that he should be calmed because even he can’t understand some things, she’s fine in heaven. The topic is about the possibilities of knowledge. It was said that human beings couldn’t understand everything (it’s this way because of the influence of religion). It talks about the possibilities and limits of knowledge; how far should we know about? (^3) It was written by William Langland. It is an analysis of adverse circumstances of England at this time. It is a very influential poem; it influenced the reaction of the population and the ‘peasants revolt’.
Mummers Plays sometimes could represent battles. They were silent celebrations. According to some critics, they influence the physical aspect, the movements of the first dramatic performance in England. We could say that the origins of theatre in England are the religion and the popular tradition.
People really enjoyed drama so it began to be longer and longer.
Later on, the theatre in villages was represented in guesthouses, inns/taverns, etc. In big cities such as London, they were celebrated in their outskirts.
Therefore, more and more people began to take part in these celebrations; members of the clergy as well as normal people. The plays were performed in wagons or carts that moved through the city. Different plays were organised by communities or groups of people so that, for instance, we find The Company of Merchant Taylors or Guild of Scriveners of the City of York.
There are three types of plays:
Miracle plays : They refer to a type of play in which religious miracles made by Christ or the Saints are performed and also passages of the nativity or the resurrection. Mystery plays/Corpus Christy plays : 14th^ and early 15th. The word mystery comes from ministerium (Latin) and alludes to a type of performances carry out by businessmen and other traders from the city. The title of this plays refer to the jobs of the people who represented them. In these plays, scenes from the Bible are performed. They usually covered from the Genesis to the Final Judgement (all the Biblical Cycle). Some cities in England and some cycles became very famous, such as York, Oxford, London and Chester. They’re longer performances. Many cities and places became famous thanks to them so that nowadays we find how they survived in many texts (York Cycle, Wakefield Cycle, Chester Cycle and Coventry Cycle; the most important are the two last ones). We distinguish some features of these cycles: the York Cycle has religious issues because they were supervised by members of the clergy. The same happens with Chester Cycle. The Coventry Cycle was mainly performed by the members of the clergy and the Wakefield Cycle was less serious, more comic and sometimes even irreverent with religious issues. Morality plays : They are very important and it will influence later in other literary manifestation. The Morality plays became very popular from the 15th till to the 17th^ century. They consist on the dramatisation of a spiritual crisis in the life of a representative or a figure of humanity. This crisis is presented by the means of the fight between good and evil forces that try to conquer the human soul.
A good example of this kind of plays is Everyman. The play is the allegorical accounting of the life of Everyman, who represents all mankind. In the course of the action, Everyman tries to convince other characters to accompany him in the hope of improving his account. All the characters are also allegorical, each personifying an abstract idea such as Fellowship, (material) Goods, and Knowledge. The conflict between good and evil is dramatised by the interactions between characters. Everyman is being singled out because it is difficult for him to find characters to accompany him on his pilgrimage. Everyman eventually realizes through this pilgrimage that he is essentially alone, despite all the personified characters that were supposed necessities and friends to him. Everyman learns that when you are brought to death and placed before God all you are left with is your own good deeds. (Wikipedia)
WOMEN WRITERS
English women:
Mary de France, Lais (collection of short romances). Julian of Norwich (she’s a sort of visionary writer who wrote about many religious topics). Margery Kempe, The Book of Margery Kempe. She’s considered as a sort of proto-feminist. She could not write so she dictated to two men and they wrote it. She wrote about the condition of women at that time: servants to the husbands.
French woman:
Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies. She was a French woman that published in England. She defended that women should be properly educated. She also wrote Moral Proverbs that was traduced and then printed by Caxton (1478); it was the first book printed that was signed by a woman.
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
He was an author in whose work we detect the influence of both Italian and French literature. Also, he worked in the circles of the court but he was a wine trader, what allowed him/ gave him the opportunity to travel a lot. That’s how he was in contact with Italian and French literature. He wrote dream poems and courtly love poems but he is mostly famous (his most famous contribution to the English literature) because of The Canterbury Tales , that were a series of tales told by different protagonists. These protagonists are introduced in a prologue that was included in the book before the tales and are presented together and participating in a pilgrimage to Canterbury; that’s how they met.
