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Historia e cultura dos países de fala
inglesa.
• Unit III. The Middle Ages.
♦ WILLIAM I.
His reign marked the start of feudalism , a system in which the one that owns the land is the one that has the power. This way, he could give lands to those he had promised without giving them enough power to be able to get above himself and try to take the throne. This created several classes:
- Vassals : They provide the King with soldiers. The King gave them land (manors) for their service, and they became barons.
- Barons: They fight for the King, pay homage and promise fealty to him.
- Lords : landowners. They give the villeins (peasants) supplies in exchange for dues/tenths.
- Villeins : the lower stract. They had to work the land and pay rent, and they were always Saxons.
When William I became king of England, there were rebellions , but it was easy to crash them down; in revenge, the North of England was devastated by the King and his army ( The Harrying of the North ).
King William I also brought many changes, like the New Forest Law , that dictated the forests belong to the King, like the rest of the land, and forbid peasants to hunt for food in them. The Normans figured out pretty quickly that knowledge is power, and to ensure that everyone payed taxes, William ordered his men to conduct the first doorstep survey in history. They wrote down exactly who owned what and how much, and the Domesday Book was
created. They also built numerous military strongholds and castles to strengthen the military power.
The Normans were French, so French became the language of those in power. Most of them weren’t interested in learning English, as it was considered a lesser language, spoken only by villeins and servants. This caused French words to become part of this period’s English (loan words). They also imported the Romanesque style from France.
The rebellion.
Bishop Odo Bayeux started the rebellion because Robert wanted to be King of England. It was just an attempt, crushed by William II’s army, but the problems didn’t stop there: William II wasn’t happy with just England, he also wanted to be king of Normandy.
Robert wanted to participate in a crusade, but he needed money, so he mortgaged Normandy to William. The latter had to pay his brother, and to cover the cost he raised the taxes.
William II was latter on killed while hunting by a Frenchman called Walter Tyrrel, and so Henry Beauclerc became the new king of England (Henry I).
Malcom III , who was a great king focused in modernizing his lands, died, so his brother Donald Bane seized power and became the new king. He wanted to go back to the Celtic values, but Malcom’s sons and rightful heirs wanted none of this, and a battle broke out between them and King Donald, with the crown going back and forth between them. In the end, Donald was defeated by William II, king of England, and expelled, so Edgar I became king.
landowners to pay him homage. The Welsh weren’t happy with this, and a new conflict arose, more difficult than the previous one. It ended with Henry II giving up Wales, though he still marched on them many times over the years.
Apart from that, he also had problems with his sons, who lead several rebellions against him, with the support of Eleanor. One of this confrontations ended with Eleanor being imprisoned and Henry, the oldest son and supposed heir, running away and then dying, changing the plans of succession.
The most prominent rebellions, and the last, was Henry versus his son Richard, who had the support of the King of France. Eventually, the settled and decided that Richard would be king of England. Henry died, and a new King was born: Richard I, The Lion King.
♦ RICHARD I.
King Richard was especially interested in crusades, he really liked fighting. He needed money to participate in them, so he sold lots of things and raised taxes, which caused a drop in England’s economy.
It’s important to mention the Crusades against the Jews, more specifically the massacre in York (1190). This was the beginning of the hate to Jew people, a feeling that did nothing but grow through the years.
While he was busy fighting in the crusades (1191-1192), he found out that his brother John was plotting against him back in England, so he decided to go back. He was on his way when he was made a prisoner by the Duke of Austria, for he had managed to gain a lot of enemies during his short reign. England had to pay the ransom, which caused the taxes to rise even more and furtherer damaged the economy.
When he was finally back on England, with the purpose of defeating his brother, he won and outlawed and excommunicated John’s followers, though he eventually forgave his brother.
Richard’s reign didn’t do much to improve the country. He did become a patron of troubadours, and used part of his money to impulse poetry and lyric arts.
He died in France in 1199, while he was fighting Philip Augustus, King of France, who Henry thought was the mind behind his brother’s rebellion. After his death, his brother John became the new king of England.
♦ KING JOHN.
John wasn’t a good King, and he never won the love of his people. He wasn’t even the rightful heir (it was Geoffrey’s son, Arthur of Brittany) but he was just a child, and John had no issue locking him up and then, for extra measure, killing him.
One of John’s biggest mistakes was losing all the French lands, with the exception for Gascony. This happened because he married Isabella of Angoulême , who was going to marry a noble Frenchman. The king of France summoned John after this and, when he didn’t show, he forfeited his territories.
He also had problems with the Pope Innocent III , who wanted Stephen Langton to be the bishop of Canterbury, which John didn’t allow. This resulted in England being put under interdict; the holy sacraments could not be administered. Eventually, John had to admit Langton, and he lost some of his power because of that.
The barons, lords and vassals wanted to rebel against the king, but Stephen Langton proposed a peaceful solution: The Magna Carta.
The Magna Carta was about good lordship. It lays down certain rights that a good lord would recognise, like the right only to be taxed by consent and the right to proper justice.. John agreed to sign it because it was his only choice, but he did not obey it, even got the Pope to declare it null. This resulted in the barons inviting the French to come over and get rid of him, and eventually lead to him dying. His son, Henry, became the new King of England ( Henry III ).
♦ HENRY III.
Like father, like son, he also had problems with his vassals, and was forced to sign The Provisions of Oxford. According to this document, the king had to accept the establishment of The Council of Fifteen. He would be one of the members, but first among equals, meaning he would not have more power than the others. This are the origins of the English Parliament.
When he finally got around to trying to invade it again, it was a total victory for the Scots, and he barely even escaped. Robert the Bruce was king, and Scotland was free. Now they could act like a strong nation, they invaded Ireland, but they were defeated by the Anglo- Normans in 1318. They cut Edward’s head and sent it to Edward II. The new Scottish king, David II, was no fighter. The English were able to conquer Scotland again, and he ended up being captured in France; David made a deal with the English, and promised to hand Scotland over after this death.
Here is where we get a first glimpse of the Stuarts, for while David was in France, one of the Scottish noble families acted as stewards of the kingdom ( stewards > Stewarts > Stuarts ). Sadly, they didn’t have much success in their lives. ♦ EDWARD II.
With his reign came a great development to England. The better climate made economy improve (agriculture). The threat of diseases lowered, so the population increased too and towns became bigger. There were also changed to the feudal system, which started to look more like this:
■ Monarchy ■ Nobility & Aristocracy ■ Landlords ■ Clergy ■ (^) Peasants (60% free, 40% serf/villeins) ■ Traders & artisans. They were grouped in guilds, for that gave them power over those who weren’t. ■ Merchants (in towns)
More classes were being born. For example, knights appeared during the 12th^ century.
In the political front, he didn’t have an easy reign. There was a series of disturbs and revolutions, in part prompter by Edward favouring his alleged lover, Piers Gaveston. The nobles couldn’t stand him, so a struggle for power began.
Edward gathered everyone who was loyal to him and challenged Thomas of Lancaster to a battle at Boroughbridge, and won. The problems didn’t end there, though.
Edward’s queen, Isabella, felt humiliated, and when he sent her to Paris, she took her chance and plotted (and had an affair) with an English noble called Roger Mortimer. They crossed back to England at the head of a French army and got rid of Edward II and replaced him with the young prince, who became Edward III. Since he was just a child, Isabella and her lover yielded the real power.
♦ EDWARD III.
After just a few years in the throne, he took power back from her mother, arresting Isabella and Mortimer. He was hanged and she was forced to retire from politics. Edward III’s real reign had just began.
He had a good claim to the French throne, considering his mother was next in line but couldn’t be the heir, but since the throne had passed to King Philip VI, he tried invading France. What ensued is what’s called the Hundred Years’ War. Even though England had less men, and were fighting in foreign territory, they had an advantage: a weapon, the longbow, that helped them win some battles. Here are some of the most important ones: The war lasted for years, but in the end it didn’t seem to go anywhere, so they signed a peace treaty, which basically said that Edward would give up his claim to the French throne and to Henry II’s old lands of Anjou and Normandy, and in exchange he could keep Calais and a much bigger Aquitaine. ♦ LANCASTER VS YORK: THE WARS OF THE ROSES.
Richard II was the little son of the Black Prince, and he became king when he was just a baby, so his uncle ran the kingdom as his regent. When the uncle (John of Gaunt) went off to Spain, everything started crumbling down.
Richard II was one of the last kings we could consider more French than English, and his nobles weren’t happy with his French ideas, especially his notion that he ought to be able to rule as he liked. Soon there was some serious trouble going on. The nobles forced Richard to execute his chancellor, and he retaliated by arresting and executing the nobles. John of Gaunt came back from Spain and managed to calm things down a bit, but he was a sick man and died soon afterwards. The situation was not looking good.
Richard banished two leading nobles, one of them being Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Lancaster, and confiscated all his estates. Now the nobles were really alarmed. Bolingbroke was the most powerful
Even though he got the throne, he didn’t have the best claim, not by far. That person was Elizabeth of York, Edward IV’s daughter. In theory, this was a good move, because it united the York and the Lancaster family, but it didn’t work as well as expected. The Yorkists weren’t happy.
The next best claim to the throne lay with the Earl of Warwick, the son of Edward IV’s brother George, Duke of Clarence (see Figure 9- to work out who everyone is in this section), and in 1487 the Yorkists crowned him king over in Ireland. Which was odd, because Henry VII said that the Earl of Warwick was in the Tower of London, and he paraded him through the streets of London to prove it.
In fact, the one in Ireland was just a pretender. He was a baker’s son from Oxford, but this didn’t stop the Yorkists putting him at the head of the army and landing in England to claim the throne. They fought, and Henry won.
Even then, he couldn’t relax. In 1491 another pretender claimed that he was the Duke of York, the youngest of the princes in the Tower. This was a serious threat to Henry VII’s reign, but when the pretender, supported by the French, attacked, Henry quickly captured him and executed him after a failed escape.
Henry VII married his children into the leading ruling houses in Europe, and he negotiated good trading agreements with the Netherlands. So there was a lot of money in the treasury that he handed over to his, who in 1509 became the infamous King Henry VIII.
