PRESENTATION OUTLINE
Middle English
....................
-Language of Chaucer
- Began at the same time that medieval culture essentially began in England
Battle of Hastings in A. D. 1066...
-affected both the English language and English poetry
-Introducing French words and poetic devices
Afterward...
England was ruled by kings whose original domains lay in Normandy, France
-Feudalism and manorialism were introduced into Old English culture
-Norman French and Anglo-Saxon languages were combined
Since rhyme and regular rhythm were introduced to English poetry...
-one could analyze forms of poetry by scanning the rhythm
-describing the rhyme and naming different kinds of structures
Literature written in Middle English began to appear about 1200
-reached its pinnacle in Chaucer, the greatest English literary figure until Shakespeare
We will survey works from English medieval culture for the next few weeks
1066
Army of the Anglo-Saxon king, Harold
-defeated at the Battle of Hastings by the Norman lord, William the Conqueror
Norman (Northman) French had originally come from the same Germanic tribes as the Anglo-Saxons
Conquered the coastal region of Normandy in France
Adopted feudal obligations to the king as well as the French language
William conquered England
-brought his knights
-became the feudal overlords of manors
Norman Conquest
brought the language of the...
-royal court
-law
-polite society
.....................
French
Middle English
-an amalgam of Anglo-Saxon and Norman French
-began appearing in writing in the 1100s
Grammar simpler than Old English
Included a larger vocabulary
Consisting of polite terms (mostly French in origin)
Vulgar terms (mostly Anglo-Saxon in origin)
Effect of the Norman Conquest was to remove English literature from the care of the aristocracy
Polite literature was written in either Norman French or Latin
Nobles shuttled back and forth between their lands in France and England
Several dialects of Middle English flourished from the 1200s on.....
-as a more populist literature began to grow
Feudalism, Manorialism, & Castles
Feudalism
-a societal structure
Developed in continental Europe to meet the need for defense from the barbarian invasions that followed in the wake of the breakup of the Roman Empire
Introduction of heavily-armed cavalry (mounted knights) in the 8th century contributed to the rise of the feudal system
Kings granted desmenes (domains, landholdings) to vassals (underling warriors) in return for fealty (a contractual oath of loyalty and help)
Castles anchored feudal domains
-the only effective attack against a castle until the invention of explosives was a siege
Political Structure
-blended elements of both Roman and Germanic civilization
Roman world came the contract that was part of the oath of fealty
Germanic world came the kingdom as a kinship group whose members inherited property and office through family ties
Commoners (commons) were involved in the system through a related social structure
Manorialism
Commoners
-held small farms surrendered their lands to powerful nobles in return for protection
Serfs
-farmed both their own plots (in commonly held fields, known as "the common"), as well as the overlord's lands (the desmene)
Great social organization of medieval society
-self-governing and self-sufficient communities
Organized by religious orders
Places which common people would gather for a measure of protection
Social organizations sound relatively neatly put together
In reality
both changes to social and political, took place in the years between 1066 and 1485
Violent, and life for all social classes tended to be nasty, brutish, and short
Time of ...
-famine
-plague
-war or other kinds of violence
Although often lawless,
-acted under the cover of royal or noble authority
Even in legal society, might was used to make right.
Even in legal society
.....................
Might was used to make right
Chivalry and Courtly Love
12th and 14th centuries in Europe
Courtly Love
-a code of romantic behavior
-developed from the practices of chivalry
11th-century court of the French province of Aquitaine
Troubadours (traveling court singers)
-composed long narrative poems (verse romances)
For example, the court of King Arthur in England
First literary expression of the courtly love ideal
For example, such writers as...
-Chrétien de Troyes
-Andrieus Capellanus
-Guillaume de Lorris
-used both narrative and allegory to express the ideals of courtly love
Modeled on the feudal vassal/overlord relationship
Knight in love
....................
Lady's became their devoted vassal
Borrowed from Christian religious and ascetic traditions
For example, the veneration of Mary, characteristic of medieval Christianity, conditioned the knight's response to his lady
Reinforced by the ascetic elements of Platonic Christianity
Only the soul and spirit are good
Indicated that courtly love is innocent and pure
Relationships were supposed to occur out of wedlock
Some authorities argued that it is impossible between a husband and a wife
For example, "the love of the Christian worshipper for Mary, mother of Christ, unattainable as the ideal woman"
Reality often fell short of the ideal, even in literature
Courtly love enabled adultery in ordinary life
Most important of the great medieval verse romances chronicle the tensions inherent in a knight's loyalty to a lady. (Schwartz, n.d.)
Next Class
- Chaucer's Background
- Discuss Canterbury Tales
- Discuss answers to the CPA questions you completed for Chaucer
References
Greenblatt, S., (Ed.). (2006). The Norton anthology of English literature: The Middle Ages. (8th ed., Vol. A.). New York, NY: Norton, 2006.
Harmon, W., & Holman, H. (2006). A handbook to literature (10th ed.) Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall.
The Labyrinth: Resources for Medieval Studies. (n.d.). Retrieved August 29, 2011, from http://labyrinth.georgetown.edu/
Shwartz, D. (n.d.). Backgrounds to romance: "Courtly love." Retrieved August 23, 2006, from http://cla.calpoly.edu/~dschwart/engl513/courtly/courtly.htm