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Medieval Culture History and Background

Published on Nov 18, 2015

Medieval Culture History and Background

PRESENTATION OUTLINE

Medieval Culture

History and Background

Middle English
....................
-Language of Chaucer
- Began at the same time that medieval culture essentially began in England

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Battle of Hastings in A. D. 1066...

-affected both the English language and English poetry
-Introducing French words and poetic devices

Photo by Jim Linwood

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

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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

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We will survey works from English medieval culture for the next few weeks

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The Battle of Hastings

and its Literary Consequences

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

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Conquered the coastal region of Normandy in France

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Adopted feudal obligations to the king as well as the French language

William conquered England

-brought his knights
-became the feudal overlords of manors

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Norman Conquest
brought the language of the...

-royal court
-law
-polite society
.....................
French

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Middle English

-an amalgam of Anglo-Saxon and Norman French
-began appearing in writing in the 1100s

Grammar simpler than Old English

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Included a larger vocabulary

Consisting of polite terms (mostly French in origin)

Vulgar terms (mostly Anglo-Saxon in origin)

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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

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Introduction of heavily-armed cavalry (mounted knights) in the 8th century contributed to the rise of the feudal system

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Kings granted desmenes (domains, landholdings) to vassals (underling warriors) in return for fealty (a contractual oath of loyalty and help)

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Castles anchored feudal domains

-the only effective attack against a castle until the invention of explosives was a siege

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Political Structure

-blended elements of both Roman and Germanic civilization

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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

Matter for the nobility

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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)

Monasteries and Convents

Great social organization of medieval society

Monastic Movement

Photo by Eilam Gil

-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

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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

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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

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11th-century court of the French province of Aquitaine

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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

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Reinforced by the ascetic elements of Platonic Christianity

The body is evil

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

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Meant to be spiritual

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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

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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