What was Britain like in the Middle ages?

Answer 1

middle English was the common language and the church was central

• Middle English was the common language
• The pope was at least as powerful as the king.
• The church was central to most Britons' lives.

Answer The king hesitated to act against the pope's wishes.

It was considered the duty of good Christians to make pilgrimages to holy sites. Answer

England went through almost 1000 years of change during the Middle Ages. It might be best to divide that time into periods, each with its own characteristics.

The Anglo-Saxon ancestors of the English seem to have begun invading Britain at just about the time the Middle Ages started. They produced a large number of small kingdoms, dominated by a pagan culture. They were exposed to Christianity through interaction with Celtic Christians they conquered, and in some cases married. The relationship between the Celts and Germanic invaders is somewhat obscure, as can be seen from the fact that the first three kings of Anglo-Saxon Wessex, presumably Germanic, all had Brythonic (Early Welsh) names.

In the next stage of development, the kingdoms consolidated, and became Christian, as St. Augustine began his mission in Canterbury in the last years of the 6th century. Rival kingdoms were combined, and reduced in number. Today we speak of the Heptarchy, which were seven kingdoms derived from the many at the beginning. Mercia and Wessex predominated, with Wessex ultimately uniting Anglo-Saxon England. The language of this time was Old English.

Vikings invaded, taking about the northern half of England, creating a nation there known as Danelaw, which was rather successfully opposed by the English under King Alfred the Great. The Vikings were converted to Christianity in time, and set up royal marriage alliances with the Anglo Saxons. England once more became united, first under a Danish royal family, but it reverted to Anglo-Saxons in a short time.

The earliest English literature dates from about this time. King Alfred had the goal of having all English freemen, most of the population, educated in English, and this gave great impetus to the recording of English language literature, such as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and an English translation of The Bible.

There were slaves among the English population of this time, mostly criminals being punished. Serfdom was not as clearly defined as it became later.

The Normans invaded, bringing great changes. The predominant families of nobility all spoke French, and French feudalism was established. Serfs became tied to their land, and were technically not allowed to move away from the manors they lived on. On the other hand, slavery was abolished by William the Conqueror and his son, Henry I.

The ties to the Roman Catholic Church became stronger, and Latin liturgy predominated.

The fact that the English nobility spoke French meant that a huge number of French words came into the English language, but the literature of the time was nearly all in French, as it was the French speaking nobility who patronized the poets, musicians and artists of the day.

After England was conquered and stability was established, the English kings began to increase their presence outside England, making the country a European power. They tried, somewhat unsuccessfully, to achieve complete domination over the Irish and Scots. They achieved dominance over the Welsh. They increased their holdings in France, and established domination over some parts of southern Italy and the Holy Land. Ultimately, this led to conflict with the kings of France, and the Hundred Years' War.

The English peasant freeholders and tenant farmers achieved a level of importance and fame, as they provided the yeomen who won great victories over French knights at such battles as Crecy, Poiters, and Agincourt. During this time, many or most English peasants were serfs, and the predominant style of life was manorial. Nevertheless, towns and cities grew, trade became important, and the middle class developed.

At about the same time, literature in Middle English began to appear, culminating in the poetry of Chaucer.

Also during this time, there were a number of conflicts that arose between the English kings and the popes. Two kings in particular who are remembered for this are Henry II and John. Both kings suffered from damage to their reputations. Henry's mischief resulted in Thomas Becket becoming a saint, and gave the people a very popular pilgrimage to Canterbury. But the deal John struck to put himself back into the good graces of the Church included a direct tax by the Church on English peasants, which created a lot of resentment towards Rome.

The Black Death brought about more changes. The background religious turmoil that had gone on in England rose to greater prominence under John Wycliffe, and economic problems led to the Peasant Revolt of 1381. Serfdom was rather quickly made obsolete. The English began to be less successful in their foreign military activities, as their attention was shifted to the War of the Roses. And the end of the War of the Roses also ended the Middle Ages.

Answer 2

When the Romans withdrew from Britain, they left behind the British, who were ancestors of the Welsh. They continued to have their own governments during the Middle Ages, until they were conquered by the English King Edward I. Their government before that time was done by local war lords, who were occasionally united by princes.

The English came primarily from Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands. They set up a set of kingdoms, the most important of which were seven referred to as the heptarchy. Among these were Wessex, Mercia, and Northumbria. They fought amongst themselves, and were taken over from time to time by Vikings. Eventually Wessex dominated the others, and united the country. Danes took over, and the English reestablished their independence. The government during this period was not really feudal, but simply done by local earls and barons.

Feudalism was established by the Normans, and was firmly in place while the land was in turmoil, but under King Henry II, a stronger central government emerged, and under King John it started to be established as parliamentarian.

Eventually the serfs were freed as the plague made them more valuable and nobles competed to make them better offers than they had on their manors.

By the end of the Middle Ages, the parliamentary system was fairly firmly established, and the people of the nation were pretty much free.

Answer 3

Early Middle Ages (410 to 1066)

About the time of the West Roman Empire, Britain was invaded by Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and other Germanic groups. They pushed the Celtic British to the north and west and set up a number of small kingdoms. They fought the Celts and each other until Wessex united a number of the others in the 9th century. Vikings invaded, and for a while, Britain was divided into Celtic areas of Wales and Scotland, England, and a Viking area, in what is now the North of England, called the Danelaw. England and the Danelaw were united, and control passed from English kings to Danish, and back.

During this time, Britain was often unstable and had many wars. The ordinary people were farmers, and life was not easy for them. They lived in rude cottages with dirt floors and walls that were likely to be woven reeds chinked with mud (wattle and daub) or small stones, chinked with mud. Their roofs were likely to be thatched reeds, and they only had fires, built on the dirt floors in the middle of the room, in winter.

There were great kings, notably King Alfred the Great, who tried to see that all free men get educations and who was a great military leader. But great kings were few and kings were many. The end of the period is more precisely dated in England than elsewhere, and the Norman Invasion changed things entirely.

High Middle Ages (1066 to 1300)

The High Middle Ages saw the destruction of Anglo-Saxon authority at the hands of Normans, who invaded in 1066. Life became much more conventionally feudal than it had been, and the serfs definitely felt that they were under foreign occupation for a while. In England, the nobility spoke French, and everyone else spoke English. Things began to settle down as order was established. The King of England was also a French duke, and a vassal of the king of France for those duchies. England became supremely important in Western Europe for a time, and the chiefs of Ireland, King of Scotland and various counts in Wales swore oaths of allegiance to the King of England, in addition to others as far flung as Sicily and the Holy Land.

The first English Universities opened during this time. Many great cathedrals were built, and even small towns and villages had really beautiful churches built.

For ordinary people, life was not improving much except by way of the development of towns and cities. Peasant cottages continued to be small and rude. They still did not have chimneys, which were invented in the 11th or 12th century and were built for the wealthy.

Late Middle Ages (1300 to 1453)

The English began to regard themselves as a people with a nation of its own, not just a subject race, during this time. The English Language saw one of its greatest authors, Geoffrey Chaucer, writing in a language that combined elements of Old English and French.

The Kings of England developed claims on the throne of France, and attempted to exercise those claims, leading to the Hundred Years War, which lasted for most of this period.

Serfs were being freed, a process that was accelerated with the Black Death, which did not reduce the number of manorial estates much but did reduce the number of people available to work on them. There was a great impetus also to move to the towns and cities.

Chaucer's great book, the Canterbury Tales, dates from this period and portrays pilgrims of the time. They seemed quite a merry lot.

Answer 4

Middle English was the common language,the church was cental

Answer 5

In the Middle Ages, parts of England were ruled by Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, and parts of it were under Danish rule. William of Normandy conquered England in 1066.